Outlining Textbook Chapters

Outlining or note-taking from your text-book is super important in College. It is really helpful because usually the set readings for a lecture cover the same thing as the lecturer does in the lectures. So if you do the reading before the lecture (something that it took me until the second semester to work out) it will give you a little bit of background to the topic that you are covering in that lecture.

I mentioned in the College Readings post that I will cover this topic of outlining a textbook chapter. This is the sixth post in my College Series.

First of all I will quickly skim over the reading, not necessarily reading every single word but more just getting a general idea for the chapter. This helps you to understand the key points in the chapter as well as giving you a little bit of knowledge on topic so it is easier to paraphrase.

Then I write down the title of the chapter at the top in the color that corresponds to that course. I then write all the headings from the chapter underneath and underlining in the same color as the main title leaving around 8 lines between each to write in the information. After that I write all of the sub headings marked with a bullet point in the margin leaving a couple of lines between each, you also may need more or less depending on the size of the paragraphs.

I then read the chapter in these little segments writing and paraphrasing the main points and important details. This breaks down the reading so that you can take in the little bits. I find that if I try to read the whole thing my mind drifts off toward the end in a subconscious way that I still know I have so much to read. I write the information in with bullet points just inside the margin line. 

This is a really great way of being able to understand what the lecturer is actually talking about in lectures. It gives you a great background knowledge as well as boosting your grade because you have more of an understanding of the topic and the outlines are easy to use for studying.

How do you outline your textbook chapters? Is there something you do that really helps you to understand what you are learning?