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