Study Guides - Blog Posts

🌠Guide to Study Guides

Hi, so I make study guides when I revise as referenced to in this post/ask here. So in this post I’m gonna try and show you guys how I go about making a study guide like I did for sociology or philosophy, both of which are shown in that link there. This is my method so it probably is really complicated and stuff, I know for sure that my guides are overly “fancy” and whatnot, but it makes me happy and I guess the extra effort does pay off, at least aesthetically. 

Okay, yes, let’s begin…

1. Visit colourlovers.com to choose a colour scheme for your guide!

I’ve provided the link to the most loved palette page which is where I choose my colour scheme. In Word, you change your colour scheme by choosing Page Layout > Colour > Create New Theme Colours and you go from there!! I basically started making my own colour schemes after I went through all the ones already provided by Word, but to be honest you can start with those since they’re really nice too. I recommend: Apex, Composite, Foundry, Metro, Module, Slipstream and Solstice.

If you do want to make your own colour scheme, you should get ready to do some fiddling around because I still don’t get this really. Making a colour scheme on Word requires at least 10 colours, that’s okay because on colourlovers, palettes are usually made up of 5 so just choose 2 that you think suit each other :) After this you need to input the hex codes manually into the popup window of “Create New Theme Colours” starting from Text/Background - Dark 2 to Accent 6. The hex codes are provided by individually clicking on the colours.

So that’s what one of my self-made colour schemes look like, you should be aware that Word usually randomises these? I don’t really know how it works but basically sometimes the colours won’t necessarily be in that order when you go to select it to specifically colour a word, if that’s the case you’ll just have to fiddle and change it around to choose your preferred colour in the scheme. Also not all the colours will go into the textbox options so be aware of that too!

2. Font shopping

Next if I haven’t updated the font collection for a while I’ll go to dafont.com because I just…really like jazzy fonts. From here I’ll either check out “All The New Fonts” (option is at the bottom of the front page) or go to the menu titled Script, and check out Handwritten, Fancy or Various. Here are some links to asks about fonts that I’ve used in my shown study guides or just fonts I like in general!! 1 and 2.

Okay so as you can see in the Disney Princess Document/Sociology Study Guide I used at least five fonts, I usually average around 4? Once downloaded choosing fonts that you like for your guide is basically a trial and error process, I choose any fonts that I like or haven’t recently used or just recently downloaded that I want to try out and I match them with what I think would look nice! Here I’ll show you why I use around four or more fonts:

In order to make the process of typing up your guide with these fonts easier, highlight one, so for example the Big Title, right click > Styles > Save Selection as New Quick Style…and it’ll be available to you in the Quick Styles menu underneath a heading like Style1. After this to easily change a font to that particular font, just highlight, go to Quick Styles, choose that particular font and bam! I try to make my fonts match, so if one is bold, I aim for at least a thick-ish font in the rest of my choices. Now to go through what they’re for. 

So obviously the Big Title is for your BIG TITLE that could be your subject or your main topic, so if it was sociology (like in the first pic) I would use it for Key Concepts and Methods, I might later reuse the font for another BIG TOPIC, but really…it’s your choice.

The Subtitle is what I would use for well…your subtitle, so following my first pic it would be the subtitle of Positivism versus Interpretivism…Three Key Concepts, etc. The heading is therefore for the headings under the subtitle (this is only if you’re making a guide for something that is like intensely sectioned, like sociology), so I’d use that font for where it says Reliability etc.

It just brings something extra on top of all the later colour you’ll probably use, although I only use it for like a set theme, so dates, names etc. and only either a word or a phrase, if it gets too long it’ll just mess up the format of your sentence. 

3. Okay, so you’re happily typing away but now you wanna add the speech bubbles, you wanna add the textboxes and the Disney princesses! Don’t worry my  friend, I got you.

Basically I add textboxes or speech bubbles for 2 reasons, either to highlight a particular point or differentiate a piece of information from the rest OR to fill up space because of some particular study guide pet peeves. 

Pet peeve, when a particular sentence ends like this:

I know it might seem like a bit much, but to be honest, it throws the whole format of a block of text if a bit of it ends with like this huge expanse of space. So in this instance I either will insert a photo or I’ll try and delete a word or add a word until I’m satisfied. THIS IS JUST ME, IF YOU DON’T CARE OBVIOUSLY IT DOESN’T MATTER 👌

You can insert speech bubbles by going to Insert > Shapes > Callouts (you’ll find it there) and textboxes by going to Insert > Textbox > Draw Textbox (I draw mine since I don’t tend to use the ones provided by Word. With the speech bubbles they actually act as textboxes, but I’ve found that using it in that way takes up a lot of space as in your words won’t necessarily take up the whole of the speech bubble so it simply expands and it’s all messy. Therefore, I put a textbox on the top of it, make the background and outline transparent and type there to save space. 

