Before you begin any learning activity, take a few minutes to prepare yourself for it. Five minutes spent in this way can easily save you an hour in trying to make up for it.
Getting ready to capture main ideas is similar to preparing for a visit to another part of the country. You need to prepare for the journey and the activities you will find at your destination.
Similar preparations for a reading assignment will make it far more productive. Preview the materials. Look for ways the information is presented in hopes of finding how main ideas are indicated. Other readings you have previously encountered may provide helpful clues. Of special importance, pay attention to the ways titles, sub-titles, bold-faced type, boxes, etc., might indicate main ideas.
Perhaps most importantly, try to form some expectations of the main ideas that will be presented. If your expectations are on target, you will remember those main ideas better because they were already in your brain. If your expectations are not on target, you will also remember them better because they surprised you.
With lectures, your preparations for selecting main ideas are perhaps of greater value. You will be in a situation where you cannot alter the pace of time and that makes it more imperative to foresee the possibilities you will encounter. Again, take some time to prepare. Specifically:
- Recall how main ideas were communicated in previous lectures.
- Speculate on how main ideas will be presented in the upcoming lecture.
- Again, form some expectations of what you will find as main ideas. Your expectations are helpful regardless of their accuracy.