How to be Efficient and Effective in Your Study Habits

Concentrating and Reading

It is often difficult to concentrate during your studies. Here are some techniques that many students have found helpful.

• Asking Yourself Questions
• Getting the Most from Your Reading
• Read the Ideas
• Avoid Contacts

Asking Yourself Questions

The key to maintaining focus is to stop periodically and ask yourself questions, such as

• How does this relate to what I already know?
• If this is true, what else follows?
• What else could these facts mean?
• What assumptions are being made?
• What's the evidence for this?
• Can I think of a good example of this?
• What are the unique points of this?

Getting the Most from Your Reading

• Check off (with a light pencil mark) each paragraph that you completely understand. If you start to get lost in the reading, you will know exactly where: just after the last check!
• If a section is too difficult for you, try reading in a whisper. Hearing what we read is like reading it a second time.
• Similarly, it is good to stop regularly and summarize out loud what you have just read.
• Try to link new information with the information you already know. Ask yourself, ``How do I already know this?'' You can also ask yourself questions such as the focus questions above. Active linking creates powerful memories.
• Take a few seconds to visualize what you have just read.
• Don't forget to jot down key words and concepts. If you read, `rite, and recite (``3R''), you've got a better chance of retaining crucial information.
• After taking a short break from studying, and before you start up again, take a few minutes to review the information you have just learned. This will give you a sense of progress and motivate you to continue on.

Read the Ideas

When you are reading

• Stop at the end of each
  • Paragraph
  • Page
  • Main Section
• Close your book
• Recall the ideas from memory
• Recite the ideas out loud in your own words

Avoid Contacts

When you avoid communicating to your friends, relatives and other people, it helps you to be more productive in your study habits by providing you the enough space, privacy, and work space. It gives you a coherent environment wherein you got to question yourself on what you have learned. And besides, your goal is to study not to talk, therefore you must consider the fact that "group study" is not an effective study habit because it would probably turn out to be not a "study" session but rather a conversation: laughing, talking, and more laughing and talking. Here are some ways to consider:

• Reject the contact
• Cut the contact
• Refuse the contact

Source: www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/study/focus.html/