ower Learning   Jill had not done as well in high school as she had hoped. Since college  involved even more work, it was no surprise that she didn’t do better there.   The reason for her so-so performance was not a lack of effort. She  attended most of her classes and read her textbooks. And she never missed  handing in any assignment, even though it often meant staying up late the  night before homework was due. Still, she just got by in her classes. Before  long, she came to the conclusion that she simply couldn’t do any better.   Then one day, one of her instructors said something to make her think  otherwise. “You can probably build some sort of house by banging a few  boards together,” he said. “But if you want a sturdy home, you’ll have to use  the right techniques and tools. Building carefully takes work, but it gets better  results. The same can be said of your education. There are no shortcuts, but  there are some proven study skills that can really help. If you don’t use them,  you may end up with a pretty flimsy education.”   Jill signed up for a study-skills course and found out a crucial fact—that  learning how to learn is the key to success in school. Certain dependable  skills have made the difference between disappointment and success for  generations of students. These techniques won’t free you from work, but they  will make your work far more productive. They include three important areas:  time control, classroom note-taking, and textbook study.  Time Control  Success in college depends on time control. Time control means that you  deliberately organize and plan your time, instead of letting it drift by. Planning  means that you should never be faced with an overdue term paper or a cram  session the night before a test.  Three steps are involved in time control. First, you should prepare a large  monthly calendar. Buy a calendar with a large white block around each date,  or make one yourself. At the beginning of the college semester, circle important  dates on this calendar. Circle the days on which tests are scheduled; circle  the days when papers are due. This calendar can also be used to schedule  study plans. At the beginning of the week, you can jot down your plans for  each day. An alternative method would be to make plans for each day the  night before. On Tuesday night, for example, you might write down “Read  Chapter 5in psychology” in the Wednesday block. Hang this calendar where  you will see it every day—your kitchen, bedroom, even your bathroom!   The second step in time control is to have a weekly study schedule for  the semester—a chart that covers all the days of the week and all the waking  hours in each day. Below is part of one student’s schedule:   1   2   3  4  5   6   7  continued lan36275_ch18_375-386.indd 379 07/12/12 7:23 PM380 Part 3 Special Skills Time Mon. Tue. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat. 6:00 a.m. 7:00 Breakfast Breakfast Breakfast Breakfast Breakfast 8:00 Math STUDY Math STUDY Math Breakfast 9:00 STUDY Biology STUDY Biology STUDY Job 10:00 Psychology Psychology Psychology 11:00 English English 12:00 Lunch Lunch Lunch  On your own schedule, fill in all the fixed hours in each day—hours for meals,  classes, job (if any), and travel time. Next, mark time blocks that you can  realistically use for study each day. Depending on the number of courses you  are taking and the demands of these courses, you may want to block off  five, ten, or even twenty or more hours of study time a week. Keep in mind  that you should not block off time that you do not truly intend to use for study.  Otherwise, your schedule will be a meaningless gimmick. Also, remember  that you should allow time for rest and relaxation. You will be happiest, and  able to accomplish the most, when you have time for both work and play.   The third step in time control is to make a daily or weekly to-do list. This  may be the most valuable time-control method you ever use. On this list, write  down the things you need to do for the following day or the following week.  If you choose to write a weekly list, do it on Sunday night. If you choose to  write a daily list, do it the night before. Here is part of one student’s daily list:   To Do Tues day   1. Review biology not es before class   2. Proofr ead English paper due today  3. See Dick about game on Friday  4. Get gas for car  5. Read next chapter of psychology text   You may use a three-by-five-inch notepad or a small spiral-bound notebook for  this list. Carry the list around with you during the day. Always concentrate on  doing the most important items first. To make the best use of your time, mark  high-priority items with an asterisk and give them precedence over low-priority  items. For instance, you may find yourself wondering what to do after dinner  on Thursday evening. Among the items on your list are “Clean inside of car”  and “Review chapter for math quiz.” It is obviously more important for you to   8  continued lan36275_ch18_375-386.indd 380 07/12/12 7:23 PMChapter 18 Writing a Summary 381 Copyright © 2014 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. review your notes at this point; you can clean out the car some other time.  As you complete items on your to-do list, cross them out. Do not worry about  unfinished items. They can be rescheduled. You will still be accomplishing a  great deal and making more effective use of your time.   Classroom Note-Taking   One of the most important single things you can do to perform well in a  college course is to take effective class notes. The following hints should help  you become a better note-taker.   First, attend class faithfully. Your alternatives—reading the text, reading  someone else’s notes, or both—cannot substitute for the class experience  of hearing ideas in person as someone presents them to you. Also, in class  lectures and discussions, your instructor typically presents and develops the  main ideas and facts of the course—the ones you will be expected to know  on exams.   