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Reading and information digestion [Study help]
bubblegumnex
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Well kids college is back in full swing! ( ya!) However, since starting again, I've noticed I have a hard time learning from text books.
I read them, but I don't readthem; no information is really absorbed, except for maybe a few key things and the odd sentence. Plus I often space out while reading. Listening to music helps a little bit, but I find that it more often than not drowns out most of the information. I have no idea how to get a handle on this, so I turn to you guys. Thanks.
I read them, but I don't readthem; no information is really absorbed, except for maybe a few key things and the odd sentence. Plus I often space out while reading. Listening to music helps a little bit, but I find that it more often than not drowns out most of the information. I have no idea how to get a handle on this, so I turn to you guys. Thanks.
bubblegumnex on
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What helped me was to take a pen and paper and force myself to sum up the page in my own words. Actually having to physically write out the information helped me to remember.
Similarly I found reading out loud or writing down questions as I read the page and then having to answer them with the book closed also helped. The key thing is to engage more than one of your senses.
<@zerzhul> you win at twdt
That said, if you want to actually digest information, the best method I've ever come across is to work backwards. Yeah, backwards.
Flip to the end of the reading and pull the conclusion out of the last few paragraphs. This is your header on the note sheet. Now flip back to the beginning, and, with the conclusion in mind, follow the argument to completion by diagramming the various points as they unravel throughout the text.
Fairly simple, yes, but utterly effective.
It also very much depends on the subject you're studying. The above method works golden for social sciences/lit study, but I doubt that it would work as well for any sort of hard science.
If I have to read a textbook, the first thing I do i split it up into its chapters. Then I blaze through it once, with no real intent on keeping anything in mind from it. Breaking the ice, as it were. Just sort sort of seeing how its laid out, how the writer speaks, what kind of language is in use, etc. If there's keypoint questions at the end, I look at them and see how many I know just from knowing stuff.
If I know most of them already, I reread to familiarize myself with the new information, and stop after every paragraph or so to tie into my existing knowledge. Do I get what buddy is trying to say? Could I explain it to somebody else? If not, what's holding up that process? Unfamiliar terms? Shady analogies? Not enough meat in the pile of filler? Address these issues one by one.
If it looks like a fucking foreign language, I read a few more chapters. Not really to get a grip on meaning, but just to encounter words and phrases that appear most often. Usually things mentioned once or twice reference themselves later on, and it helps fill in the picture. Then I go back to the first chapter and reread it again, with Google and Wiki on hand to help look up meanings and references. Not as authoritative resources you understand, but simply to help gain the gist of what I'm reading in the text. Hyperlinks are fucking awesome to quickly build a foundation of understanding so that the language of what you are reading makes sense.
When I feel I've got a good grasp on the language and inside references, I read the chapter again, this time it should go a lot smoother and easier, and I should have a firm grasp on everything thats being said, and know enough to understand the explainations being given for the things I don't really understand. If at any point I hit a word I dont get (usually because its being used in a new and unique way) I look it up again on the web in context (white papers, those little bullshit .edu essays) so I do get it. Then I continue on reading.
If theres keypoint questions, I see if I can answer them easily, like if a peer asked me them and really wanted an answer. If there's no keypoint questions, I simply write down the point of each section on notepad or whatever. A sentance or two max. If I don't write it down, I won't remember it, because new unused info fades within minutes. Writing it down linvokes the long-term memory process- otherwise its just short term and it will fly, fly away.
When I'm satisfied I can read the whole chapter without a single WTF moment, I head on to the next one, and repeat the process. Again, keeping a light reading a few chapters ahead (good textbooks lead and build from one chapter to the next so it good to know whats coming) and focusing on sorting out unfamiliar context and terms.
When I reach the end of the textbook, I re-read the entire thing one more time, kind of like a scrapbook- slowly flipping pages and remembering what I learned and what I looked up, and how the whole thing fits together for the subject I'm learning about. I look at how they laid it out, and think about why they did it in that way. By now I know the whole thing cold- its not a book so much as an extension of my vocabulary and understanding, I can talk easily about any of its subjects, and have more to say than just whats on the page.
By using other references to supplement, the text within now only represents about 80% of my knowledge of the subject, which means I can easily recall 100% of the subject matter contained only within the text. By overshooting in this way, I guarentee I can answer any question poised to me about the textbook itself, which in school grants good marks and in business puts you in the expert ranking for that specific set of material.