Mine own study habits and various articles and wasted highlighter ink have made me realize how useless highlighting is. I already take side notes and spend time reviewing previously written notes to improve my memory retention, but I'm wondering if there's another effective method to stress important facts while taking notes. Thanks!
If the text is written correctly, the first sentence in the paragraph is the point, the last is a transition or summary. Everything in between is example or support.
Get a rubber duck, etc and read every third sentence to it (as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging) - it has the virtue of having you consume the idea, condense and simplify it, and then repeat it. If you can't explain it simply, you do not understand it. And that's the key thing: you don't need to memorize the text; you just need to understand it.
Spend time with material...thinking, questioning, asking, researching, reading, writing....does not have to be in any particular order...spend time with the material....this breeds familiarity...thus better recall and explanations
Recall memory is the most important as far as being able to exercise what you have studied. I've heard that for studying you should spend 20% reading/notes and 80% actually applying what you learned (solving problems, flashcards, etc..). The reason why notes/highlighting doesn't does is because 1. people hardly ever go back and read their notes 2. reading notes does not require recalling the information. I have to do a lot of studying for professional examinations and personally I've found that focusing more on solving problems has been more effective for me.
I think this varies a lot between people. Different people learn in different ways.
One thing that often worked for me was to explain the topic, in detail, out loud. The process of having to put it into words and recall all the necessary details seemed to work.
Popularly known as Rubber Duck Debugging in programming circles.
i dunno, pausing for critical thinking works much better for me than taking notes. i'll remember the 2 hours i spent thinking about something important better than i'll ever remember the 5 minutes i spent reading about it.
modeling/diagramming is very useful
if you cannot diagram or model it properly then something is not right.
this can be on paper, lego blocks, a sand box, or even clay
The more physical it is the better, and strangely computer screens do not seem to work as well.
There are exceptions with well done animations, but it is better if you can also do it yourself.
For me, it helps to 'teach' my family. For example, I just finished learning about the different types of bias. I sat my toddler down in her playroom with my infant, and pretended they were my students. Im currently working on torts and contracts, which is its own headache.
It helps to break up the material into smaller sections.