Another valuable hint is to make use of abbreviations while taking notes.  Using abbreviations saves time when you are trying to get down a great deal  of information. Abbreviate terms that recur frequently in a lecture and put a  key to your abbreviations at the top of your notes. For example, in sociology  class, eth could stand for ethnocentrism; in a psychology class, STM could  stand for short-term memory . (When a lecture is over, you may want to go  back and write out the terms you have abbreviated.) Also, use e for example;  def for definition; info for information; + for and; and so on. If you use the  same abbreviations all the time, you will soon develop a kind of personal  shorthand that makes taking notes much easier.   A third hint for taking notes is to be on the lookout for signals of  importance. Write down whatever your instructor puts on the board. If he  or she takes the time to put material on the board, it is probably important,  and the chances are good that it will come up later on exams. Always write  down definitions and enumerations. Enumerations are lists of items. They are  signaled in such ways as “The four steps in the process are . . .”; “There  were three reasons for . . .”; “The two effects were . . .”; “Five characteristics  of . . .”; and so on. In your notes, always number such enumerations (1, 2,  3, etc.). They will help you understand relationships among ideas and  organize the material of the lecture. Watch for emphasis words—words your  instructor may use to indicate that something is important. Examples of such  words are “This is an important reason . . .”; “A point that will keep coming  up later . . .”; “The chief cause was . . .”; “The basic idea here is . . .”;  and so on. Always write down the important statements announced by these  and other emphasis words. Finally, if your instructor repeats a point, you can  assume that it is important. You might put an R for repeated in the margin so  that later you will know that your instructor stressed it.   9   10   11  12 continued lan36275_ch18_375-386.indd 381 07/12/12 7:23 PM382 Part 3 Special Skills  Next, be sure to write down the instructor’s examples and mark them with  an e . The examples help you understand abstract points. If you do not write  them down, you are likely to forget them later, when they are needed to help  make sense of an idea.   Also, be sure to write down the connections between ideas. Too many  students merely copy terms the instructor puts on the board. They forget that,  as time passes, the details that serve as connecting bridges between ideas  quickly fade. You should, then, write down the relationships and connections  in class. That way you’ll have them to help tie together your notes later on.   Review your notes as soon as possible after class. You must make them  as clear as possible while they are fresh in your mind. A day later may be  too late, because forgetting sets in very quickly. Make sure that punctuation is  clear, that all words are readable and correctly spelled, and that unfinished  sentences are completed (or at least marked off so that you can check your  notes with another student’s). Add clarifying or connecting comments wherever  necessary. Make sure that important ideas are clearly marked. Improve the  organization if necessary so that you can see at a glance main points and  relationships among them.   Finally, try in general to get down a written record of each class. You  must do this because forgetting begins almost immediately. Studies have  shown that within two weeks you are likely to have forgotten 80 percent or  more of what you have heard. And in four weeks you are lucky if 5 percent  remains! This is so crucial that it bears repeating: To guard against the  relentlessness of forgetting, it is absolutely essential that you write down what  you hear in class. Later you can concentrate on working to understand fully  and to remember the ideas that have been presented in class. And then, the  more complete your notes are, the more you are likely to learn.   Textbook Study   In many college courses, success means being able to read and study  a textbook skillfully. For many students, unfortunately, textbooks are heavy  going. After an hour or two of study, the textbook material is as formless and  as hard to understand as ever. But there is a way to attack even the most  difficult textbook and make sense of it. Use a sequence in which you preview  a chapter, mark it, take notes on it, and then study the notes.   Previewing   Previewing a selection is an important first step to understanding. Taking  the time to preview a section or chapter can give you a bird’s-eye view of  the way the material is organized. You will have a sense of where you are  beginning, what you will cover, and where you will end.   There are several steps in previewing a selection. First, study the title.  The title is the shortest possible summary of a selection and will often tell   13   14   15   16   17   18  19 continued lan36275_ch18_375-386.indd 382 07/12/12 7:23 PMChapter 18 Writing a Summary 383 Copyright © 2014 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. you the limits of the material you will cover. For example, the title “FDR and  the Supreme Court” tells you to expect a discussion of President Roosevelt’s  dealings with the Court. You know that you will probably not encounter  any material dealing with FDR’s foreign policies or personal life. Next,  quickly read over the first and last paragraphs of the selection; these may  contain important introductions to, and summaries of, the main ideas. Then  briefly examine the headings and subheadings in the selection. Together,  the headings and subheadings are a mini-outline of what you are reading.  