How to Study

Learn How to be Selective
I’m sure you’ve observed in your classes that some people are
constantly taking notes. Others end up with two lines on one page.
Most of us fall in between.
The person who never stops taking notes is either writing a letter 
to that friend in Iowa or has absolutely no idea what is or is not
important.
Taking concise, clear notes is first and foremost the practice of
discrimination—developing your ability to separate the essential 
from the superfluous, to identify and retain key concepts, key facts,
and key ideas, and ignore the rest. In turn, this requires the ability 
to listen to what your teacher is saying and copying down only what
you need to understand the concept. For some, that could mean a
single sentence. For others, a detailed example will be key.
Just remember: The quality of your notes usually has little to do 
with their length—three key lines that reveal the core concepts of a
whole lecture are far more valuable than paragraphs of less important
data.
How to Study
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So why do some people keep trying to take verbatim notes, convinced
that the more pages they cover with scribbles the better students
they’re being? It’s probably a sign of insecurity—they may not have
read the material or have a clue about what’s being discussed, but at
least they’ll have complete notes!
Even if you find yourself wandering helplessly in the lecturer’s wake,
so unsure of what she’s saying that you can’t begin to separate the
important, noteworthy material from the nonessential verbiage, use
the techniques discussed in this chapter to organize and condense
your notes anyway.
If you really find yourself so lost that you are just wasting your time,
consider adding a review session to your schedule (to read or reread
the appropriate texts) and, if the lecture or class is available again at
another time, attend again. Yes it is, strictly speaking, a waste of your
precious study time, but not if it’s the only way to learn and under-
stand important material.