• format your notes
• use headings and highlighting
• write different types of text summaries and pictorial ones, including concept maps and mind maps (you'll find out the difference, and the pros and cons of each)
• ask the right questions
• make the right connections
• review your notes
• evaluate text to work out which strategy is appropriate.

Being smart helps. Working hard helps more. But working effectively helps most of all.

There's a great deal that research can now tell us about how to study effectively. For 20 years, I've been reporting on research into memory and learning, and explaining how these findings can be translated into practical advice. In earlier books, I have presented a lot of detail on strategies in specific areas: note-taking, mnemonics, practice and revision. In this guide, I attempt to provide an overview of how to approach your learning, and the strategies you should consider using.

The book covers:

• preparing for learning
• approaching a text
• reading
• taking notes
• building understanding
• navigating non-linear environments
• dealing with lectures
• memorizing
• revising
• building expertise in skills
• how specific subjects differ in their needs & demands.

The book can be used as an adjunct and quick reference for those who have the more in-depth workbooks, or as a simplified guide for those who want the bottom-line without the detail.

This is not a book for students who want a magic bullet, who want a five-minute 'answer' to effortless study! But students who want to know that their time and effort are being used wisely, that their diligence will be rewarded with better marks and more long-lasting learning, this guide may be the answer they've long been looking for.

• what you should practice or revise
• how you should revise
• how often you should revise
• how far apart you should schedule your sessions
• different strategies you can use in your practice / revision
• how skill learning differs from 'fact' learning

Academic success is rooted in a number of factors, of which 'intelligence' is
only one. Attitude and beliefs, and knowledgeable strategy use, are critical.
This is the core message of this collection of articles and research
reports on study skills from the author's websites, arranged and edited for greater
cohesiveness. Its aim is to describe and provide evidence for concepts and strategies that may
change your approach to teaching or studying.

The book contains articles on:

• personal factors that affect academic achievement: motivation,
  persistence, anxiety, intelligence, self-regulation


• choosing strategies that are effective for the situation


• what 'transfer' is and why it's important


• how experts develop expertise


• the idea of 'desirable difficulties'


• the limits of memorization and rote learning


• some useful strategies in:
  
  
  • reading
  
  
  • note-taking
  
  
  • reaching understanding.
  
  
  
  

This
book is for students who are serious about being successful in study, and
teachers who want to know how best to help their students learn.

As always with the Mempowered books, the short book is fully referenced.

This highly visual and full-colour workbook takes you, step by step, through the process of
learning the Greek alphabet. It uses several strategies to help learners
achieve mastery quickly and thoroughly. These strategies include:

• grouping


• visual mnemonics


• test questions to help you practice


• vocabulary lists for reading practice.

These vocabulary lists appear for each group of letters, so you can practice
on words that only use the letters you have learned. To make them easier to read
(and also, beneficially, remember), the words are mostly related to English
words. Thus you can not only practice your letters, but also pick up some 800 words as well. Where the meaning of the words is less obvious, mnemonic keywords are provided.

The workbook includes:

• instruction on learning the individual letters


• visual and story mnemonics for learning the order of the alphabet


• targeted vocabulary lists


• full glossary with word meanings and mnemonics where appropriate


• a special section of words that provide roots used in English medical
  and scientific vocabulary.

Perfect Memory Training is essential reading for anyone who wants to strengthen their powers of recall. Written by Dr Fiona McPherson, a psychologist with years of experience in the field, it explains how memories are created and stored, sets out a range of techniques to help you improve these processes, and provides exercises to help you track your progress. Whether you want to get better at remembering names, faces, lists or pieces of general knowledge, Perfect Memory Training has everything you need to boost your mental ability.

The Perfect series is a range of practical guides that give clear and straightforward advice on everything from getting your first job to choosing your baby's name. Written by experienced authors offering tried-and-tested tips, each book contains all you need to get it right first time.

• grouping
• visual mnemonics
• test questions to help you practice
• vocabulary lists for further practice.

• instruction on learning the individual letters
• visual and story mnemonics for learning the order of the alphabet
• targeted vocabulary lists
• full glossary with word meanings and mnemonics where appropriate.

• acronyms & acrostics
• rhythm & rhyme
• keyword strategies (including the face-name association method)
• the story method
• the loci or journey method
• the pegword method
• the link method
• coding mnemonics

This version of Mnemonics for Study has an extensive English-Italian
glossary (750 words) to assist Italian readers. The relevant glossary is provided after each
section, and these section glossaries are all included in the Table of Contents
for easy reference. A complete glossary in alphabetical order is also included
at the end of the book.

A successful student uses effective strategies

Being a successful student is far more about being a smart user of effective
strategies than about being 'smart'. In fact it is possible to predict how well
a student will do simply on the basis of their use of study strategies.

Mnemonics is one class of study strategy that is of proven effectiveness, but
(like only too many effective strategies!) is used far too little. Despite many
studies showing the effectiveness of mnemonic strategies, they remain the least
frequently used formal memory aid used by students.

Perhaps the main reason for this is that their effectiveness is not intuitively
obvious — truly, no one really believes that these 'tricks' can so remarkably
improve memory until they try them for themselves.

But while mnemonics do not help you understand your material, they do help you
remember those many details you need to achieve expertise in a topic — details
such as the names of things, technical words, lists of principles.

Moreover, mnemonics can help you remember tags or labels that allow you to
access clusters of meaningful information -- for example, headings of a speech
or main points for exam essays. For both these reasons, mnemonics are a valuable
assistance to building up expertise in a subject, as well as in helping you
'cram' for an exam.

This concise book covers

• acronyms & acrostics


• rhythm & rhyme


• keyword strategies (including
  the face-name association method)


• the story method


• the loci or journey method
  


• the pegword method


• the link method


• coding mnemonics

While you can find basic
information on these various mnemonic strategies in many books and websites,
Mnemonics for Study goes far beyond the same tired descriptions, using the
latest research to explain exactly how these strategies work and are best used.

The hardest part of permanently improving your memory is changing your habits
and becoming an effective user of effective strategies. The best way to do this,
research has shown, is through understanding how different strategies work, and
when and how to use them. Through examples and exercises, that is what this book
aims to teach you.