9.8 Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
- Active reading is a process of preparing, reading, capturing key ideas, and reviewing.
- To prepare, scan the chapter to find out what the chapter is about. Give yourself direction by creating questions. Write down your first question and read until you find the answer. Write down your answer, leave some space and move on to the next question. Repeat. At the end of your reading session, go back and pull out key ideas and words to add in the spaces between questions. Review by mentally answering the questions and check yourself against your reading notes.
- Taking notes is more than creating a record of what a professor said in class, it supports active listening, aids in remembering, gives clues to important concepts as well as tests your understanding of the materials and creates a study guide.
- Lists, outlines, concept maps, and the Cornell method are ways to take notes; the later three are preferred because they provide opportunities to prioritize and organize the materials.
- It is vital to return to your notes after class to review, make corrections, fill in gaps, and call out key ideas.
- Reading and taking good notes are skills that require active listening.
