For this video I'm going to show you how you can take notes from your textbooks

in order to make the most condensed summaries to help you study before your exams.

Just grab your book and some paper and let's get started!

The first thing I do is to reference the title of the material I'm going to summarize

and the pages of the book my notes are referring to.

I like to have a little bit of fun with the titles of my notes,

and that also helps with visualizing your material

and making this process more creative.

Skim through the text you want to summarize

and try to divide it as much as possible

into manageable chapters or paragraphs.

The more structure your notes have,

the easier it will be to memorize them.

Afterwards, I just start to take my notes.

I try as much as possible to divide each subchapter

in a clear way, so I can reference back easily.

To select relevant information

I'll read a paragraph from my textbook

and after reading, I'll then proceed to write down what I thought was important.

It's crucial to always use your own words for this process

and never copy exactly what you read in your textbook.

Also, don't rush!

Read slowly if you have to, and write short sentences.

You don't need to write a long phrase to summarize the page or paragraph you are working on.

The shorter the sentence, the more impact it will have

and you'll memorize it a lot better.

You can also group those sentences in bullet points

Studying through a bullet-form let's you categorize information

And grasp the relationship between different portions of your material.

Highlight things that you think you need to remember on the long run

or are perfect to summarize a big portion of information.

Use symbols to make relevant phrases pop out.

I like to draw warning signs before a sentence

that is crucial for me to remember.

Don't use too many colors!

Working with colors in your notes

is good when you're taking lecture notes

because you are categorizing your information as you hear it.

But it's actually better to keep a monochromatic scheme

if you are taking notes from your books.

This happens because book summaries are the ultimate piece of information

that you read and they're already stripped out of

everything useless for you to learn.

Since you have to remember everything that's on that paper,

using colors would only make some sentences seem more important

when they all have the exact same importance.

So keep your color scheme minimalistic!

A good way to learn how to summarize your textbooks

in an efficient way

Is to use sticky notes previously to writing down your notes.

You can stick a note on top of a paragraph

and summarize the paragraph through your own words on that sticky note

without reading what's underneath

Then, without looking at that same sticky note,

You should write what you've READ in your notebook.

That represents a double effort

in memorizing your material.

Also, summarizing a textbook

through sticky notes

is a good way if you are cramming for an exam

and lack the time to make extensive summaries from your books.

Also,

try to incorporate your in class notes.

If the information from your classes overlaps with the information from your book,

don't write it twice.

However,

if you find certain pieces of information

in your lecture notes that don't appear in your book,

be sure to write them down

so you have the most thorough possible summaries.

If you want,

signal those parts with a symbol

so you know where that piece of information comes from.

Also, don't neglect supplemental material!

This means that, if you find charts or tables

you need to find a way to incorporate them into your material

or your notes will be incomplete.

One way to do this is just to draw them on your summaries

directly on paper or on a sticky note.

If you don't have the time,

you can also write down the pages where that supplemental material appears

so you can go back and check out what's missing in your notes.

I hope you've found this video useful for future studying!

If you are new here,

don't forget to subscribe to my channel

and give this video a giant thumbs up!

I will see you on my next video!

Bye!