Study, Study, Study - It's Exam Time

Be Prepared - Set Goals:

Know where you are at in the course. What marks do you have so far ? How much is the exam worth? This helps to set the amount of time you need to spend on the exam to reach your goal in the course and in your program.

Review Material

1. Edit class notes
2.Put class notes together with course readings on each topic.
3. Summarize important concepts and information in your own words.

What You Don't Understand Is What You Need to Know

Use flash cards or create a concept map (look it up on wikipedia) to find your weakest areas of knowledge. Make a list of the concepts you need to know. Use your instructor, Peer Helpers and your classmates to help you find answers.

Make A Study Plan

Use short periods of time to study and give yourself a break (10 minutes per hour). Eating and exercise prime your brain for learning. Short active breaks and small frequent snacks will keep you focused. Prioritize your exams and the material you want to learn.

Use the 3Rs - Read, Write, Recite

If you read the material out loud you can improve the amount you remember. Re-organize and write out the information you need to know. Teach the material to someone else. This is one of the best ways to learn it yourself. At home or in a study group you can discuss or debate course topics.

For more information on study tips and exam practice see the Guelph First website.

Keeping up to date online - search alerts & RSS

You may be developing an interest in one topic or have your eye set on a job and want to learn more about that career. You can create a space online to collect information instead of going out to search for stuff regularly with the same search string of keywords.

Current awareness services at the library help students and researchers in keeping up-to-date with current literature in particular subject areas.

Current awareness services are provided electronically and take various forms, such as:

* Table of Contents : when a new issue of a particular journal is published, its table of contents is emailed to the subscriber; links to full-text articles may be provided if an electronic subscription exists;

* Saved Searches alerting services: receive timely notification about research topics you care about and have searched and saved in a database.

* Web Feed or RSS-based services: avoid spam and email clutter by having journal alerts, table of contents and other new content sent to a separate reader which you can then browse online, like Google Reader.

If you would like to set up an alert or RSS (really simple syndication) feed. We can help at the library or you can do it yourself.

http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/resources/journal_articles/current_awareness/

Time to review your class notes

Finding the time to review class notes each day is hard to do. But the facts are clear - it's worth it. According to a classic study by Ebbinghaus forgetting stuff we learn is inevitable. We lose as much as 90% of what we learn in 3-6 days.

To increase the strength of memory try his recommendations:

1. better memory representation (using memory tricks called mnemonic techniques)
2. repetition based on active recall


It feels like an extra chore at the end of the day sometimes. But 15 minutes at lunch time is the perfect small chunk of time for reviewing notes and highlighting key concepts.

Or, change you your routines and use a classic study method like SQ4R. Change all your main headings in the notes to questions and then your review is the process of creating answers in your own words to the questions you have created. Works like a charm. Don't get stuck in old habits, change it up and enjoy new ways of learning.

Stop That ! No more commercials in your hit list

Did you attend one of our "Amazing Library Challenge" sessions this September ? We offered some tips about searching that I'll add here.

Search engines and databases can be confusing when the results you get are not very close to the information you need for your assignment. To eliminate some of the web pages that are designed to sell you stuff you don't need try this:

"wind power" -.com

Your results will NOT include any web pages that have commercial web addresses. You will get results from universities, scientists, researchers, government, non-profit organizations, and other sources that have .ca, .gov, .edu, .net, .org and a variety of other extensions at the end of their web page addresses.

Exam Study Tips for your Brain

What muscle do you need to exercise the most to ace that exam ? Your brain. Think about how to maximize the potential of your brain this week.

Think about water. Your brain is about 75% water. If you want it to work with you instead of against you remember to drink water. Exercise and water will put that brain to work with the necessary chemicals to stimulate focus and memory.

Tea and coffee reduce the amount of water in your body because they increase your trips to the bathroom. Cold or warm, a nice tall glass of water is the best ingredient to study success.

Your brain needs help to stay focused and to learn new things. Experts agree that giving yourself time for breaks is important to stay on task.

Study 15 minutes - reading, summarizing notes
Break 5 min
Study 15 minutes - reading, answering questions from the study guide
Break 5 minutes

Give your brain time to absorb ideas and try new ways to boost your memory like SQ4R
This is a classic time tested method used by thousands of students successfully. Give it a try !

Survey - go over the chapter and look through the titles, subtitles and pictures.
Question - take each subtitle and turn it into a question.
Read - actively look for the answer to the question you made of the subtitle
Respond - once you've read a section close the book and describe it with your own words use your own words.
Record - take notes or highlight the text
Review - review your course notes, course books, regularly.

Find this SQ4R tip sheet online at The Guelph Learning Commons.

Quote It & Note It !

Today's workshop on creating references in your paper was led by Sara Gosnell, the writing consultant for the Ridgetown Campus Library Learning Centre.

You can follow her tips and tricks online with these links:

WRITING HAND-OUTS
http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/assistance/writing_services/undergraduates/writing_resources_&_handouts.cfm


OWL at PURDUE - writing assistance
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

Tag it ! Use it !

Did you know that any time you find a good library resource you can tag it ? If you have a book that you want to look at again or a DVD you want to recommend to someone else the easiest way to keep track of things is with a tag in the library collection on PRIMO.

We have created some tags for Ridgetown courses. Search Tags with the term "RC" at the Guelph Library Primo Search page. http://primo.tug-libraries.on.ca

How do you tag ?
Search Primo from the Guelph Library Homepage www.lib.uoguelph.ca

• Sign in to Primo for full access. Tags are created by Guelph users not the public.
  
• Search for the item you want to tag, then click on it to get to the detailed view.
• Click the link Assign/remove tags in the Tagging section of the page.
• Add your tag. If you want to add more than one tag, separate each tag with a comma.
• You can remove your tags at anytime by clicking Assign/remove tags, but you can't remove other users' tags.

Happy hunting - make a few tags to share with others while you are at it !