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| • SQ3R - Increasing Your Retention of Written Information |
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| • How to Use Tool |
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SQ3R is a useful technique for fully absorbing written information. It helps you to create a good mental framework of a subject, into which you can fit facts correctly. It helps you to set study goals. It also prompts you to use the review techniques that will help to fix information in your mind. By using SQ3R to actively read a document, you can get the maximum benefit from your reading time.
The acronym SQ3R stands for the five sequential techniques you should use to read a book:
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Survey |
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Survey the document: scan the contents, introduction, chapter introductions and chapter summaries to pick up a shallow overview of the text. Form an opinion of whether it will be of any help. If it does not give you the information you want, discard it. |
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Question |
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Make a note of any questions on the subject that come to mind, or particularly interest you following your survey. Perhaps scan the document again to see if any stand out. These questions can be considered almost as study goals - understanding the answers can help you to structure the information in your own mind. |
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Read |
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Now read the document. Read through useful sections in detail, taking care to understand all the points that are relevant. In the case of some texts this reading may be very slow. This will particularly be the case if there is a lot of dense and complicated information. While you are reading, it can help to take notes in Concept Map format. |
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Recall |
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Once you have read appropriate sections of the document, run through it in your mind several times. Isolate the core facts or the essential processes behind the subject, and then see how other information fits around them. |
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Review |
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Once you have run through the exercise of recalling the information, you can move on to the stage of reviewing it. This review can be by rereading the document, by expanding your notes, or by discussing the material with colleagues. A particularly effective method of reviewing information is to have to teach it to someone else! |
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| • Key points |
SQ3R is a useful technique for extracting the maximum amount of benefit from your reading time. It helps you to organize the structure of a subject in your mind. It also helps you to set study goals and to separate important information from irrelevant data.
SQ3R is a 5 stage active reading technique. The stages are:
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Survey |
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Question |
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Read |
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Recall |
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Review |
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If you use SQ3R, you will significantly improve the quality of your study time. In the next article, we look at the popular topic of speed reading. To read this, click 'Next article' below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list underneath. |
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| • Speed Reading - Radically Increasing Your Reading Speed |
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| • How to Use Tool |
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Speed Reading helps you to read and understand text more quickly. It is an essential skill in any environment where you have to master large volumes of information quickly, as is the norm in fast-moving professional environments. |
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• The Key Insight |
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The most important trick about speed reading is to know what information you want from a document before you start reading it: if you only want an outline of the issue that the document discusses, then you can skim the document very quickly and extract only the essential facts. If you need to understand the real detail of the document, then you need to read it slowly enough to fully understand it.
You will get the greatest time savings from speed reading by learning to skim documents that have more detail than you need. |
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| • Technical Issues |
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Even when you know how to ignore irrelevant detail, there are other technical improvements you can make to your reading style which will increase your reading speed. Most people learn to read the way young children read - either letter-by-letter, or word-by-word. For most adults, this is probably not the case - think about how your eye muscles are moving now. You will probably find that you are fixing your eyes on one block of words, then moving your eyes to the next block of words, and so on. You are reading blocks of words at a time, not individual words one-by-one. You may also notice that you do not always go from one block to the next: sometimes you may move back to a previous block if you are unsure about something.
A skilled reader will read many words in each block. He or she will only dwell on each block for an instant, and will then move on. Only rarely will the reader's eyes skip back to a previous block of words. This reduces the amount of work that the reader's eyes have to do. It also increases the volume of information that can be examined in a period of time. A poor reader will become bogged down, spending a lot of time reading small blocks of words. He or she will skip back often, losing the flow and structure of the text and overall understanding of the subject. This irregular eye movement will make reading tiring. Poor readers tend to dislike reading, and may find it harder to concentrate and understand written information.
Speed reading aims to improve reading skills by:
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Increasing the number of words read in each block |
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Reducing the length of time spent reading each block |
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Reducing the number of times your eyes skip back to a previous sentence |
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These are explained below:
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Increasing the number of words in each block |
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This needs a conscious effort. Try to expand the number of words that you read at a time. Practice will help you to read faster. You may also find that you can increase the number of words read by holding the text a little further from your eyes. The more words you can read in each block, the faster you will read! |
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Reducing Fixation Time |
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The minimum length of time needed to read each block is probably only a quarter of a second. By pushing yourself to reduce the time you take, you will get better at picking up information quickly. Again, this is a matter of practice and confidence. |
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Reducing |
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To reduce the number of times that your eyes skip back to a previous sentence, run a pointer along the line as you read. This could be a finger, or a pen or pencil. Your eyes will follow the tip of your pointer, smoothing the flow of your reading. The speed at which you read using this method will largely depend on the speed at which you move the pointer. |
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You will be able to increase your reading speed a certain amount on your own by applying speed reading techniques. What you don't get out of self-study is the use of specialist reading machines and the confidence gained from successful speed-reading - this is where a good one-day course can revolutionize your reading skills. |
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| • Key points |
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By speed reading you can read information more quickly. You may also get a better understanding of it as you will hold more of it in short term memory. To improve the speed of your reading, read more words in each block and reduce the length of time spent reading each block. Use a pointer to smooth the way your eyes move and reduce skip-back.
In the next article, we look at reading strategies. These help you read more quickly by helping you read intelligently. To read these, click 'Next article' below. Other relevant destinations are shown in the "Where to go from here" list underneath. |
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