What's up, everybody? It's Thomas from College Info Geek. Did you ever wonder how you're going to get
all the information in these crazy, huge reading assignments in a freaking weekend? I want to share a quote with you that I learned
over the week-end while doing research for this video. It goes like this, "The mark of a successful
college student is the mastery of knowing not only what to study, but also how to study
it." This applies to your readings as much as it
applies to anything else in college. In last week's video, I went over some strategies
that you can use to figure out whether or not you actually need to do a reading assignment
at all. In this video, I want to start focusing on
how you should actually tackle the reading assignments that you do need to do. I have three main goals that I want you to
keep in mind here. Number one, you want to learn the right information
from your readings. Obviously, you can't learn every single thing
in the book so you want to figure out what is important and get that into your brain. Number two, you want to retain that information
for as long as you can and be able to use it later. Number three, you want to reduce your study
time and the amount of time you have your nose stuck in the book. To start improving in all of these areas,
the first thing that I want you to think about is the 'why'. Why are you doing this reading? A lot of people would say, "You're reading
to learn," and, obviously, yes, that's the point of the education. I think there's another more immediately practical
reason that you're doing a reading. That is how you're going to be assessed on
that reading. Being a strategic reader means using different
strategies for different reading purposes. Those purposes are defined with the assessments
you're going to face in class which lead back to your immediate goal of earning awesome
grades. Most students tackle their reading assignments
like zombies. They look at the reading assignment and they
go, "Must run my eyes over x number of pages by tomorrow night." That's it. Don't be a reading zombie. Otherwise, your exams are going to turn into
a chainsaw. Know what it is that your brain needs to pull
out of the reading and focus on that. Here are four common reasons that you might
do a textbook reading. Number one, you're going to be facing down
a multiple choice test. Number two, you're going to have to do an
essay, actually creating something from scratch in your own words. Number three is the evaluation of data in
labs which applies to more technical and scientific majors. Number four, is the summarization of research
for class presentations and reports. The type of assessment that you have to do
will dictate what kind of information you need to pull out of your readings. For instance, if you're going to have to do
a multiple choice test, then you're going to want to focus on the details of the reading
assignments, taking smart, concise notes about all the little things in a class and then
turning those into questions that you can study rapid fire later on. If you're in a class where you have to write
essays, then thorough knowledge of the main ideas is more important. You're going to want to focus more on summarization
and making sure that you can communicate what you learned in your own words. There's a tip from the video I did last week
on figuring out whether or not you even need to do a reading assignment that applies perfectly
here as well. That is to gauge your classes. As a semester goes on, be mindful of what's
in the syllabus and what your professor generally uses to assess you and then apply that knowledge
to your readings. This will take practice, but as time goes
on, you're going to find that this mindfulness really pays off in the time it saves you and
the clarity it gives you when you're looking at your book. Once you've gauged those classes and figured
out the type of information you want to pull from your reading, how do you actually go
about doing that reading? To start out, let me give you a universal
tip that applies to any reading you do. It's this, "Don't read your textbooks like
you read a newspaper." People who read the newspaper aren't reading
to apply what they're learning. They're just reading to get the gist of the
day's events. You're not reading for gists, you're reading
for application. Also, don't expect that you're going to learn
efficiently by just reading and rereading passages over and over again. The writer, Virgina Voeks, said that, "How
often you read something is immaterial. How you read it is crucial. Think of a book like an art museum. You can walk through the Met in New York ten
times, look at all the paintings each time you go through, and still know next to nothing
about any of the art there. You might know the general layout, where certain
pieces are, but if I ask you for details, "Which artist created this painting? Where was this dog-thing sculpted," you won't
have a clue. Books are really the same. Possibly running your eyes over the pages
is like casually strolling through an art museum and not actually studying any of the
pieces. It's actually worse because the brain is better
at remembering emotionally evocative pictures and imagery than it is at remembering squiggly,
arbitrary lines on paper. Instead, try to read in the same way that
you'd talk with a friend who challenges you intellectually. You listen eagerly, you contribute your own
words to the conversation, and, eventually, both of you create information that comes
together to make something new. This is called active reading. It's crucial for being able to retain what
you learn from your textbooks and be able to apply it later on. In my next video, I'm going to over a framework
of specific techniques that you can try out to start using active reading. To round this video out, I want to leave you
with a technique that you can use to create a small win in your studies. Here it is. Create two different habits for your textbook
readings. The first one is going to focus on getting
you to read consistently. The second one is going to focus on getting
you to start using active reading instead of passive reading. The first habit I think you should try out
is reading daily. This might mean planning ahead in advance
what you're going to read for a certain week and maybe even reading some outside material
if you finish everything. It's all about getting into the habit of reading
every single day, making a consistent effort. For the second habit, try to write down a
small amount of notes for each reading you do or create a small summary for each reading. It doesn't have to be anything large, you
just want to get into the habit of doing it and being more actively involved in your reading. With both these habits, you can experiment
with making them either input based or output based. Input-based habits have a fixed amount of
effort that you have to put in to them so read for fifteen minutes. That's only fifteen minutes of effort and
then you're done. On the flip side, output-based habits are
based on making something concrete. Write one page of notes could be an output-based
habit. The amount of time and effort you need to
put into it isn't fixed. Personally, I use both of these types of habits
in my own reading. For my actual reading habit, I use an input-based
goal, read for fifteen minutes every single day and then once I've gotten into that, I
usually read for longer and I start getting more engaged. Then, I use an output-based goal which is
to write half a page of notes on what I'm reading to make sure that I'm actively learning. Whichever type you choose, it's also important
to build a small reward into your habit. Getting good grades is a good reward, but
it's something that's a little too far off to really count. I would say, find something else that rewards
you for getting the reading done every single day. For me, that's ticking off a daily habit [inaudible
06:13] which I've made a little bit more valuable by creating a challenge in the College Info
Geek guild. If you want to join that, you can go to the
companion blog post for this video which you'll find linked down in the description. Otherwise, you could do something else like
watching an episode of your favorite show on Netflix, playing a video game, or something
else fun. Make sure that you're building this loop of,
"Here's a cue to do my reading, I'm going to do the reading, and take the notes, then
give myself a small reward to reinforce the positive feeling I get from doing that reading." That's it for this video. If you want to get my tips on active reading
which will come in the next video, then make sure you subscribe to this channel and you'll
get those right when they come out. Otherwise, I will see you in
that next video.
