Basics of studying - tips and advice

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hello,

I hope you can help me out a little with my dilemma, I missed out on a lot of studying as an adolescent due to missing school through illness, now I really really do have to break down the barrier but I actually just do not know how to study well.

I’m not sure how long I should study in a day, how many days to study, how to effectively take in information and memorise it. If anyone could give their tips and advice about this, that would be brilliant, I would really appreciate it! I did attempt a degree a few years ago but had to stop halfway through, I felt the whole process incredible difficult, not the work mind you just how to be capable student dealing with an incredibly foggy brain and a racing mind.

2

Whenever you read something – take notes. And take good, helpful notes. If you want to color-code (I went through a brief period of that), then do that.

At minimum, you’re creating an expanded index for yourself – how you choose to cross-reference or create indices, that’s up to you.

My mother was about my age when she went in to finish her BA – she recorded notes on a micro-cassette and listened to them. Not for me, but it’s an option.

I’ve spent my whole life +18 in school or almost-in-school, and notes are the only constant I can give you as advice.

If it’s note-taking at a lecture – try using an outline format. Some smart people I know never learned how to take notes during a lecture, but practice makes perfect. Imagine a little diagram in your head of what’s important, less important, and so forth, and order accordingly.

3

Well maybe studying is not the thing for you. Sometimes people are better at learning through doing, or need more time to absord material than is provided in school format.

But for actual studying, I saw in myself and my kids that using multiple means helped. I would read, then read again to take notes, try to find a lecture or live presentation of information, use the knowledge gained in a material manner, or just do thought experiments with it. But reinforcement through other means was more effective than simply reading. And I can’t take notes as I read something the first time, that just makes the process too disjointed and I don’t retain what I read.

I also find it’s easier to learn something if I start with some simple background, and then try to figure out what it is I need to learn. Then I have some specific things to try and pick up as I read and experiment.

Everybody is going to be different, you need to try things until you find what works.

4

Enseigner, c’est apprendre deux fois! I got that from the above post, and it’s good. If you imagine yourself explaining (or actually explaining) a concept to someone, you learn it once, and learn it twice when you teach it. IMHO most study groups don’t work that equanimously, but it could be a good forum.

Or go all Herzog and write imaginary letters to yourself about various topics. I went through a dark month when I couldn’t really explain Russell’s Paradox, until I imagined myself explaining it to people and then trying it out on old people whose brains were all smooth instead of wrinkly with lots of folds like smart youngsters (or old strippers, but for the brain, wrinkles are good, no?)!

5

That doesn’t sound right! Studying is something everyone can do, and there are techniques. Think of studying as a recipe for getting what you want. I put yeast in before salt is mixed in with the flour, but either way is fine. Lots of ways.

One more piece of advice before I stop hijacking the thread completely – WRITE everything down. Muscular memory, it burns into your brain, in a good way. And think of explaining the concepts to some idiot on the street.

6

Repetition is one key word to remember. Repeat that right now.
Don’t let the complexity or amount of pages deter you. Start by going through quickly and catching main ideas. Then proceed on a more detailed level. Some like to take summary notes. Others like to mark up the book and make notes in it. That worked best for me and I did not care about the resale value of the text because it worked. My uncle used to read a book from the back end. His theory was that teachers will ask questions from the back and most people will be too bored to study it. I think this was mythical. Study. Take breaks. Come back. The memory process will take care of it.

PS. Don’t even think of using a bluetooth headset and an accomplice outside the test room.

7

Since you’re looking for tips and advice, I’ll move this to the tips and advice forum, IMHO.

twickster, MPSIMS moderator

8

Depends on what you are studying.

Try notes in this format, and do it in Word:

I.
->A.
-> -> i.

etc.

Then it’s searchable for papers and essay qs! If you’re in a lecture and can bring a laptop, do it. If not, write it down. To the right is where you can draw pictures or whatever if needed. This worked with my history and polisci courses in college. I had a brain injury and struggled with retaining info while reading for a few years. It was how I got through college and my professors loved my notes. (Also, if you remember specifics what a professor says on a topic [not just the book] chances are, that’s what he/she will like to see on an exam. ;))

I also recommend the testing theory…multiple choice reviews if they’re available.

There are different ways to study and certain areas require different kind of notes. More info?

9

Outlining the textbook helped me tremendously.

Read the chapter. Pick out the main ideas. Then the elements for each idea. The process of typing up the ideas & outlining really helped me absorb the information.

The key is learning to pull out only the main ideas and concepts. You’re summarizing & organizing the information.

After the teacher’s lecture. Compare your notes with your chapter outline. What new topics did the teacher introduce? What was skipped in Lecture? Teachers usually don’t test on material they skip over.

10

Ok, what I’m saying is that the traditional means of study, reading and taking notes, isn’t effective for everybody. I offered some alternative means, and mentioned that trying everything is the way to find what works.

11

I’m on board! Dig how I mentioned my mother recorded herself on a microcassette – worked for her, would not work for me (too lazy, maybe). I wasn’t trying to give you a hard time – as I mentioned, you had good ideas IMO and IMExperience.

ETA the outlining idea I mentioned has been brought up a few times – that seems to indicate it might be effective for some. IME good professors will, in lecture, create outlines on a whiteboard and the idea is to help the students create their own notes. Barring that help, you need to roll your own outlines. “Aw, c’mon boy, caint you do it wif one hand!” It’s not easy, and it takes practice, but it will get easier.

