"How To Study" by Ron Fry

• Speed, comprehension, and recall are the three important components of reading.
• Take brief, concise notes in a separate notebook as you read.
• Class preparation is the key to class participation.
• The key to proper test preparation is knowing what material will be covered and what form the test will take.
• If you’re currently doing little or nothing in the way of schoolwork, then you are going to have to put in more time and effort.
• It is much easier to replace a habit than to break it entirely.
• The more you do something, the more ingrained it becomes.
• Your teacher’s emphasis will change the way you study.
• Figure out what works for you and keep doing it.
• Motivators are either intrinsic or extrinsic.
• A simple, tiny change in your behavior may have virtually negligible results, but make hundreds of small changes, and the effects can be earth-shattering.
• Remind yourself that 20 percent of the activities on your list are going to produce 80 percent of the results and payoff.
• You can be even more productive by identifying the little windows of opportunity that open every day.
• Recognize it as soon as it occurs and utilize it immediately by taking premeditated action. If you don’t have a plan, you will waste this time.
• Your initial effort yields the biggest results, with each succeeding effort yielding proportionally less.
• Remember that this is the place (home) where distractions are most likely to occur.
• While home is usually the most convenient place to make your study headquarters, it may not be the most effective.
• Whatever place you choose for your study area, make it somewhere that is only for study.
• Create a routine time of day for your studying.
• Focus = efficiency
• Study whenever circumstances allow.
• Schedule study time immediately after class or, if that’s not possible, immediately before.
• When you’re too tired to study, take a short nap to revive yourself.
• Organize your own schedule to take advantage of your natural talents and give added time to the subject areas that need the most work.
• Unless you identify some purpose for reading, you will find yourself flipping the pages of your textbooks while retaining little more than the chapter titles.
• There are six fundamental purposes for reading:
• To grasp a certain message
• To find important details
• To answer a specific question
• To evaluate what you are reading
• To apply what you are reading
• To be entertained
• If you find a particular chapter, section, or entire textbook as tough to read as getting your baby brother to do you a favor, get to the library or bookstore and find another book covering the same subject area that you can understand.
• Start each reading assignment by going through the chapter, beginning to end, reading only the bold-faced heads and subheads. Look for end-of-chapter summaries.
• Always preread every assignment.
• The best way to begin any reading assignment is to skim the pages to get an overall view of what information is included. Then read the text more carefully and highlight it and/or take notes in your notebook.
• When skimming for a general overview, there’s a very simple procedure to follow:
• If there’s a title or heading, rephrase it as a question. This will be your purpose for reading.
• Examine all the subheadings, illustrations, and graphics, as these will help you identify the significant matter within the text.
• Read thoroughly the introductory paragraphs, the summary, and any questions at the chapters end.
• Read the first sentence of every paragraph, which generally contains the main point of the paragraph.
• Evaluate what you have gained from this process: Can you answer the questions at the end of the chapter? Could you intelligently participate in a class discussion of the material?
• Write a brief summary that encapsulates what you have learned from your skimming.
• Based on this evaluation, decide whether a more thorough reading is required.
• As a general rule, if you are reading textbook material word for word, you probably are wasting quite a bit of your study time.
• In most technical writing, each concept is like a building block of understanding - if you don’t understand a particular section or concept, you won’t be able to understand the next section either.
• Examples are essential to your ability to comprehend intricate and complicated theories.
• Highly specialized technical writing must be read with a plan. You can’t approach your reading assignment merely with the goal of completing it. Such mindless reading will leave you confused and frustrated, drowning in an ocean of theories, concepts, terms, and examples.
• Your plan should incorporate the following guidelines:
• Learn the terms that are essential to understanding the concepts presented.
• Determine the structure or organization of the text.
• Skim the chapter to get a sense of the author’s viewpoint.
• Do a thorough analytical reading of the text. Do not proceed from one section to the next until you have a clear understanding of the section you are reading -- the concepts generally build upon each other.
• Immediately upon concluding your thorough reading, review!
• When you are checking your calculations, try working backwards.
• Trying to explain mathematical concepts to someone else will quickly pinpoint what you really know or don’t know.
• Developing your memory is probably the most effective way to increase your efficiency, in reading and virtually everything else.
