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How to Study: A Brief Guide William J. Rapaport Department of Computer Science

How to Study: A Brief Guide William J. Rapaport Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Department of Philosophy, and Center for Cognitive Science State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-2000 Last Update: 2 February 2011 Note: or material is highlighted If you are reading a printed version of this, you might be interested in the Web version, at http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/howtostudy.html which has numerous links to other helpful Web sites (indicated in some printed versions by underlined phrases). OUTLINE and INDEX: 1. Introduction 2. Manage your time 3. Take notes in class & rewrite them at home 4. Study hard subjects first & study in a quiet place 5. Read texts actively & slowly, before & after class 6. Do your homework 7. Study for exams 8. Take Exams 9. Do research & write essays 10. Do I really have to do all this? 11. Are there other websites that give study hints? 1. Introduction Everyone has a different "learning style". (A good introduction to the topic of learning styles is Claxton & Murrell 1987. For more on different learning styles, see Keirsey Temperament and Character Web Site, William Perry's Scheme of Intellectual and Ethical Development, Holland 1966, Kolb 1984, Sternberg 1999. For an interesting discussion of some limitations of learning styles from the perspective of teaching styles, see Glenn 2009/2010.) For some online tools targeted at different learning styles, see "100 Helpful Web Tools for Every Kind of Learner". Consequently, everyone has a different "studying style". But the way that you are studying right now might not be the best for you. How would you know? Easy: If your grades aren't what you'd like them to be, then you probably need to change how you study! I am going to give you some suggestions on how to study efficiently. They worked for me when I was in high school, college, and graduate school. Not only that, but they worked equally well for me in humanities courses (like philosophy and literature) and in science courses (like math and computer science). But, given that everyone's learning style is different, some of my suggestions may not work for you, at least not without some individual modifications. Nevertheless, I urge you to try them. Most successful students use them (or some slight variation of them). Please feel free to send me suggestions for studying that worked for you. I will try to include them in further versions of this guide. 2. Manage Your Time ©Batom Inc. School is a full-time job. And managing your time is important. If you have a "real" job after school that you do just for fun (or for some extra spending money), or if you participate in extra-curricular activities (whether school-related or not), keep your priorities in mind: Your education should come first! If you must work (in order to make ends meet), you should realize the limitations that this imposes on your study time. ©Jorge Cham How much time should you devote to studying? A recent survey in the Chronicle of Higher Education suggested that students are not studying enough. So, how much is enough? If you assume that your education is a full-time job, then you should spend about 40 hours/week on it. Figure that 1 academic credit equals about 1 hour. So, if you're taking 15 credits, then you're spending about 15 hours in class. Subtracting that from 40 gives you 25 hours that you should be spending studying at home (or in the library). You should spread that out over the week. Suppose you decide to study Sunday through Thursday evenings, taking Fridays and Saturdays off (from studying, that is). Dividing that 25 hours by those 5 days gives you 5 hours of studying per night. If you think that's too much, then plan on studying in the afternoons, too, or some of Saturday. The above are just rules of thumb. If you're taking a 3-credit independent-study course, but you meet with your instructor only 1 hour/week, then you should add the extra 2 hours to your at-home study time. If you're working to earn some money, you should subtract your work hours from your free time, not from your study time! (If you don't want to do that, then you should consider quitting your job or reducing your course load.) If that still seems like a lot, consider the difference between high-school courses and college courses. The typical high-school course meets every day, for about 5 hours/week. But the typical college course meets only about 3 hours/week, yet is supposed to be more intensive than its high-school counterpart. That's because in college you're expected to put more of your own time into studying. ©Lynn Johnston Productions Inc. Set yourself a grade goal. If you don't meet it, cut down on non-school activities. (If you can't, because you're working for a living, then consider dropping down to part-time schooling.) For some tips on managing your time during exams, see below. For some tips on managing your time when doing projects, see below. For some websites on time management, take a look at: UB Student Affairs webpage on "Time Management" "Time Management Skills" "Incorporating Time Management Strategies into Your Foundations Course" "How to Be Punctual" ... or do a Google search on "time management" for more ideas. A nice set of printable online calendars, schedules, etc., can be found at ePrintableCalendars.com 3. Take Notes in Class & Rewrite Them at Home Outline and Index: 1. Take Notes 2. Take Complete Notes 3. Use Abbreviations 4. Neatness Doesn't Count 5. Ask Questions & Make Comments 6. Copy Your Notes at Home 7. Don't Take Notes on a Computer 8. Don't Rely on the Instructor's Lecture Notes 9. Further Reading 3.1. Take Notes Good studying at home begins with good notes taken in class. Just as everyone has a different learning style, different teachers have different teaching styles (and often these clash with the students' learning styles!): Some teachers lecture, some lead discussions, some "facilitate" individual work (as in a lab), etc. Consequently, different classroom settings will require different note-taking techniques. But the suggestions here are general enough to work in most situations. 3.2. Take Complete Notes The key idea of taking good notes in class is to write down as much as possible. There are several reasons to take notes that are as complete as possible: 1. It will force you to pay attention to what's going on in class. 2. It will keep you awake (!) 3. There will be less that you'll have to remember. Should you concentrate on taking notes or should you concentrate on understanding what you are learning? Paradoxically, I'd err on the side of taking notes, not understanding! Understanding can come later, when you review your notes. But if you have incomplete notes, it will be hard for you to learn what you didn't take notes on. 3.3. Use Abbreviations Taking complete notes will require you to write fairly quickly and, as a consequence, to use abbreviations. Here are some that I use (many of which I borrowed from other students and teachers), to give you an idea of how you can abbreviate. If you send text messages on your cell phone, then you know the sort of abbreviations I'm talking about. Use them when you take notes in class! ABBREVIATION MEANING betw between ccpt concept cd could compn computation compnl computational comp complete dn description fn function h. human ...g (e.g., contg) ...ing (continuing) ...l (e.g., compnl) ...al (computational) lg language mn mean mng meaning ...n (e.g., abbrvn) ...tion (abbreviation) NB: note/note well/nota bene pn proposition prop property re about (from Latin) reln relation qn question ...r (e.g., compr) ...er (computer) shd should s.t. something/sometimes (context should make it clear which you mean) stmt statement thot thought w/ with w/o without wd would wh which & and ∨ or (this is a symbol from logic) ¬ not/negation sign (this is a symbol from logic) possible/possibly (this is a symbol from logic) must/necessary/necessarily (this is a symbol from logic) all/for all/every (this is a symbol from logic) some/there is/there are/there exists (this is a symbol from logic) A related idea is based on a system of shorthand called Speedwriting: There used to be ads in the New York City subway system that read something like this: if u cn rd ths, u cn lrn spdwrtg The key idea in abbreviating is to use abbreviations that will make sense to you. You can put an abbreviation key in the margin of your notebook for any abbreviations that you make up on the spot. 3.4. Neatness Doesn't Count. Yet another key idea of note-taking is that you don't have to be neat; you only have to be legible enough to be able to read your notes a few hours (or, at most, a few days) later. The reason for this will become clear later. 3.5. Ask Questions & Make Comments If you have a question or something comes to mind as uploads/s3/ study-guide 36 .pdf