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Are you using these effective study techniques?

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Table Of Contents
  1. Summarising in your own words
  2. Mapping
  3. More resources

Summarising in your own words

Creating a summary helps you remember what you heard or read, but also gives you feedback on whether you understood it. If you cannot express a concept in your own words, then you don’t understand it well enough to use it effectively in an assessment or at work. Summarising in your own words also helps you avoid plagiarism and saves time when you are writing assignments, answering exam questions or at work.

If you can’t write quickly and legibly, typing your summary is fine; however, many people learn better if they handwrite their summaries. Use your phone to photograph handwritten summaries and upload them into a cloud-based note-taking app that you have installed on your phone, tablet and PC. 

Recommended free note-taking apps:

How to write a summary

Summarising is hard work, so do only one lesson, chapter or article at a time. You will create three documents:

  • A glossary
  • The summary of the concepts
  • A quick reference list of items to be memorised

In the header of each document, include the date, the subject and topic name. Cite the source. If it is a face-to-face class, add the teacher name. The last item in the document should be a reference to the source (i.e. the writer, date published and name of the book or article you are summarising.)

  • Create a glossary and define any unfamiliar terms, acronyms or symbols.
  • Identify the most important concepts and explain them briefly in your own words. Use a new paragraph for each concept. Use complete sentences and avoid using metaphors or examples from the textbook.
  • If there are equations, copy them exactly, but also translate them into English sentences.
  • If there are diagrams, describe them briefly in English sentences.
  • Create a brief, meaningful heading for each concept.
  • Check you have included any necessary facts and excluded all the interesting but unnecessary facts
  • Check that you have described any important processes or procedures you might need to use.
  • Have you summarised any arguments?
  • Create lists of any key rules, principles or definitions that must be memorised

To ensure you can find the summary when you need it, add some tags. These should include the subject name and topic.

Mapping

When you map a topic, you identify the key concepts and arrange them so you can see how they relate to each other. When you map, you think about the concepts in a different way to when you summarise and you engage different parts of your brain. There is evidence that mapping helps you transfer your knowledge so you can solve new types of problems or familiar types of problems in unfamiliar contexts. To get high marks, you need to be able to do this.

There are several types of maps

  • Concept maps
  • Mind maps
  • Graphic organisers

You can draw maps by hand (then photograph them and upload them to your note-taking app) or you can use software. If you use software, ensure you can find your map again by giving it a meaningful name. Insert an image into your note-taking app with a link to the file. Tag it with the names of the subject and topic.

Recommended software

Concept maps

Mind Maps

More resources

Books

  • Brown, P. C. (2014). Make It Stick [Kindle book]. Harvard University Press.
  • Fiorella, L., & Mayer, R. E. (2015). Learning as a Generative Activity: Eight Learning Strategies that Promote Understanding [Kindle book]. Cambridge University Press.
  • Mayer, R. E. (2018). How to Be a Successful Student: 20 Study Habits Based on the Science of Learning [Kindle book]. Routledge.
  • Oakley, B. (2014). A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science [Kindle book]. TarcherPerigee.

Online courses

Videos

 

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