WHAT IS AN OUTLINE?
An outline is a revision technique most popularly used in law school to help condense all your material in a single document and study better. It's especially helpful in open book exams or subjects where you have A LOT of content (like STEM!). I've used outlining since high school in India and it's fared me well till my masters degree (in the UK)
WHO SHOULD USE OUTLINING?
Just about anyone who studies anything content heavy or in a subject that tends to be examined by exams and tests over essays. It's very likely that when you're tested, it won't be on a single topic that you covered in a single class, but more on how cross-cutting themes intersect. Outlining is also fantastic for problem-based questions since it lets you breakdown how every kind of problem works out. By outlining again and again, the most important information is cemented in your brain.
OK I'M CONVINCED! HOW DO I OUTLINE?
Preparing
First of all, outlining is not something you need to do before your exams. I actually recommend working on your outline every time you finish a topic, but it's not advice I follow always either
Think about your medium of choice. I personally prefer taking my outlines on Notion, but lots of people prefer a regular Word Processor like Microsoft Word or hand-written notes (which is especially good for diagrams)
Make a structure. This doesn't have to be detailed, it can simply be a list of topics that make sense to you. I often combine some similar topics or split a large topic into sections
It's useful to think about at this point on what is going to be examined. Your teacher or professor might have sent you a syllabus or handbook with this information, or you may be able to ask students or google past papers. The whole point of an outline is to condense only the relevant information, so knowing what could be relevant helps.
Get all of your resources out. Textbooks, any supplementary readings (or notes you've taken), syllabi, powerpoint slides and your chicken scratch class notes. We will all make sense of it.
First Outline
Keeping your structure in mind, go at your materials topic by topic with a highlighter or a pencil. Be careful of not over-highlighting or underlining- if you find your page covered in yellow, you're doing too much. If you think you're comfortable with a topic, you might not even need to underline.
Once you're finished with a topic, close everything and write whatever you know under that topic heading. At this point, feel free to add diagrams, flowcharts, more headings- whatever makes it easier to understand and condense.
At this point, especially if you haven't revisited that topic, it's likely that you have lots of gaps. That's okay! Go back to your materials and fill in any gaps with information that make sense TO YOU. For lots of my topics I usually use examples or informal language just so I actually understand what I'm talking about. I also like to fill stuff that I missed out in a different colour
Repeat the last three steps untill all your topics are covered.
Your first outline is complete! At this point, this should be the only resource or document you need for your exam since you've looked at all of your other material and condensed it all. If you feel like you need to look at other things, add that information to your outline
Outlining, again
But wait, you're not done yet! Give it a few days (or a few hours, if it's crunch time) and try making a second outline. I generally make my first outline on my laptop and my second (or third) in a notebook or a totally different software. For this outline, you basically want to make an even shorter version of Outline 1, really focussing on what is critical. A good rule of thumb is to have only 1-2 page per topic.
Keep repeating the last step till you have the shortest possible outline with only the critical information. That's your final outline! You can read this to revise right before an exam, or use it as your material in an open book exam.
Some quick points to note:
Keep your initial outline handy. I often found that first outline might have had a detail that wasn't critical, but could help boost my grade to the next level- add this (as briefly as possible) to your final outline
It might also be useful in your final outline to have a few example questions worked out in detail with notes on every step. Understanding and detailing why and how every step is needed helped me tremendously in maths exams where you had wild-card questions based on a concept and you could pick out the relevant steps
If you are taking an outline into an exam, it is very useful to have a table of contents handy and/or tabs to help you sort through relevant or lined topics
