Active Reading Techniques

have you ever had that draughting feeling? You look at your textbook and it says read this chapter or article and make notes on it.So you read it again and again but it still makes very little sense as by the time you've got to the end you've forgotten what was written at the start.

Well as I student Ive stumbled upon this very feeling many times but i learned a few techniques to help me remember the important parts of the text.

Read in small chunks...then STOP!

Even if you eventually have to read an entire section of text, choose a manageable amount text to digest, for me this is 2 to 3 pages. Skim through the text first to get an idea of what its about and to give you some motivation to read on..Then read through the pages you've choose straight through to the end.

This will allow you to get a gist of all the different view points and aspects of the article and give you some ideas (hopefully) for writing notes.

Go back and read it again!

This is very important as the next time you read it, you may come across something you missed the first time. This time however, read a chapter or two at a time and make note on the side of the page as you come across anything that catches your interest. Write these notes carefully and simply so you can pick them up later.It may be a good idea to use only a word or two or at most a sentance.

e.g Evolution is a very slow process. -note on page Evolution =takes a long time.

Once you've made small notes the whole section, copy these notes onto a separate sheet of paper with a short bullet type explanation for each.

eg.

•  My understanding of evolution is...

Take a break

When you start to feel your loosing interest, take a break or go and read something else that may be of more interest, then go back to the section you were reading. This is also a good idea if you stumble on something you don't understand! It may not be possible to take a break but is usually possible to find other things to do.

Don't skip it look it up!

If you genuinely don't understand something, if possible look it up or ask someone else to explain it to you. Another person may be able to interpret it better and help with your understanding, which may prove useful later on.

Highlighters or scribble pens

This is for me has proved invaluable. If whiles read you find something that strikes you as important put a circle around it or a scribble but use a light colour so that you can still read the text.

You may also want to star or number the notes so you can jot notes on another piece of paper.

Section Titles

When you start writing notes for a new section, jot down the book name or author and the section title. You may think later you'll remember where it came from but with a large book to read and lots of piles of scrambled notes this can prove to be a god sent.

Make notes in your own words

There are two reasons for this. One is to avoid plagiarism(copying large amounts of other peoples work)and to make sure you can understand what has been said both when your writing notes and for future reference.

Spiders and silly pictures

Experiment with different ways of organising your thoughts until you find one that suits you. I often you spider charts for grouping information, particularly if it needs to be organised into a report but there are many other ways to remember things.

You could plant a picture in your mind of how something appears to relate to something more familiar. I remember when studying psychology I found it helpful to imagination that neurons sending messages was like sending text messages on a mobile phone network as messages are sent and received in a similar way.

You could also draw pictures and diagrams no matter how silly they seem at the time, anything that helps you remember is good.

One final thing...Never ever ask someone else how they are doing..

This can cause you to rush through important sections and miss things in order to catchup with others. Although a person may be telling the truth (though they may also not be). They may not have picked up some of the things you would have by studying the text properly.

Good luck ...Happy Active Reading.