Skim reading journal articles or book chapters?

[monel]

I could really do with some advice from any members who may have tips. I usually take my time reading stuff (apparently you shouldn't even voice it in your head), but I have a major deadline approaching fast and I'm a bit worried to put it mildly.

I know with journals you can just read the abstract and then find relevant pieces of info but I always get the feeling I may have missed something important so usually don't try anything like that.


However, I'm in a desperate situation, I'm willing to try anything.

I once knew a very intelligent teacher who recommended spending just 3 hours researching any particular topic but he was super skilled and I am not. Anyone got any tips?

[toythatkills]

Use a ruler or something and put it under the line you're reading, and then move it down the page quicker than you can read it.

I was always told that works.

[monel]

You're joking? Or are you?

Damn man, I tried to help with the buying a shirt for the interview thread .

[toythatkills]

Am deadly serious! I've never really been able to make it work, but I'm told that it does by other people. You move it down the page a bit quicker than you can/would normally read it, but force yourself to keep up with it, so you kinda just automatically pick out keywords without thinking.

That's the theory, anyway.

[monel]

OK, thanks, I'm kind of crapping myself at this stage. Visions of impending doom.

[Friction]

I find when I was studying I tend to skim read and note down key words or points as I go. For me that tended to work - I would remember the key points when I needed & noting them down seem to make them stick in my head more!

[koopatroopa90]

Well I have the next 3 days to read and learn a whole years maths work for an exam at 6.30PM on Monday that doesn't finish till 9PM
As far as I am aware you can't skim that type of stuff but if anyone knows better please enlighten me.

Fun!

[monel]

Some possible tips, which may or may not help: Prioritise what is most likely to come up, ie when I was younger there was one subject I took which had certain topics almost sure to come up.

That might not help with maths though.

Another-use those made up words where you take the first letter from each important point-I can't remember what they're called, similar to acronyms. I haven't took an exam for years...

Break down your next few days into strict slots where you cover a certain amount of stuff in each session.

Try not to panic (yes, I'm a hypocrite at times), get 4/5 hours sleep each day but take a 10 minute break every hour. It should be every 30 mins ideally but in times of stress something has to give. The 30 min rule is because apparently after 30 minutes of concentration the mind starts daydreaming, but surely we know of people playing games for 12 hours at a time...

edit-why are my posts always unformatted recently, with no line breaks?

[koopatroopa90]

Thanks for taking the time to write all that. We have been told to not selectively revise in the hope only certain topics come up, but I think at this stage I'm going to have no choice, plus my mathematical ability is pretty poor anyway (I'm doing an economics course - little did I know degree economics was a world apart from A-level economics which was a lot more fun and had no maths!) so the harder topics would take me far too long to get to grips with even at a basic level.

I used to use the acronym type thing for revising history at A level - worked a treat even if you only remembered most of them. Unfortunately it's a little harder to make them with numbers/symbols!!

That 30 minute thing is about right for me - in fact, I'd done about half an hours worth of reading before coming on here to post this/download my free PSN games.

[monel]

No problem. I'm deep in the crap at this stage, lol.

About the acronym thing, you can still use the first letter of the words for the symbols or numbers, though? Or make some visual thing, anything that can help.

For exams if something was vital I would jot it down as soon as I got into the exam so I wouldn't forget it.

Good luck.