Study help example of taking power notes

[Part 3]

Want study help that minimizes your study time? You will find it right here. What we will now see is an example of what we were talking about in the previous section.

	What I'm going to do here is to show you how to take notes that mean something. Notes that will cut your study by half and enable you to sit for your exam in much less time. I took a page out of an A+ certification book and summarized it with only the most important information.

Enlarge the image by clicking on the link below and have a read through it so you can better understand how I've summarized it.

click to enlarge

Read it? Great. Now as you can see, this is a long worded full page section on backups.

The mistake people make in taking notes is to write word for word how the book writes it! Wrong. Not you. You will understand how to create power notes…

And this is the way I summarized that one page and wrote it in my notes.

Now here are the secrets to your study help success on note taking… (Follow my example)

I knew some things about backups so didn’t include them in my notes.
I only included what I wasn’t sure of
Anything that made sense I didn’t include. If it makes sense, I can figure it out (for example, did I really need to write in my notes that a Full Backup takes the most time? Duh! Since its a Full backup of course its gonna take the most time.)
I made sure to cut that 1 page into 1 paragraph of notes.

Study help TIP1: - Always aim for your notes to be 10% of the material you read. So 1 page = 1 paragraph (roughly)

Study help TIP2: The best way to create your notes is on your computer. There you can use different styles like bold, italics, highlight and number them. You can make text larger and smaller.

The words will be the same size and you can read them easier (as opposed to your handwriting). Then you can print them.

Help your eyes glide over your notes easier, help your brain register your notes faster.

When you make some things stand out, when you put things in some sort of order, you are helping both your eyes read the material easier and your brain to register it faster.

Let’s see what I did in the study help example… Here are some of the techniques I used…

See how I created a heading?

Headings stand out. When appropriate in your notes, include headings.

See how I bolded four BACKUP?

I put the most important words in the heading in bold. Now my brain will register the words ‘four’ and the ‘backup’ easier. Subconsciously it will be imprinted in my brain that there are 4 backup types. In the exam I will be able to retrieve this information I deemed important because I have helped my brain to register it.

See how I used bullets?

Text in bullet form stands out. Not all your notes should have bullets. This will defeat the purpose of them. If all your notes had them they will stop standing out. Instead, throughout your notes, use different techniques.

Do you see that my notes only have the most relevant information?

Anything you already know you leave out. If you were going to create power notes from this Backup page, what would you leave out? What would you include? Do this little exercise. It will help you create your own power notes later.

Did you see how I wrote my notes in my own words?

Always. And I mean always write your notes in your very own words. Exactly how you understand the topic you are reading. No sentence from the book should creep up in your notes from the book.