An excerpt is a structured summary, often written in keywords and bullet points, of a text you are supposed to study. It helps you to illustrate the connections and relations within the topic and for many people, doing the excerpt is a great way to memorize huge parts of the topic.
Concentration. A lot of it actually. If you find it hard to focus, please read this
A pen or ballpoint pen, preferably in blue
Some fineliners in different colours, at least green, red and a âneutralâ colour like violet (neutral in the sense that is not associated with positive or negative, wrong or right)
A highlighter, perferably in yellow
And of course the text you need to study
Read the text you need to study thoroughly
Highlight the most important aspects while reading it
Write down these most important aspects on your sheets of paper (you can also do this in word of course)
You can write it down while or afterwards reading the text!
How to structure an excerpt:
First of all, some people prefer a mind-map over an excerpt, so make sure you try that out too!
Make coloured headings if you write it per hand, use a bigger font if you write it in word.
Use colours to mark important words, or highlight them
If you have postive and negative aspects of a topic, write them down in green and red
Remeber to make paragraphs, so it has more structure to it and you can easily get an overview over the page
DonÂŽt do a new heading within the last quarter of a page, just take a new one
If you are writing in a book or a booklet, do not write too close to the fold/seam
Make sure to number your pages, or you may spend hours on putting them in the right order again and you definitely donÂŽt want that!
Make small sketches with a pencil or a black fineliner to illustrate realtions and connections
Use arrows (->), bullet points, and keywords instead of whole sentences
I also like to leave some space on the left side and instead of doing subheadings, I write keywords on the left side of the paragraphs. I normally do this in red so I can see immediatelly which paragraphs I have in front of me.
Do not write down every detail! This is not what an excerpt is for. Instead you should write down:
Relations and Conncetions
Words you find difficult to remeber
Names and dates you need to know
Short summaries in keywords
Charts to compare two topics, aspects, perceptions etc.Â
It is scientifically proven that the brain can memorize texts written in some colours better than others.
Write important words in red
For me personally highlighting the begin of every bullet point in a different colour also works very well, especially if I do it in rainbowcolours because if you keep them always in the same order, you get a feeling for how many bullet person you have, just by looking quickly at it. Which is great when you have a test where you have to list them one by one
Do not write on the whole page without leaving any space free
Do not doodle around or decorate the page with little drawings. It will distract your mind from the text and the information
Do not write many whole sentences. ItÂŽs best to only use them for definitons
Do not write in colours, only the most important words should be in colour
Do not write in black, it is harder for the brain to memorize black font than blue font. So let it be, no matter how elegant or stylish it looks
Your handwriting does not have to be perfect. You donÂŽt need to write the headings in calligraphy or draw ribbons around them. As long as you keep a neat structure and can read your hadnwriting without problems, everything is fine.
Find out what works best for you. For most people my paragraph about what colours to use is true, but it might be different for some.
Not everyone learns a lot by doing an excerpt or reading one. Try different methods to find out how you study best.
What works best for others must not work for you and the other way round. Just do what is best for your studying, and if it differs from the norm, who cares!
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