Table of contents
We spend the first 20 odd years of our lives mucking around trying to cram stuff in our brains. Imagine how much more we can learn if we are efficient in our studies. I'll be sharing with you some evidence-based revision tips for you to get the maximum results in the least amount of time.
😵💫 Study Techniques to Avoid
First, let's talk about our existing bad study habits. Research suggests that the study techniques that are most intuitive to students are often the least effective. If you find yourself re-reading text, highlighting notes, or summarizing, it may be time to find more efficient ways to study. Many students are using these 3 techniques because they are the easiest to use, and it is precisely because it is too easy and passive, stuff doesn't enter into our heads.
📖 Re-reading
This is a no-brainer. All of us have to read something in order to learn, so it makes sense to us that re-reading it over and over is "learning". We like re-reading stuff because it gives us the illusion that we're being productive without really putting in the effort.
The problem I always face is that after I've read a passage, I look up away from my textbook and immediately forgot what I've just read. I've gone around asking my friends about this phenomena and it seems like almost everyone suffers from What Did I Just Read syndrome.
The issue here is that re-reading is a passive activity. Our brains recognise the words but we don't wrestle and fight with the idea.
We always think studying is just uploading stuff into our brains. But the most absolutely mind-blowing thing that I've learned throughout my career as a student is that in order to learn something, we have to take stuff out from our minds (not put stuff into our brains). But more on that in another article (Principles of Learning).
✍ Highlighting
We all know the obvious problem with highlighting text: It is so easy to just highlight everything, we might as well dip the textbook in yellow ink.
That's not the only problem. When we review our highlights again, it's easy to fall into the trap of falsely thinking we know something just because we recognize it. There's a fundamental difference between recognising and recalling.
I've fallen into this trap too many times. In my exams, I would smack my head in frustration because I know I've highlighted it in blue at the bottom left corner of that page with the picture of the teeth but I just can't remember what it is.
I recognised the fact when I went through my notes, but I failed to recall that fact from memory.
📝 Summarising
Summarizing can be effective, but not in the way most of us are doing it.
Typical summaries involve opening a textbook, writing a main topic, then writing points underneath. This effectively turns the summary into another textbook, while nothing actually enters into our brains.
Information gets transferred from the textbook to the notebook, but not from the notebook to the brain. The proper way to take summaries is to create one from scratch, direct from brain to paper, not from paper to paper.
I recommend using the Cornell notes system to take effective notes, which involves creating questions, then writing notes answering those questions.
Conclusion
This is part one of a 2-part series on studying effectively. Check out the most useful study techniques that I use daily.
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