Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessica Lares
@crashnburn
I haven't read that research paper either, but I saved it, I love reading studies.
But I'll take a guess from my own experience. Whenever teachers would tell us to highlight/underline stuff, they would just hint at it by going "Oh, I'd underline that if I were you." They never told us why, except that it would be useful in the long run when we had to write an essay on the material later on or answer questions.
If you really want to grasp the material you're reading, you should actually read it. Because if you just do marks, you're probably going to end up marking the whole thing, since it's ALL important really. Instead of doing that, you really should be writing down page numbers on a separate piece of paper with your own worded summaries of events, characters, etc. If you can write it down in your own words, then you have a good understanding of the material.
When I do highlights and underlining, I keep a system. I use all the colors in my pack, and I use them for different things. It makes it easier to go back through later on.
But they don't teach you to write good notes in school, they just tell you to highlight this, write down this. You don't learn anything from material being fed to you like that. I know I didn't.
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Great new features, Kris! The custom commands are such a nice addition!
P.S.: I didn't forget about the list that I'm supposed to be putting up. I have my final project for this semester due on Monday, so I've been focusing on that *mostly*.
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All nice and valid points and the REWRITING it is what one does when Summarizing into what used to be called Short Notes / Last Day/ Last minute Notes or Cheatsheet -
But its not always the case of application. Some quotes and statements cannot be written better than the original author.
Also, I am noting that you were not happy with how your teachers did not EXPLAIN WHY! & HOW of marking/ highlighting etc. but just do it. You have to realize most teachers would be like that, but most people are like that too. Each persons mind latches on to subjects DIFFERENTLY. What someone finds RELEVANT may be different for another person.
Teachers could definitely be BETTER and more FUNDAMENTALS based rather than MUG IT UP and REMEMBER it... Then again, even after that if and when they focus on SUBJECT X, then how one most LEARN and PROCESS SUBJECT X, Y, Z and how to LEARN is beyond what even they have realized.
We all figure out and slowly LEARN... HOW TO LEARN and ABSORB the materials that we get. There should be better CLASSES on this, but that's life
The entire education system focuses on WHAT MATERIAL to learn and not HOW TO THINK and HOW TO LEARN and FOLLOW CURIOSITY and WHY to LEARN something.
To address some of your points with how I process and mark information:
- I dont remember any teacher telling me to underline or highlight things - even if they did so at school
- I underline highlight what need to come back to - e.g. There could be 5-6 paragraphs explaining a concept or idea and 1-2 lines may be the QUOTE / SUMMARY STATEMENT of the whole thing ...
.. Next time I glance through I wont need to READ the whole thing, as that HIGHLIGHTED Quote would remind me of what I had read.. Memory Flashback
.. Sometimes I may want to re-read those 5-6 paragraphs/ pages and that HIGHLIGHT acts as a Marker Point for me to COME BACK to.
.. Sometimes when revisiting or revising things (for whatever reason - Be it reviewing final day for an exam or to be reminded of some fundamentals I forgot or because some material becomes your favorite ) the HIGHLIGHTING is an INDICATOR or MENTAL MARKER that was manifested and left in the MATERIAL.
Again, this is unique for each person. We learn by association and remember by ASSOCIATION.
You may say something and it may REMIND me of some quote from some book or some author or some movie ... or even some Friend or Relative or some INCIDENT.. These are mental markers. Everyone handles them DIFFERENTLY, but very similarly.
Person, Object, Circumstance.
These 3 are always what form impressions in our brains and triggers BRING them back to us from MEMORY.
How you are choosing to mark and write material is your WORFLOW
Not mine :P
PS: Just noticed you were in Dallas - I actually went to Grad School there many years back and Data Modeling and Design and arguing over that with other PhDs was the last thing I remember doing there