In a constant data flow, it is essential to process the information effectively: to put accents correctly and avoid losing knowledge you have just gained. In order not to waste your time in vain during studies, make sure you do not make one of these four widespread mistakes, mentioned by myessay.us writers in the text below.
Mistake One. Underlining Too Much
Do you remember how teachers didn’t allow you to write on textbook’s pages? Actually, notes and theses distinguishing in texts are very useful for learning. Later, by having a glimpse on those “spoiled” pages you can remind yourself even a big amount of info. But many students make the same mistake here: they underline way too much data.
- Wrong: underlining full sentences or even paragraphs, or more that 1-2 key ideas per page.
- Right: underlining only keywords that refer to the main point of the page.
Mistake Two. Re-reading
“Practice makes perfect”: people can hear that phrase during years in a row while being children. Still, this does not quite work for remembering.
Experiments showed, that re-reading any text does not lead to any significant improvement of the results of future checking the material. Additionally, you may think you understood a certain complicated idea, while in fact you will have it in your short-term memory only. This is a classical cramming, that does not help anyone to understand the info.
Trying to remember only main ideas rather than to get all the info into your head at once is much more effective. Small pieces of knowledge will remain in your memory, and then they’ll be able to bring new details.
- Wrong: reading the same information over and over again trying to remember everything at once.
- Right: cutting new info into pieces and remembering only the main facts.
Mistake Three. No Tests
Did you like school tests? I doubt that. But still, they really were useful. Knowledge test is the only thing that can show weaknesses in the material that seems to be learnt. Back in school years, teachers did a part of job instead of you by composing questions and marking your answers.
While studying anything, it is very important to pay attention to self-checking. It may seem that you are going to lose a lot of priceless time that can be spent on learning something new. But that is a mistake: “more” does not mean “better” in the process of studying for sure.
Once you’ve studied a small block of the material, make a step backwards: use your notes and lines in order to check if you have understood and remembered new knowledge. And do not get upset because of mistakes! They will help you avoid being faulty sure in your own competence.
- Wrong: trying to read as much as you can.
- Right: checking if every logical block of info is remembered correctly.
Mistake Four. Practice Denial
Theoretical knowledge is needed only for using it in practice. Even if you do not have getting a touchable product as your goal, you have to use theory you’ve got it order to get new info. Otherwise, the effectiveness of your study will not be high, and knowledge is going to vaporize from your head very soon.
Do not save time on practicing theoretical knowledge: solve tasks, create microproducts, share info. Do not be afraid of criticism, it will be a great adding to a self-check and will help you make your knowledge deeper as well.
- Wrong: consuming and accumulating the info.
- Right: using the gained knowledge in life.
Conclusion
Daring to get knowledge is the natural need of a person. Yet in order to prevent flowing the info through you with no effect, use effective learning methods:
- Underline less, but do that more precisely.
- Concentrate attention on key details instead of re-reading the whole text.
- Check yourself as often as you can.
- Transform knowledge into a product.