Reading & Note-Taking Hints
How to Read a Textbook
Don't read your textbooks slowly and passively.
Do actively and aggressively master your textbooks by using the following steps (SQ3R):
- Survey:
• Survey the whole chapter by reading all the headings and subheadings.
• Rapidly read the first and last paragraphs of the chapter.
• Rapidly skim the first and last sentences of each paragraph. - Question:
• Write down questions that you will expect to find answered upon rereading the whole chapter. - Read:
• Read the chapter to answer the questions you've written and to formulate new ones.
• Underline selectively.
• Write comments to yourself in the margins. - Recite and Write:
• Answer your own questions aloud, then write down your answers on paper. - Review:
• Review the chapter by rereading your own questions, answers, underlinings and marginal notes.
How to Take Lecture Notes
Don't sit passively in class and let lectures flow over you in the hope that some of it will seep in.
Do actively engage yourself in the lecture in order to master it by the following process:
- Preread:
• Read in advance the assignment to be discussed so that you will be familiar with new terminology and concepts when they come up in the lecture. - Question:
• Ask questions during the lecture if you get lost or need something clarified. - Write:
• Write down everything you can.
• As you write, try to organize your notes into what you perceive to be the lecturer's outline. - Reread:
• Within one hour after the lecture, reread your notes and fill in whatever gaps you can. - Transcribe:
• Within twenty-four hours, transcribe your notes into a structured outline.
• Fill in additional gaps and write down questions to ask at the next lecture.
• Use the textbook to clarify terminology or concepts that are not clear. - Review:
• At the end of each week, review your notes and try to answer any questions from the lectures of that week.