Science on Pointe

How I Format and Use Flashcards

1.  Less is More: no need for a paragraph to define a term, choose the simplest and most efficient one. Also, don’t include common sense things or things you know by heart, you’ll waste time and space by writing them down.

2. Sketch it Out: Sketches can be helpful in allowing you to visualize the term/concept. 

3. Say it Out Loud: When reviewing through the cards, try and say the definition out loud. It will require you to think about it more, and it also helps with memorization. If I try and define a term in my head I usually speed through it and leave something out. 

4. Write them as you go: Don’t sit down right before finals and try and write down every term/definition from the course. It takes forever and you will kill your hand. As you finish a chapter in the course finish that set of flashcards. You will thank yourself later. 

5. Repetition: I go through my flashcards before a test maybe a thousand times (exaggeration but very close). Remember to focus on the harder ones, you’ll most likely remember the easier ones during the test. 

Here is my method:

Round 1: Go through every single card. Don’t set any aside. I usually don’t know a majority of the terms at this point, I most likely just finished writing them down.

Round 2: Go through every card again, this time setting aside ones I didn’t know or had trouble with.

Round 3: Go through the harder ones I missed.

Round 4: Add the harder ones back in with the original and shuffle.

So, my major challenge when I first went into researh were the research papers I had to read. I used to just read them, without understanding a word of what was said there (seriously), so it was just really tedious to me, not productive at all and I wasn’t learning anything or making the most of my time in the lab since I wasn’t able to apply new concepts properly. But as time passed and I got more experienced, I found and developed a method that works pretty well for me, it helps me analyze and understand so I can later apply what I learned in my own research and time in the lab. It does take more time that just skimming through it, but it’s so worthy, trust me. But note that this may not work for everyone, it’s just a method I developed by experience (and honestly it’s pretty simple and typical) and also learning from others, which happened to be very effective to me. 

WHAY YOU WILL NEED

2 highlighters: one for findings in the research you are reading, one for general and “universal” concepts mentioned. 

Your article

A notebook (try to have one exclusive for the research project you’re doing, if that’s the case, with a section for articles read that can be helpful)

The first thing you’ll do is write the title in the notebook, because this will help understand the whole article. The title ususally has the ability to summarize everything in a sentence: it’s basically the hypothesis and procedure in one. 

Second, we’ll work a little with the abstract. It’s a really small summary of everything but it contains the most common abreviations used throughout, so, we’ll extract and write them down to have them in handy while we read.

3. Usually the abstract has it too, the hypothesis, we have to find what was done or what was tried to prove with this research. 

4. Now, we analyze the introduction, tough simple and general, it can help us understand concepts better so we can later apply them. I like to make maps, charts and diagrams with the info so I can make sure I’m processing it correctly, and if I have any doubts I’ll just look it up! 

HIGHLIGHTING

If important information is regarding the research itself, like a result or something like that, I’ll highlight it with one color

If and important concept is mentioned, but it’s a universal or general concept, I’ll highlight it using another colorm because it might be useful later, (like what are anthocyanins, or the explanation of a procedure commonly used) 

It is indeed and extensive post, so I’ll write the rest later.