How To Work Through a Textbook

Hi everyone,

I hope your first month of university is going great!

This blog post will be dedicated to reading textbooks.
Some of us spend a ridiculous amount of money on textbooks, and I personally think that if you are purchasing a textbook, better absorb as much information as possible.

I like textbooks because they create a “story” from the material. Story - in terms of connections between material. Sometimes, reading through PowerPoint slides may leave you confused as to what things relate to, and why are you learning this in the first place. Textbooks eliminate that.

So, there are also different types of textbooks you might encounter – your study strategy might differ a little from one subject to the other.

Okay, now, on to the strategies:

1.   Section-by-section

-       To improve your efficiency at going through the textbook, consider reading section-by-section. That way, you’ll avoid mixing up the themes of the section and be better at making connections when reviewing.

-       Be mindful when reading. Try to only think about the material you are reading about. If you find yourself being distracted, divide your sections into smaller parts and take a little break after each part.

2.   Highlight, and then annotate

-       When you are reading the section, highlight important material. That way, everything important will visually pop up. But at first, finish highlighting the section completely, and then go back and annotate. Annotating is way more important than highlighting for reviewing – highlighting by itself, does (it turns out) close to nothing.

-       By annotating, you will then only use those written notes to study. That way the material is way more condensed.

-       You may choose to annotate on textbook margins, or on a separate writing pad.

-       If the teacher’s powerpoint covers the majority of material in the textbook, then there might not be a lot to annotate. In this case, put the annotations you do make straight into the class notes. But maybe, in a different color for review purposes.

-       If you see any charts or table summaries – use those to add some small annotations, rather than rewriting it all as one big note

-       If you initially make notes on the textbook’s margins, consider rewriting them on a separate sheet of paper to make it easier for you to review.

-       Don’t overdo it. Don’t use a multitude of different colors when you highlight or highlight every single word. For instance, if your lecture notes already cover something, don’t re-annotate it again.

3.   Questions and summaries

-       As comes time to study for your test, review your textbook notes, read chapter summaries and most importantly, answer questions! That is really, the most important component of studying from a textbook, as it puts you into that “test mode”. After that, annotate some more if you have to.

Good luck with that! J