How to Take Smart Notes. One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sönke Ahrens

Author:Sönke Ahrens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sönke Ahrens
Published: 2022-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

When we try to answer a question before we know how to, we will later remember the answer better, even if our attempt failed (Arnold and McDermott 2013). If we put effort into the attempt of retrieving information, we are much more likely to remember it in the long run, even if we fail to retrieve it without help in the end (Roediger and Karpicke 2006). Even without any feedback, we will be better off if we try to remember something ourselves (Jang et al. 2012). The empirical data is pretty unambiguous, but these learning strategies do not necessarily feel right. Intuitively, most students resort to cramming, which is just another term for reading something again and again in a failed attempt to learn it (Dunlosky et al. 2013). And as much as rereading doesn’t help with learning, it certainly doesn’t help with understanding. Admittedly, cramming does get information into your head for a short while – usually long enough to stay in there to pass a test. But cramming won’t help you learn. As Terry Doyle and Todd Zakrajsek put it: “If learning is your goal, cramming is an irrational act” (Doyle and Zakrajsek 2013).25

Instead of reviewing a text, you could just as well play a round of ping-pong. In fact, chances are it would help you more because exercise helps to transfer information into long-term memory (cf. Ratey 2008). Plus, exercise reduces stress, which is good, because stress floods our brains with hormones that suppress learning processes (Baram et al. 2008).

In short: Pure re-viewing just doesn’t make any sense, neither for understanding nor for learning. It is debatable if we even can call it learning.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the best-researched and most successful learning method is elaboration. It is very similar to what we do when we take smart notes and combine them with others, which is the opposite of mere re-viewing (Stein et al. 1984) Elaboration means nothing other than really thinking about the meaning of what we read, how it could inform different questions and topics and how it could be combined with other knowledge. In fact, “Writing for Learning” is the name of an “elaboration method” (Gunel, Hand, and Prain 2007). But there is a caveat. Even though elaboration works verifiably well for deep understanding, it might not be the best choice if you just want to learn isolated encyclopaedic facts (Rivard 1994). But as long as you are not striving for a career as a quiz show candidate, why would you want that, anyway? The slip-box takes care of storing facts and information. Thinking and understanding is what it can’t take off your shoulders, which is why it makes sense to focus on this part of the work. That it facilitates learning as well is a nice side effect. Luhmann almost never read a text twice (Hagen 1997) and was still regarded as an impressive conversation partner who seemed to have all information ready to hand.26

Working with the slip-box, therefore, doesn’t mean storing information in there instead of in your head, i.

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