DIAGRAMS

Description

• It represents a visual structure
• It expresses main ideas
• It orders ideas according to their priority

Advantages

• Activity
• Attention
• Quick visualization
• The content is:
  – Precise
  – Short
  – Clear
• Logic memory
• Saves time and effort

Applying the technique

• Underlining as a base
• Choosing the type of diagram
• Practical ideas:
  – Use materials that can be archived
  – Use few words
  – Write all the main ideas
  – Order according to priority

Bars diagram

It’s useful when there’s little content, and therefore not many subdivisions.

Arrow diagrams

It’s good when certain ideas or concepts cause or give place to others.

Numbered diagram

It’s useful for science work and book indexes. Combining numbers, letters, and symbols can form similar diagrams.

Branching diagram

It’s useful for very long classifications and subdivisions. It’s often used for flow charts and family trees.

SUMMARIES

Description

It consists in expressing the main ideas on the text in the most precise and shortest way possible.

Applying these ideas

• It should be personal.
• Do it with materials that can be archived.
• It’s important that you help yourself with the class notes.
• It should be short, no more than 20 or 30 percent of the text.
• It should be a unity, and have sense in itself. It can’t be just bullet points of ideas.
• Do a final check to make sure that all the important ideas are included.

Advantages

• It motivates your reading.
• It helps you structure your ideas.
• It benefits the process of synthesizing ideas.
• It makes reviewing the topics easier. It saves time.
• It makes you apply personal effort on your work.
• It makes you improve your understanding and expressions.
• It makes you separate the essential from the accidental.

Applying the technique

Based on the underlining, you have to express the most important ideas of the text with your own words; afterwards, you have to choose the best order for presenting the concepts.