: Pay close attention to charts and photos. They are often included to clarify the most important points in the text. Making It Stick
: After reading a section, try to explain it to someone else (or yourself) without looking at the book. If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it yet. TEXTBOOKS
: They "lay the bones" of a subject, providing the necessary architecture before you dive into primary sources or real-world practice. : Pay close attention to charts and photos
For those looking to optimize their time, resources like the UNC Learning Center and Cornell College offer excellent handouts on note-taking and active reading strategies. If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t
Don't just read from start to finish—hack the system with these active strategies:
: Create visual links between topics to help your brain organize similarities and differences. Skip and Return : If a concept feels like a "cage,"
: Tackle no more than 5-10 pages at a time to avoid feeling overwhelmed. The brain has biological limits on how much new data it can encode at once.