<p>During studies, <strong>how we revise what we have learned is a personal preference, which we incorporate after trial and error and what feels intuitive or effective to us.</strong></p>
<p>According to research, the popular revising methods like rereading, highlighting and summarizing don’t seem to work as effectively as previously thought.</p>

The Art Of Studying: Revision

<ul>
<li><strong>Rereading</strong>: A widely followed method of passively studying again what is already studied, rereading has been proven to be ineffective and inefficient.</li>
<li><strong>Highlighting</strong>: Another popular method is proven by the study to be a mere ‘safety blanket’, and may hinder our learning by disconnecting certain aspects of information, due to us paying attention to only the highlighted stuff.</li>
<li><strong>Summarizing</strong>: Making notes seems to be an extremely reliable revision method, but is proven to be partially effective for people who are skilled in the art of summarizing information, and not for others.</li>
</ul>

Revision: Popular But Low-Utility Techniques

<p><strong>Active recall and self-questioning (Quiz Mode)</strong>, which trains the brain to fetch information, are the best way to retain the study material and form connections.</p>

How To Revise: Active Recall

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      <h1></h1><p>Revision is personal. How we revise, the techniques we use and the time we spend trying to revise will vary but we do all drift towards techniques that feel intuitively productive. We're never sure what is the optimal technique but research has shown that by far the most popular strategies revolve around rereading, highlighting and summarising. </p><p>However, studies have shown that these techniques don't consistently boost our performance. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26173288">This paper</a> from 2013 by Professor Dunlosky, analysed hundreds of studies relating to revision technique and showed that these three popular techniques had 'low utility' when compared to other approaches. This post explores why. </p><h2>1. Rereading<br/></h2><p>Rereading is the most popular technique that students rely upon to revise. It's straightforward and gives the impression that we're engaging in productive work.</p><p>However, research suggests that it isn’t a productive nor efficient form of studying. Rereading is generally passive - the brain is most effective at retaining information when it is being actively used. </p><p>Dunlosky and his colleagues concluded that rereading notes or textbooks has ‘low utility’. Whilst it can improve some very short-term retention, in comparison to other techniques that you could be doing, it is far from ideal. </p><blockquote><em>“When compared with some other learning techniques, rereading is typically much less effective…The relative disadvantage of rereading to other techniques is the largest strike against rereading and is the factor that weighed most heavily in our decision to assign it a rating of low utility”.</em><br/></blockquote><p>In essence, despite the vast majority of us relying on rereading as a technique to enhance our revision, it is ineffective, inefficient and has ‘low utility’ when compared with other techniques.<br/></p><h2>2. Highlighting <br/></h2><p>The second popular technique is highlighting. Once again, evidence suggests that highlighting is a particularly popular revision strategy – it's active, feels productive and even allows our creative tendencies to (over)flow into making our notes look colourful!</p><p>However, if we go back to the meta-study conducted by Professor Dunlosky and his colleagues, they rated highlighting as having low utility too - simply providing what Dunlosky called a “safety blanket”. </p><blockquote><em>“In most situations…highlighting does little to boost performance. It may actually hurt performance on higher-level tasks that require inference making”.</em></blockquote><p></p><p>This second point about inference is especially important. Many subjects  at A-Level and university require some degree of making inferences. As such, highlighting could be hindering our performance when tasked with making such inferences.</p><h2>3. Summarising / Making Notes<br/></h2><p>Summarising and making notes has great appeal too as a means of making our revision feel more productive. Whilst evidence is more equivocal in this case and the quality of notes varies between students, Professor Dunlosky and his colleagues concluded that:</p><blockquote><em>“On the basis of the available evidence, we rate summarization as low utility. It can be an effective learning strategy for learners who are already skilled at summarizing; however, many learners (including children, high school students, and even some undergraduates) will require extensive training, which makes this strategy less feasible”.</em></blockquote><p>In essence, if you know how to effectively summarise and make notes it can be useful but we're rarely, if ever, taught or trained to make notes effectively. Even if you're particularly adept at note-taking, the technique still falls around the middle of the pack compared to other revision techniques. </p><p>Consequently, the conclusion we should draw from this is that: <strong><em>M</em></strong><em><strong>aking notes is far less effective than we perhaps convince ourselves that it can be</strong></em>. </p><p>This isn't to say that making notes is a complete waste of time – it can sometimes make revision enjoyable if you like using colours or calligraphy. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that it's one of the more effective revision techniques – just because we're writing things down, doesn’t mean we're making the best use of our revision time!</p><hr/><p>Rereading, highlighting and summarising may be popular strategies that we've probably all relied upon at some stage during our studies. However, their popularity does not correlate with how effective they are. I will explore the revision techniques that we could be utilising to make our studying more effective and efficient in future blog posts in this 'How To Study' series.</p><hr/><p><em>This article references the first half of </em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukLnPbIffxE"><em>this video</em></a><em> which looks at these 3 popular but ineffective revision tips. The second half of the video, which looks at active recall, will be addressed in the next 'How To Study' blog post. </em><br/></p>
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How To Study: 3 Popular Revision Techniques You Should Avoid

