BIRCHAM INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

• Exploratory reading and its goals:

Begin familiarizing yourself with the text by first assessing the length of the chapter, going through titles, charts, bold text, and so on. Try to determine what the structure of the book is and then calculate how much time it will take you to read it in order to establish weekly study goals. Remember: be realistic in your assessment of time and goals. If you set up objectives that are impossible to reach, you will be frustrated and discouraged.

• Differentiate what you know from what you do not know:

Take notes about what you already know about the subject of the text and about what you can learn by reading it. This exercise will prepare you to better associate the new concepts you will acquire with those you already do know. Maintaining clear study objectives will increase your memory and comprehension capacity. Always explore the chapters that come before and after the one being studied. If you develop a broader perspective of the context of the chapter under study, your brain will assimilate concepts faster and more efficiently. If you still have doubts, keep reading. They will surely clear up in the pages to come.

• Analytic reading:

Once you have finished the quickly exploratory reading of the text, read it paragraph by paragraph classifying them according to their degree of difficulty. If a paragraph has been easy to understand write an exclamation mark ( ! ) on its margin; if you have understood it evenly but it seems a little dense, write an "X" on its margin. Finally, if you have not understood what you have read because the paragraph is too complex, write instead a question mark ( ? ) on the margin. Once you have classified all the paragraphs in the chapter, approach the text again in the following way: First, read all the "X" paragraphs, and then read all the "?" paragraphs: you will then realize all the "?" paragraphs do not seem as difficult or complex as they did previously. You may even wonder why you did not understand them in your first reading.

• Review reading:

Reread everything and write an asterisk ( * ) on the margin of more relevant paragraphs; write "V" in those paragraphs in which you have encountered new terms and vocabulary. It is always easier to remember a word in its context. When you underline words and parts of the text, you are preparing it for summary and memorization, not for assimilation and understanding.

• Draw up a summary chart:

Focus on organizing ideas, concepts, and formulas in chart form. This will give you the basic structure for the table of contents you will have to present on the first pages of your required academic work.

• 6- Apply and review what you learned:

Comment on, practice, and develop what you have learned. While studying and reading, it is important to develop one's own criteria. Integrate those ideas and review all your summaries before going to bed. Serotonin is produced and released in higher amounts during sleep, so you will assimilate concepts better before going to bed.

• The different sides of understanding:

1. Description: To present the characteristics of a concept, idea, etc.
2. Definition: To specify its main elements and characteristics.
3. Classification: To identify the different categories, groups, and subgroups the concept, idea, or object belongs to.
4. Comparison: To discover similarities and differences between two things or for a series of things.
5. Induction: To establish a general rule by studying specifics.
6. Deduction: To arrive at conclusions based on initial premises after carrying out a series of logical operations.
7. Analysis: To separate the different elements that make up a structure.
8. Synthesis: To extract the most elemental aspects of a whole, and, in general, to understand the different relationships that exist among things; i.e. "be a part of," "depend on," "be caused by," etc.