12

Thank you very much for replies and this piece of advice stood out for me

I’m studying music theory with the help of a tutor, it’s just me reading a music theory guide then answering the questions in the text book it’s parterned with, I want to sing operatically and I need to get a good grounding in theory to help with that. Learning music theory is a lot like learning a foreign language, for some reason I’m finding it difficult, maybe it’s because I’m not going to classes every day but have a lesson once a week, go through things with my tutor then work through the book myself.

The advice from my teacher has just been “read and reread” but am finding that a little vague. Think I need more of a definitive framework.

13

That one I know from since I was 10 years old, learning counterpoint. There is NO learning music theory without learning to write it out. And there is NO learning anything in music without both playing it AND writing it AND reading it.

I know some might disagree, but that’s the only way I ever heard of to learn theory. Write, Read, Play, Hear. All Four. Again, and again, and eksetera. And in your offtime, find examples of the cadences you’ve learned, or whatever you’re learning – hell, take apart a 4-part Cantata by Bach just for fun.

IME most musicians think of this as fun, even though the homework is a drag – find something you can use on your offtime and have fun with it – you could just transpose something, or invert two lines, or make a new thing out of an old thing.

14

Thank you Jaledin, I suppose I have been looking at this as another textbook to work through even though doing this means the world to me and it’s my “last” chance to really go for it.

When you say “write it out” I’m a bit confused, I have a guide book with all the information written in (obviously) but I don’t which parts to take notes of, I just think “oh well it’s in the book I don’t need to write it out” but then again writing it out helps memorise it? I’m unsure.

Anyway, I will talk this through with my tutor, hope she’s not disappointed in me for being so dense with it. Don’t know why it’s hard, maybe it’s not and I’m just afraid of screwing up.

15

It will help. As I mentioned, use as many different senses and means as possible to go over the material. Read it, write it, say it out loud, listen to others saying it, do it if possible. You are increasing the complexity of the way the information is held in your brain by making more connections to it in different ways.

16

Oh, music? I found that theory is easiest to learn if I find a song I already know to apply it to. I came up with this idea because my teacher would use songs to teach intervals, so I just used it for everything else too.

Of course, it helps that I play piano. Do you play any instruments besides voice? The latter isn’t as helpful because you don’t necessarily know what note you’re singing. But all other traditional instruments seem to help.

Also, does your tutor use a piano? My teacher did. Seeing and hearing the things he was talking about helped a lot.

17

The key to learning is to recognize that it takes time, and no magic method will fix that.

The point of writing it out is to force you to put it in your own words. Often times we feel like we understand something, it seems to make sense when it’s right in front of us, but when we go to explain that knowledge or to apply it we discover we don’t really get it. You can only put something in your own words if you really get it.

Different disciplines really need different techniques. When I took really hard history classes in college, I would outline the chapters–often from several books, some assigned, some supplemental–outline the lectures, and then reread both of them until I could unify them into one super-outline. By the time I wrote the super-outline down, I didn’t just know the facts, I saw how it all connected together because outlining demands that. I rarely looked at the super-outline after: it was the process, not the product, that mattered.

But as a teacher, I find that technique really doesn’t apply to either of the courses I teach, AP Economics or AP English Language (which is a writing class).

For both of these classes, you have to be able to do things. For writing, it’s a matter of writing, re-reading your own writing critically (this is the hardest, and most important, step) discussing what you wrote with a professional (that’s me), and then re-writing. You don’t have to go through that whole process with everything, but the more you do it the better off you are.

In Economics, you have to be able to apply knowledge. It’s all about reading the chapters and working the example problems (not just reading where the chapter works them out) and then working all the problems at the end, then checking your answers and staying with it until you’ve figured out why you were wrong when you were wrong. Outlining econ would be a waste of time: you need to spend all the time on practice problems and, again, figuring out why you were wrong. I suspect music theory is more like this, but I don’t really know.

For rote memorization (of which there is some even in higher-level stuff), nothing beats flashcards. Make up a big stack and go through them, making a “Know” pile, a “don’t know” pile. Go through the “don’t know pile” and repeat process until they are all in the know pile. Repeat with the whole “know” pile as many times as it takes to get to where you can go through the whole thing without missing one.

18

When you mentioned “racing brain” you reminded me of myself - I read so fast sometimes things didn’t really sink in - writing out the concepts I needed to learn helped slow me down enough to actually learn what I was reading. If you type fast, typing won’t work - you have to physically slow down the rate to make your brain slow down.

19

Are you working through Walter Piston? (Just curious–good book BTW for basics).

What I mean by write it out is grab for a few bucks a spiral-bound staff paper, and if you don’t know keyboard skills yet, grab something cheap at a garage sale or Radio Shack and see how it all fits together.

Then, when you’re hip, start grabbing some Bach sheet music at the library and seeing how it fits or doesn’t fit.

Not very eloquent, but that’s the way I tend to steer my own students (at music – who are also old and dumb :)) JK in case you didn’t get that I was joking!. (I’m 35 BTW, most of my students are between 20-40 yo).

20

I missed the edit window, but think of music learning, especially theory, as a “lab.” You get to try things out, see how and maybe why things work – you don’t need to write everything out, but you do need to get your hands (ears?) dirty and see/hear what’s going on.