Here are some examples of when I’ve used photos or speech bubbles to fill up space or solve the annoying sentence problem.

I generally tend to have themes around what photos I use, so for example my sociology guide was largely based on Disney/Cartoon Network depending on how I felt and I’d use particular photos to emphasise a point and make it more entertaining I guess… As you can see the speech bubbles with LSP are for filler purposes but also to differentiate information, it just adds something extra really. Also because I continuously indent my guides (since I type with bullet points) as they get further and further in they’ll leave gaps that can be filled with photos, seen here with what I’ve done with LSP. Also with the photos that I choose, I search for the ones with a grey, checkered background which means that they’ll be transparent, allowing me to put them in front of a textbox or just makes overall design easier, it means that I can have the Gangreen Gang in front of that textbox like that :)

4. Final step, going over your guide when it’s done.

I then go through the guide again and highlight, underline, italicise, bold, colour etc. particular points of a sentence/paragraph that I want to remember! I do this in order of the colour scheme that appears in the menu when you click to change the colour of a font, so I’ll highlight particular words for a portion of a paragraph before changing, achieving a sort of a rainbow effect, like so:

These are from my history study guide, where I made front covers (which I don’t usually do…I feel like all my guides really depend on how I feel and my subject). This is what they looked like if you wanted an idea for something you could do too!!

Um..so that’s pretty much it! I’ve tried to make this as extensive and as in-depth as I can, I’m sorry it ended up SO LONG, I’ve never made a post this long before so I’m really sorry. I would put it under a read more but I feel like the font on my blog is too tiny for when it’s redirected and I’d much rather not have everyone straining their eyes. If you guys have any more questions, please feel free to ask. If you want any more examples or screen shots of my guides, just hit up my ask box!! Sorry for this taking so long and being so long once again and I really hope it helps you all in at least some way! 

***As an addition, those washi tapes you see are digital washi tapes which you can get just by googling! I use the free ones which only require a lil’ searching for. Also please tag me in whatever study guides you make and upload, I’d love to see them!!

More biology notes. Reviewing my old notes on Ecology, Evolution and Population Ecology for my Biology final exam.

How to make an awesome study guide / make notes on your computer

Writing by hand can be great in class or for jotting down notes from skimming through the text book. A great way to combine those notes are typing them up on your computer, and then print them out. Neat perfect notes with less paper wasted. Well printed out you can work with them even more to really get that information to stay. 

Go from 100 pages in the text book + a pile of handwritten notes to just a couple of pages of typed notes.

When typing them:

Layout. For each paragraph I make a headline in bold text. After that I use bullets and italicize terminology. I format the body text to be in two columns to save space and easier reading.

Keep it short. I  never write full sentences or grammatically correct. Write as short as possible while still getting the important information through. Making up abbreviations are an easy way to keep things short. It doesn’t have to look pretty, just make sure you understand it.

Simplify. Use arrows, dashes, colons, equal signs to indicate how different subjects and explanations are connected. Avoid “unnecessary“ words like "meaning…”, “such as”, “is the same as”. Use symbols instead. 

Tables. Making tables is an excellent idea for comparing things with different parameters. In your word processing program you can make your own pretty table designs or use pre-made ones. Sometimes simple ones are better though.

Paginate. Obvious but extremely useful!

Print on both sides of the paper. With half the amount of paper it kind of psychologically feel that you have less material to learn. 

Example:

What not to write:

Different species have different niches. You can define a niche as a species specialty, like its job.

Instead, try to remove unnecessary words that don’t contain much information.

Niche = a specie’s specialty, job.

When you have them on paper

All freshly printed and done? Great! Take your pens, pencils and highlighters and let’s go through the material. The first time I go through it I let it take a good while and I read it very carefully with my highlighters and pens handy.

Highlighting. If you’re into highlighting I have some tips for you. Don’t use one colour. Use several and assign each colour a different task or role. For me it really makes a big difference and I can see what’s what. Here’s an example of how I do it:

Pink: Headlines and headings Blue: Terms and words Green: Definitions and meaning of the term. (Green explains blue) Yellow: Examples and misc

Drawing. It’s helpful if you couldn’t draw said thing on the computer. What I like to do though is to make small doodles related to the terms, definitions, examples or the paragraphs in them selves in the margin. 

Notes. Take notes or mark off things you find extra hard or confusing.

When you’ve done all of that and your notes are a colourful clusterfuck I read them through again and again. You can also hold over the paragraph and try to either write down or explain verbally what the paragraph is about. Try not to completely memorize the paragraphs, instead really try to understand the concept.

I hope that was helpful for some of you :) I know exams are coming up and this can be a fun thing to try out. After I’ve made my study guide I almost exclusively study from it. I don’t use the textbook from that point on except for answering practice questions. 

