How to take notes and be effective with online textbooks/PDFs
Hi! Learning from online textbooks and PDFs can be a really accessible and inexpensive option for students, but sometimes it can be a little bit difficult if you’re not used to learning from an online textbook! So, here are some tips on how to learn effectively from online textbooks:
If possible, download your etextbook so that you can have it even if you don’t have wifi! Trust me, if you’re on a college campus, the wifi gets really slow during finals season and you don’t want to be unable to access your textbook when it comes down to crunch time!
Use a program that allows you to highlight text in the etextbook, if possible! Highlight important keywords so you can easily go back through the file and find the key points easily!
Take notes as you normally would from a physical textbook (for example, I like taking notes on paper so I would do this from an online textbook too!)
If you’re looking for a specific term, use ctrl+f to search for that term in the file! (this works with most PDFs, online textbooks might work differently but most will have some sort of search function)
Try to make bookmarks at the start of each chapter or section if the file doesn’t have a click-able table of contents (or you can just write down a table of contents with the chapter and page number on a piece of paper if you aren’t able to do this in the file)
Use a text-to-speech program if possible! This can help if you’re more of an auditory learner, or it can help you stay on track and undistracted while you read along with the voice
Use a site blocker so that you don’t get distracted by social media while studying online. I use SelfControl and StayFocusd to do this, but there are a bunch of other options that work just as well! These help a LOT since getting distracted by the internet is often the biggest problem for people who are trying to study on their computer
If you have the option, I’ve heard that having the etextbook on a tablet while taking notes on a laptop/computer (or on paper, if you prefer) can work really well!
Hopefully these tips help! If anyone else has ideas for tips, definitely comment them! x
