Oh, jeez! It is the end of the semester again and the summary of the lecture contents is on the agenda. After all, this is an important part of the exam preparation. But the prospect of getting all the content out is not as exciting for you as turning the heating to full throttle at 30 degrees outside temperature? Writing a summary is hardly one of Homo Studius’s favourite pastimes.
But not so hastily. Because it is not so difficult to write a summary. One that really makes sense and really gets you ahead in your learning. Hello – time saving and insight! But to make it as bulletproof and waterproof as possible, you should know the most important tips and tricks on the subject of content summaries. Here are the five most effective steps for a summary that can give you the decisive advantage at the exam!
First things first: What are the basics of writing a summary?
Fortunately, it’s not atomic physics to write a meaningful summary for the university. The following five steps will definitely get you there:
1. Hamster mode: Collect all important learning information
The summary is the basis of your learning plan and therefore an important basis. Your learning success stands and falls with it. First of all, get an overview of the material and view all learning materials. In particular, schemata and concepts as well as notes from the lectures, which could be important for your exam.
2. Structure brings insight
Now that you’ve gathered all the potentially relevant content, it’s time to get it in shape. Find the red thread by creating an overview of the important material and seeing where topics build on each other.
You can also understand the connections between the different aspects much better in this way. It can be very useful to divide longer texts, such as university scripts, into coarser sections. It is sufficient to divide the learning material into different segments on your table and read them roughly across the table.
The second step is to filter the relevant aspects from the material you have. Mark the most important parts of your text with colourful colours and/or underline them so that they definitely catch your eye. After this step you should have all the information you need for this part of your content summary ready.
3. Separating the wheat from the chaff
This step is more than important for a summary. After all, the point in this case is to compress the knowledge. It is not necessary to learn everything that is possible. Because in the end you want to have something like a life next to studying. “Work smart, not hard” – have you ever heard of it?
In order to make the filtered content easier to understand, it can make sense to visualize it using a mind map. This is also available online in the StudySmarter app, for example. But not only that – the app also helps you to save a lot of time and nerves with the summary. For example, simply upload your university script in PDF format and start highlighting the most important points online. The app will automatically create a summary for you! Bet you can work so much faster and more thoroughly than drawing around in the script with your pen! Exactly!
Ask yourself the following questions:
– Which contents are relevant for the exam and which are not?
– What are the most important topics?
– What should you learn first?
As you can see, nothing works here without priorities. So it is appropriate to have the courage to prove that there is a gap, so that you are not allowed to delete important learning material immediately.
4. Writing a summary made easy
This brings us directly to the fourth point. After all, you’re probably a little panicked about forgetting important content in the summary. But don’t worry, there is an antidote. And that’s called a checklist.
Write down all the points that must appear in your summary. This includes, among other things, definitions, key figures and correlations, which you create according to the category. Definitions, for example, would have their own list, key figures would also have their own list. In this way you can make sure that your summary contains everything that is relevant to the exam and that you can still halve the learning time.
5. Write it out – time to write the summary!
Have you summarized all the information you need yourself? With this method you can also save time and gain an overview thanks to StudySmarter App. Since this is only intended for you, you don’t have to write very pompously. Just write in your own words. Then upload your summary to the app and mark the most important places online. Here you also have the possibility to create flashcards, which will make it even easier for you to memorize the summary
Also, be careful to remain factually correct: When it comes to statistics, for example, it is not enough to write down “half of all respondents” for the figure “60 percent of respondents”. So even with a summary, always work in detail – which is especially important for MC exams.