<p>Revision is personal. How we revise, the techniques we use and the time we spend trying to revise will vary but we do all drift towards techniques that feel intuitively productive. We're never sure what is the optimal technique but research has shown that by far the most popular strategies revolve around rereading, highlighting and summarising. </p>

<p>However, studies have shown that these techniques don't consistently boost our performance. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26173288">This paper </a>from 2013 by Professor Dunlosky, analysed hundreds of studies relating to revision technique and showed that these three popular techniques had 'low utility' when compared to other approaches. This post explores why. </p>

<p>Rereading is the most popular technique that students rely upon to revise. It's straightforward and gives the impression that we're engaging in productive work. </p>

<p>However, research suggests that it isn’t a productive nor efficient form of studying. Rereading is generally passive - the brain is most effective at retaining information when it is being actively used. </p>

<p>Dunlosky and his colleagues concluded that rereading notes or textbooks has ‘low utility’. Whilst it can improve some very short-term retention, in comparison to other techniques that you could be doing, it is far from ideal. </p>

<em>“When compared with some other learning techniques, rereading is typically much less effective…The relative disadvantage of rereading to other techniques is the largest strike against rereading and is the factor that weighed most heavily in our decision to assign it a rating of low utility”. </em>

<p>In essence, despite the vast majority of us relying on rereading as a technique to enhance our revision, it is ineffective, inefficient and has ‘low utility’ when compared with other techniques.<br/> </p>

<p>The second popular technique is highlighting. Once again, evidence suggests that highlighting is a particularly popular revision strategy – it's active, feels productive and even allows our creative tendencies to (over)flow into making our notes look colourful! </p>

<p>However, if we go back to the meta-study conducted by Professor Dunlosky and his colleagues, they rated highlighting as having low utility too - simply providing what Dunlosky called a “safety blanket”. </p>

<em>“In most situations…highlighting does little to boost performance. It may actually hurt performance on higher-level tasks that require inference making”. </em>

<p>This second point about inference is especially important. Many subjects at A-Level and university require some degree of making inferences. As such, highlighting could be hindering our performance when tasked with making such inferences. </p>

<p>Summarising and making notes has great appeal too as a means of making our revision feel more productive. Whilst evidence is more equivocal in this case and the quality of notes varies between students, Professor Dunlosky and his colleagues concluded that: </p>

<em>“On the basis of the available evidence, we rate summarization as low utility. It can be an effective learning strategy for learners who are already skilled at summarizing; however, many learners (including children, high school students, and even some undergraduates) will require extensive training, which makes this strategy less feasible”. </em>

<p>In essence, if you know how to effectively summarise and make notes it can be useful but we're rarely, if ever, taught or trained to make notes effectively. Even if you're particularly adept at note-taking, the technique still falls around the middle of the pack compared to other revision techniques. </p>

<p>Consequently, the conclusion we should draw from this is that: <strong><em>M </em> </strong><em><strong>aking notes is far less effective than we perhaps convince ourselves that it can be </strong> </em>. </p>

<p>This isn't to say that making notes is a complete waste of time – it can sometimes make revision enjoyable if you like using colours or calligraphy. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that it's one of the more effective revision techniques – just because we're writing things down, doesn’t mean we're making the best use of our revision time! </p>

<p>Rereading, highlighting and summarising may be popular strategies that we've probably all relied upon at some stage during our studies. However, their popularity does not correlate with how effective they are. I will explore the revision techniques that we could be utilising to make our studying more effective and efficient in future blog posts in this 'How To Study' series. </p>

<p><em>This article references the first half of </em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukLnPbIffxE"><em>this video </em> </a><em>which looks at these 3 popular but ineffective revision tips. The second half of the video, which looks at active recall, will be addressed in the next 'How To Study' blog post. </em><br/> </p>

<p>Junior doctor, YouTuber, web designer, aspiring musician. Trying out this blogging thing. </p>

<p>Join the newsletter to receive the latest updates in your inbox. </p>

Useful Apps To Improve Productivity and Study Effectively  Paid  Members  Public

<p>With exam season rapidly approaching, I wanted to write a blog post just listing the best resources and apps that you can use to improve your productivity and efficiency and hopefully help with revision or even just daily life. Flashcards – Anki, QuizletAnki As you’ve probably heard me talking about </p>

How To Study: The Essay Memorisation Framework  Paid  Members  Public

<p>As a medical student, I did have to undertake some exams that required writing essays. One of the questions I often get asked is how you can apply techniques such as active recall and spaced repetition – that I frequently discuss as being ‘the best’ revision techniques – to essay-based subjects. During </p>

<p>Every Sunday I write an email newsletter with some thoughts, life lessons and links to articles / books I enjoyed that week. I'd love for you to join. </p>

How to Study for Exams - An Evidence-Based Masterclass

Learn Anything with Flashcards - The Ultimate Guide to Anki

<p>I’m Ali. I’m a doctor, YouTuber and podcaster. On this site we explore the strategies and tools that help us live happier, healthier, more productive lives. </p>

How To Study: 3 Popular Revision Techniques You Should Avoid

The Art Of Studying: Revision

Revision: Popular But Low-Utility Techniques

How To Revise: Active Recall

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