How to Read a Textbook

Textbooks typically contain a great deal of condensed information. It helps to organize your time so that you can give your textbook short periods of concentrated attention at regularly spaced intervals.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Book Bags
• Post-it Flags
• Post-it Notes
• Highlighter Pens
• Index Cards
• Notebooks
• Writing Pens
• Notebooks

1. Buy your textbook immediately after your first class meeting. Buying before that may be risky, since classes are often canceled.

2. Glance through your class syllabus to determine which sections of your textbook you will have to read during the term. Mark those sections in your table of contents along with the dates by which they must be read.

3. Pace yourself. Plan to do your reading as it is assigned in order to avoid late-night cramming just before exams.

4. Glance through each chapter before reading it to identify its subsections. Consider writing a short outline of each chapter or a summary to avoid having to return to the text later.

5. Read ahead. Mark difficult sections you will want to read through again before class.

6. Make notes in the margins and highlight important terms, formulas and footnotes.

7. Keep a log of formulas and definitions of terms in a notebook so you can memorize them without returning to the text.

Tips & Warnings

• Plan to read textbooks in a setting where you will not be interrupted or distracted.
• Try to read at a desk, table or other place where you will not be too comfortable to concentrate.
• Read with a pen or pencil in hand. Highlighters are good for formulas and quotations, but are useless for writing explanations, questions and comments in the margins.

on 11/22/2005 It's often helpful to find out the publisher (often included with the copyright information). Many publishers have Web sites that may provide assistance with the material being studied. This is true with high school textbooks as well.