Study skills for success

SUCCESS REQUIRES motivation, time management and a measure of luck. Anyone who says that they got through high school and university without hard work and study is not being honest. Success requires effort and time set aside, giving up something else perhaps. Useful hints may trigger off motivation or enhance it but nothing can keep it alive and sustain it except the person concerned. Whatever our age, we alone are responsible for our study habits and hence for the development and polishing of our study skills.

Basic study skills include improved reading efficiency, note making, organisation of material and effective oral and written presentation. Dictionaries, atlases, encyclopaedias, reference to indexes, footnotes and glossaries and even the first contents page of a book require efficient study skills for effective reference.

All of us have found ourselves reading a chapter from a book, yet unable to remember any of it. To remedy this -

*Begin by surveying what you are about to read. Look at the section heads and shoulder - notes, charts and pictures.

*Next search your memory for what you already know about what you are going to read. The more you know about what you read, the easier it is to process it into the long-term memory.

*Read only one paragraph at a time and do not underline as you read. If you are studying for an exam, mark the possible question in the margin and recite the answer to yourself.

*It may take longer to read the chapter in this way but there are advantages including that you may never need to read it again. You study the book systematically and you also know answers to probable questions.

*The techniques of skimming and scanning are good study skills. To skim is literally to remove cream lightly from the top of milk. To touch the chapter lightly and in the passing is useful in the first step of reading the chapter which may require rapidly skimming through the text to get the summary. Scanning on the other hand is looking with great attention through the text for predetermined information like dates, names, etc.

*Following from scanning is the preparation of abstracts and charts and diagrams. Like with all items of presentation, each technique is useful when used with discretion and at the right place. A pie chart for instance displays the different constituents of anything shown. Likewise graphs and bar diagrams are tools to be used with consideration of need and form.

Although it is well to distinguish between note taking and note making, the two are akin. It is impossible to take down all that the lecturer says or all that our reading presents to us. The art of note- preparation has deep roots in the Indian bureaucratic system but for the unsuspecting student, it presents myriad problems. Writing telegraphically, which until recently was expected of students studying languages, holds the key to notes. Complete sentences are not required and it is important to evolve a personalised set of abbreviations and short forms.

The dictionary's standard abbreviations could be something to start with and go by. Another technique for notes is making use of margins and other blank spaces to label the notes and create sections with heads. This is especially useful for retrieval.

The acquisition and improvement of study skills, like with all other skills, requires the existence of a gap or the perception of a gap in the accomplishment of the objective. This leads to the accessing of the required skill or information through reading and from study and demonstration. The next stage is the retrieval through writing and speaking which leads to a further identification of a gap and the upward spiral to perfection and excellence continues.

LAKSHMI RAMESHWAR RAO

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