• You will remember only what you understand.
• You remember what you choose to remember. To remember material, you must want to remember it and be convinced that you will remember it.
• To insure that you retain material, you need to go beyond simply doing the assignment.
• It’s helpful to attach or associate what you are trying to recall to something you already have in your memory.
• Broad concepts can be retained more easily than details. Master the generalities, and the details will fall into place.
• Convincing yourself that what you are studying is something you must retain (and recall) increases your ability to add it to your long-term memory bank.
• Reading a text, grasping the message, and remembering it are the fundamentals that make for high-level retention.
• Spending the time you need to actually understand what you are reading will pay huge dividends.
• Recall is least effective immediately after a first reading, which is why periodic review is so important.
• Approach any text with the intent of understanding it rather than memorizing it.
• In order to retain most information, we have to make a concerted effort to do so.
• Use this six-step process to ensure you’ll remember:
• Evaluate the material and define your purpose.
• Choose appropriate reading techniques.
• Identify the important facts.
• Take notes.
• Review.
• Implement.
• Time management is like a fire-prevention approach rather than a fire-fighting one: It allows you to go about your work systematically instead of moving from crisis to crisis or whim to whim.
• Most students study best in blocks of 30-45 minutes, depending on the subject.
• Don’t overdo it. Plan your study time in blocks, breaking up work time with short leisure activities.
• Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
• Get into the habit of getting ready for the next day before you go to bed the night before.
• Whenever possible, schedule pleasurable activities after study time, not before.
• Do your least favorite chores first -- you’ll feel better having gotten them out of the way.
• If you find yourself doing anything but your work, either take a break then and there, or pull yourself together and get down to work.
• Your text is still the basis of the course and a key ingredient in your studying. You must read it, plus any other assigned books, before you get to class.
• Needless to say, while doing your homework is important, turning it in is an essential second step.
• Learning requires your active participation every step of the way.
• You’ll need to concentrate most on those courses in which you do poorly.
• Minimize distractions by sitting as close to the instructor as you can.
• Taking concise, clear notes is first and foremost the practice of discrimination -- developing your ability to separate the essential from the superfluous, to identify and retain key concepts, key facts, and key ideas, and ignore the rest.
• Taking effective notes requires five separate actions on your part:
• Listening actively
• Selecting pertinent information
• Condensing it
• Sorting/organizing it
• Interpreting it (later)
• As soon as possible after your class, review your notes, fill in the “blanks,” mark down questions you need to research in your text or ask during the next class, and remember to mark any new assignments on your weekly calendar.
• There are two types of resources: primary and secondary. Primary resources are those written by people who actually witnessed or participated in an event. Secondary resources are those written by people who were not actually present at an event, but have studied the subject.
• Primary resources are likely to be more reliable sources of information.
• 90 percent of preparing a paper has nothing to do with writing...or even being able to write.
• There is certainly no reason, short of catastrophic illness or life-threatening emergency, for you to ever be late with an assignment.
• The more complex a task or the longer you need to complete it, the more important organization becomes.
• Here are the steps that, are common to virtually any written report or paper:
• Research potential topics
• Finalize topic
• Carry out initial research
• Prepare general outline
• Do detailed research
• Prepare detailed outline
• Write first draft
• Do additional research
• Write second draft
• Prepare final bibliography
• Spell-check and proofread entire paper
• Have someone else proofread
• Produce final draft
• Proofread one last time
• Turn it in
• Before you can decide how to study for a particular test, it’s imperative that you know exactly what you’re being tested on.
• The simplest relaxation technique is deep breathing.
• The more often you review, the less often you will have to pull all-nighters the week of the test.
• You absolutely cannot master an entire semester’s worth of work in a single night, especially if your class attendance has been sporadic (or nonexistent) and you’ve skimmed two books out of a syllabus of two dozen. The more information you try to cram in, the less effective you will be.
• Taking practice tests is a highly effective way to study and remember the material.
• If there’s no penalty for wrong answers, you should never leave an answer blank. Leave time at the end (of a test) to recheck your answers, and don’t make a habit of leaving tests early. There is little to be gained from supposedly impressing the teacher and other students with how smart you (think you) are by being first to finish.