Did you know that there are people who enjoy reading their notes? If you’re anything like us, you might be baffled by the thought. Luckily, we work with a Learner Researcher here at Perlego who can tell us the difference between good and great notes.
Since we spoke, we’ve been making better notes, learning faster and smarter, we've been using our Note feature to accelerate our learning.
Here are the 3 things we learnt so you can do the same.
Write the keywords
Don't have time for a full-on summary? Then just write 5 keywords from memory.
This simple trick forces your brain to engage with what you've just read and remember it.
It’s an easy way to speed up learning.
Challenge yourself to remember them when reviewing your notes later. If you can't remember them, re-visit the highlight and re-read the context until it sticks!
Reword the highlight
Once you've highlighted a passage, take your time to understand the information. Do that until you can repeat it in your own words. This one will save you a lot of time when reviewing and revising content.
A good trick is to re-word it but as if you're explaining it to an older relative. This should help you distil the important information.
Whatever you write, make it easy to read, informative and memorable!
If you've done this correctly, you should be on your way to understanding and memorisation, so you can challenge yourself by reading half a highlight and guessing the rest. Perhaps even finish your own sentences with your Notes without looking.
Question what you've read
You don't have to agree with everything you read and don't have to understand it the first time 'round, either. Highlight anything that doesn't make sense then question it!
You can ask professor Google later, or a real professor. But either way, challenging what you read is a crucial part of learning.
Writing a note that is a question means that you're thinking critically about what you're reading, and, you've guessed it, it means you're switching gears to learning.
If you write notes and make highlights as you read on Perlego, you can now review them all easily on your Notebook.
You can read all about how to use your Notebook here.