If you have any questions, feel free to send me a message.

Good luck! ♥

Superb Study Guides and Mini Moleskines

(A more concise version of this will be published in my college’s newspaper on Thursday. I will likely add or link diagrams and examples to this post, so you can check the original here.)

As a tutor, many students ask me for tips on making study guides. Generally, my response is that, “it depends”.

But hold on. Before we continue we should discuss what the purpose of a study guide really is.

Study guides fall into two main categories: study guides that prompt you to find/think about information and study guides that directly organize the information you need to know. Some professors provide you with study guides of the former kind (i.e., you’re not given the answers), and it’s essentially your job to create your own study guide of the latter type. Both categories serve the purpose of organizing information you already have in order to synthesize a study tool that best facilitates your comprehension and memorization of the information at hand, just at a different stage in the process.

Before you even start, it is helpful to be aware of the level at which you are required to know the information for your test. The most basic of these is recalling definitions, which can accomplished by use of flashcards. Other information you’ll have to know will require you to compare ideas or apply them. Think of your learning process as literal → interpretive → applicative, meaning you will need study guides that help you visualize, draw relationships, and understand material so you may memorize less in a way that helps you answer more, and better than straight memorization ever could.

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Concept Map:

These can be anything from a basic branching diagram to a complex mind map. This type of study guide allows you to compare information in a more spatial manner than strictly linear. Let’s be honest; sometimes linear learning is unrealistic, because our world is not truly linear. This format allows you to start from the basic, bare bones of the topic you’re studying and expand into very specific details and examples. This way you can get a really solid overview of the information and delve deeper as necessary. At least for mind maps in specific, Mindly is a beautiful and highly functional mind mapping app for iOS. It’s worth the small price, I can tell you that.

Comparison Chart:

Another visually-oriented type of study guide, comparison charts are the easiest way to map out similarities and differences for various topics. The biggest advantage of this method is that you can easily find the important similarities and differences of the subjects in question without having to reread a chapter or search through your piles of notes. It won’t help you visually connect topics like a mind map would, but this very simple tool is important and useful in its own rite.

Index Cards:

Before you skip over this because you think you know what I’m talking about, this is not the same as a flashcard. Flashcards have the very basic purpose of helping you memorize information, and little else. Index cards, however, are like flashcards on steroids because they contain much more information and are used primarily to summarize key information in a portable way that allows you to easily locate more details if necessary. Allow me to break down how you might want to use this method.

Front:

Middle: Main idea [e.g. alveoli]

Upper Right: Organizational term [e.g. respiratory system]

Bottom Middle: Source of information [e.g. Chapter 17, pg. 479 or Notes from 11/26/2013]

Back:

In your own words, what’s most important to know about the concept.

Include examples, summaries, diagrams, definitions, etc.

Be detailed! Remember, this is not about strictly memorizing.

Make sure the content corresponds to level of understanding your professor excepts

Diagram:

This one is pretty self-explanatory, but is extremely dependent on the topic at hand. This could be anything from a chemical reaction scheme, a cycle, Venn diagram, etc. You may even consider making a timeline, which is great for chronological organization of ideas. This is not limited to history, though! You can also organize information from classes such as anthropology, psychology, biology, anatomy, physiology, ecology, etc. If it has a specific, linear order, it can be made into a timeline.

Question Prompts:

This method I find works very well if you use the Cornell note-taking method. If you’re using Cornell notes, you would write your prompts in the left hand column next to where the answers are located, then just cover up the answers when studying. For example, for something as simple as a definition you could write, “What is _____?” For something more complicated such as a comparison chart, you could write, “What are the key differences between _____ and _____?” If you want, you can even ask questions that aren’t directly answered in the adjacent text such as, “Why is [idea] important to [concept]?”

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Now that you know what formats you might use for your study guides (remember you don’t have to stick with just one), you may wonder where you can put this information. The basic answer to that question: anywhere. Many people like to draw these things on computer paper. You may want to type some of these things. If you’re using Mindly then you would be inputting the information into an app. I would like to offer up the suggestion of little mini notebooks for each class. I personally make these study guide materials on paper or a computer first, then when I’m satisfied with the result, I copy it down into my pocket-sized Moleskine notebooks. I personally prefer the squared, dotted, or blank notebooks, but whatever suits your fancy. The benefit to these little notebooks is that you have all of the information you need to study for in a small, convenient little book that you can easily keep in your backpack all the time because of its size. (Ladies, it will even fit in a clutch!) Study on the bus, waiting for class to start, when eating at the cafeteria, while waiting for your laundry to finish, etc. Not to mention, this will help you avoid losing papers because they’re all in one place.

Just try not to lose the notebook.