🧠 Study Skills & Note-Taking · Lesson 5 of 6
Reading textbooks and articles
SQ3R, reading for the main idea and keeping up with long readings.
SQ3R
| Survey | Skim headings, bold terms, figures and the summary (2–3 minutes) |
|---|---|
| Question | Turn each heading into a question |
| Read | Read one section to answer its question |
| Recite | Close the book and answer out loud or in a few words |
| Review | At the end, go back over all the questions |
Reading academic articles
You don’t read a research article front to back like a novel. Read the abstract, then the introduction’s last paragraph (the research question), then the conclusion/discussion, then figures and tables. Only then read methods and results in detail if you need them.
Highlight less, write more
Highlighting feels productive but does little alone. Instead, write a 1-line note in the margin per paragraph, or highlight only after reading a full section — just the sentence you would put in a summary.
Keeping up
Divide long readings by days: 60 pages before Friday = 15 pages Monday to Thursday. Read before the lecture when you can; the lecture then becomes your second exposure instead of your first.
Tip
💡 If a chapter has end-of-chapter questions, read them first. They tell you what the author thinks is important.
✏️ Practice: your turn
- Use SQ3R on your next textbook chapter
- Read one academic article in the abstract → intro → conclusion order
- Write a one-line margin note per paragraph for one section
- Split this week’s readings into daily chunks
✏️ Study planner: turn your exam dates into a day-by-day plan
🧠 Quick quiz
Answer all 4 questions correctly to mark this lesson as done.
0 of 4 correct
All lessons in Study Skills & Note-Taking
- 🧩 1. How memory worksEncoding, storage, retrieval — and why rereading fools you
- 📓 2. Cornell notes and other note-taking systemsCues, notes and a summary — and when to use outlines, maps or charts
- 🎯 3. Active recall: test yourselfPractice testing, flashcards done right and the blank-page method
- 📅 4. Spacing and interleavingSpread out review sessions and mix up problem types
- 📘 5. Reading textbooks and articlesSQ3R, reading for the main idea and keeping up with long readings
- 📵 6. Focus and your phoneDeep work blocks, the Pomodoro technique and a distraction-free setup