Headings are often main ideas or important concepts in capsule form;  subheadings are breakdowns of ideas within main areas. Finally, read the first  sentence of some paragraphs, look for words set off in boldface or italics ,  and look at pictures or diagrams. After you have previewed a selection in this  way, you should have a good general sense of the material to be read.  Marking  You should mark a textbook selection at the same time that you read  it through carefully. Use a felt-tip highlighter to shade material that seems  important, or use a ballpoint pen and put symbols in the margin next to the  material: stars, checks, or NB ( nota bene , Latin for “note well”). What to  mark is not as mysterious as some students believe. You should try to find  main ideas by looking for clues: definitions and examples, enumerations, and  emphasis words.   1. Definitions and examples: Definitions are often among the most important  ideas in a selection. They are particularly significant in introductory  courses in almost any subject area, where much of your learning involves  mastering the specialized vocabulary of that subject. In a sense, you  are learning the “language” of psychology or business or whatever the  subject might be.   Most definitions are abstract, and so they usually are followed by  one or more examples to help clarify their meaning. Always mark off  definitions and at least one example that makes a definition clear to  you. In a psychology text, for example, we are told that “rationalization  is an attempt to reduce anxiety by deciding that you have not really  been frustrated.” Several examples follow, among them: “A young man,  frustrated because he was rejected when he asked for a date, convinces  himself that the girl is not very attractive or interesting.”  2. Enumerations: Enumerations are lists of items (causes, reasons, types,  and so on) that are numbered 1, 2, 3, . . . or that could easily be  numbered. They are often signaled by addition words. Many of the  paragraphs in this book, for instance, use words like First of all, Another,  In addition, and Finally to signal items in a series. Other textbooks also  use this very common and effective organizational method.   20   21   22   23  continued lan36275_ch18_375-386.indd 383 07/12/12 7:23 PM384 Part 3 Special Skills 3. Emphasis words: Emphasis words tell you that an idea is important.  Common emphasis words include phrases such as a major event, a key  feature, the chief factor, important to note, above all, and most of all .  Here is an example: “The most significant contemporary use of marketing  is its application to nonbusiness areas, such as political parties.”   Note-Taking   Next, you should take notes. Go through the chapter a second time,  rereading the most important parts. Try to write down the main ideas in a  simple outline form. For example, in taking notes on a psychology selection,  you might write down the heading “Defense Mechanisms.” Below the  heading you would define them, number and describe each kind, and give  an example of each.   Defense Mec hanisms   a. Defi nition: unconscious att empts to reduce anxiet y   b. Kinds:   (1) Rationalization: An att empt to reduce anxiet y by dec iding that you  have not really been fr ustrated.   Example: A man turned down for a date dec ides that the woman was  not worth going out with anyway.   (2) Project ion: Project ing onto ot her people mot ives or thoughts of one’s own.   Example: A wife wh o wants to have an aff air accuses her husband of  having one.  Studying Notes  To study your notes, use repeated self-testing. For example, look at the  heading “Defense Mechanisms” and say to yourself, “What are the kinds  of defense mechanisms?” When you can recite them, then say to yourself,  “What is rationalization?” “What is an example of rationalization?” Then ask  yourself, “What is projection?” “What is an example of projection?” After you  learn each section, review it, and then go on to the next section.   Do not simply read your notes; keep looking away and seeing if you can  recite them to yourself. This self-testing is the key to effective learning.   24   25   26  27 continued lan36275_ch18_375-386.indd 384 07/12/12 7:23 PMChapter 18 Writing a Summary 385 Copyright © 2014 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Write an essay-length summary of a broadcast of the CBS television show  60 Minutes . In your first sentence, include the date of the show. For example,  “The September 8, 2013, broadcast of CBS’s 60 Minutes dealt with three subjects most people would find of interest. The first segment of the show centered  on . . . ; the second segment examined . . . ; the final segment discussed. . . . ” Be  sure to use parallel form in describing the three segments of the show. Then summarize each segment in the three supporting paragraphs that follow.  ACTIVITY 2  Textbook Study Sequence  Remember this sequence for dealing with a textbook: preview, mark, take  notes, study the notes. Approaching a textbook in this methodical way will give  you very positive results. You will no longer feel bogged down in a swamp of  words, unable to figure out what you are supposed to know. Instead, you will  understand exactly what you have to do and how to go about doing it.  Conclusion  Take a minute now to evaluate your own study habits. Do you practice  many of the above skills to take effective classroom notes, control your  time, and learn from your textbooks? If not, perhaps you should. The skills  are not magic, but they are too valuable to ignore. Use them carefully and  consistently, and they will make academic success possible for you. Try them,  and you won’t need convincing.