good students do write in textbooks three reasons you should mark, highlight & write in your...
TRANSCRIPT
Good students DO write in textbooks
Three reasons you should mark, highlight & write in your textbooks
1. To find and select the author’s key ideas and support for those ideas
– You are forced to think about the text & follow the author’s organization, discussion or argument.
– You keep alert & actively engaged, improving your learning
2. To make studying more efficient– You can quickly find key ideas for
• class discussion• Review• Test preparation• Writing papers
3. To record your reactions to the reading
Organizing & Synthesizing Course Content
Tools for Managing Learning you already know:
• SQ4R – record step• Concept/Category
Cards (course mat.)• 4 x 6 note card• Study sheets (ch.18)
New tools in Ch. 16• Textbook Highlighting• Marginal Annotation
– Summary Notes– Recall Clues
• Outline Notes• Mapping (aka visual
note taking)
Four Benefits of Highlighting
1. Forces you to decide what’s important– Active reading process– Weigh and evaluate what you read
2. Focus your attention and concentrate
3. Helps you understand underlying pattern of organization, connections
4. Helps you know if you understood what you read
Textbook Highlighting
• Analyze your reading task
• Assess how much you know about the topic already
• Use a consistent system (colors, pencils)
• Determine what’s important w/textbook headings
• Read, THEN highlight up to 25% per page
Marginal Annotation
• Allows you to identify what to learn– Ex. New terminology, key concepts
• Records your reactions & comments
• Variation 1:– Summary Notes = phrases in the margins
• Forces you to pull together ideas• Makes remembering easier• Good for long, complex passages
Summary Notes (cont.)
• Variation 2:– Recall Clues = words and phrases that briefly
summarize the notes• “memory tags” that trigger your recall of info you’ve
read.– Words,– Phrases– Questions
• Process: Cover up the text, read the clue and test your recall
Variation 3:Text marking (Optional)
• Put a double or wavy line under main ideas
• Use a single or straight line under supporting details
• Circle vocabulary that you need to study and underline the meaning
Marginal Annotations
• You need to know the various types shown in McWhorter, p.330 Table 16.1
• Avoid Pitfalls & Timewasters– overly complex systems (lots of different colored
highlighters = take too long– Medieval monk = too much--- copying, not enough
synthesizing!– Nothin’ Here = too little—check: do I understand this
material?– Rest of the story = have to reread text again to know
what’s going on
Outline Notes- How they Help
• You organize information & pull together related ideas
• You discover “the bones” of the text
• You must recognize what’s important and express it in words
• You are forced to be selective
• You start retaining what you learn = notes are a form of elaborative rehearsal
How to Outline
1. Determine how much info you need to include
2. Identify how ideas relate
3. Group ideas according to their connections
1. Uses listing order & system of indentation
2. Write main ideas (MIs) close to margin1. Indent information that support/explains MIs
Outlines – Styles and Goal
• Can be formal: Roman numerals, Capital letters
• Can be informal=Figure 16.5 p. 335
• Can be highly detailed or a brief list
Ultimate Goal: Be able to show relative importance of ideas and how they relate to each other
Cornell Note Taking System
Developed by Walter Pauk, at Cornell University
Useful for notes from textbook or lectures
You’ve been practicing in CG 111 already
Date
TopicRecall
Clues
2 ½”
6”
Notes
2” Summary
Cornell Note Taking System
Step 1:Set up your paperLabel your pages For text notes
Course nameChapter & TitlePage numbers from book
--------------------For lecture notes
Date Course Topic/Lecture Title
Date
TopicRecall
Clues
2 ½”
6”
Notes
2” Summary
Date
Topic
Reduce
Recall
Clues
2 ½”
Record Notes Any formatPrint, drawSkip lines between ideasWrite on one side only
2” Summary
5 R’s of Cornell
Record
Reduce
----------------
Recite
Reflect
Review
(see handout)
Date
TopicReduce Recall
Clues
2 ½”
Lots of notes that you’ve taken here
2” Summary
Reduce:
Write
•recall clues
• SQ4R questions
•key phrases that summarize your notes on the right
•Exam questions you predict
Date
Topic
Notes
2” Summary
Summary area
6 – 8 lines at bottom of page
Summarize your page of notes
Good practice for essay exams
http://www.muskingum.edu/~cal/database/content/history1.html
Sample Cornell Notes
You can “stack” your Cornell notes for review & self-testing.
Visual Mapping
Benefits:
• consolidate information visually
• Emphasizes particular thought pattern:
• effective for visual and spatial learners
• Fun form of elaborative rehearsal
Visual Mapping (aka Visual Note Taking)
General: concept maps
Specialized:
time lines –
process diagrams
part and function diagrams
organizational charts
comparison and contrast charts
General: concept maps
• Concept maps are outlines that show ideas spatially
Compare/contrast
Org.charts
Part &
function
timelines
Process diagram
Conceptmaps
A concept map of the five specialized types of concept maps
Comparison Contrast ChartTechnique Highlighting Annotation Note taking
Use Textbook Review
Avoid re-reading 80% of text
comments,
reaction to text
Organizing
Difficult text
Helps
You
Concentrate,
Be phys. active,
Evaluate while reading
ID New terms
Comment, summarize
important ideas in own words
Pros •Fast, efficient
•ID patterns of org
Summarize long passages
Test prep: Organize information
Rehearsal – Learning
Easy to carry around
Cons Doesn’t sep. MI from examples
Not good for anthologies, tech
Difficult texts
Time consuming