Converting Notes to Anki Cards?

[ophthalmologeyes]

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Hey everyone!

I'm starting MD school this fall. My undergrad was in the arts, so I'm a complete Anki novice.

I'm trying to get my study workflow refined over the next couple of months. I was wondering about how people bridge the gap between their lecture notes and Anki study material. Particularly:

1. Do you convert your notes to Anki cards, or do you primarily use pre-made Anki decks?
2. Do you find the process of converting notes to Anki decks a helpful part of the study process, or is it a time sink?

I have been assuming that having decks based on lecture notes would be ideal, but that they take a lot of time that could be better spent on pre-made decks? I've seen "school-specific" decks that seem to make an attempt at closing this gap, but this is all speculation from a novice POV.

Would love to hear input for people more experienced with Anki than me!

 

[RockClimberMed]

Use Anking and dont look back. Your school most likely has a tag for the inhouse lectures and if it doesnt just tag them yourself. Anking's youtube videos will explain everything on how to use it if you have more questions

 

[stew_md]

If you like to write notes, it could be a good idea to modify your note writing style to line up better with what you anki cards will look like. For example, instead of writing down a bunch of facts that you learned from the lecture, you could write them down in the form of a question. This way, when it comes time to make your own anki cards, you can simply copy and paste parts of your notes to turn them into cards.

I learned how to make my own cards when I was studying for the MCAT and it helped fill the gaps A LOT. I highly recommend watching "The Anking" on youtube, he has a lot of informative videos on how to set up your settings, how to make cards, useful plug-ins, etc. His pre-made deck is also very popular for studying for the STEP exams. Simply un-suspend the cards from the relevant section as you are going through pre-clinical.

 

[DOctorJay]

is anyone using chatGPT or similar to automate this process? maybe load a PDF file or take a picture of text an input some slick prompts to get the output?

 

[MateoGM416]

is anyone using chatGPT or similar to automate this process? maybe load a PDF file or take a picture of text an input some slick prompts to get the output?

No but there is an anki add-on that will convert notes to anki using AI, I don't know the name of it off the top of my head though

 

[amoxicillin_resistant]

Here is my method:

Get your notes and use AI to create a table with two columns. These two columns will be the front and back side of the cards

The prompt I like to use is: “convert this information into a table with two columns, one side having the main point and the other side being the definition or answer. This table will be used for anki purposes”

Then paste that table into a google sheet and when u download the sheet make sure to convert it to a .csv file. This csv file can then be imported onto anki as its own deck

Then I personally like to format the deck by converting notetype to something pretty like lightyear or miledown. but this is personal preference.


You can bypass this whole feature with paid subscriptions to note generating AI programs, there are a lot out there. Notebooklm and chatgpt can be trained in doing this if you have enough prompts like I do

Last point though - I dont actually like doing this. I only really saw myself doing this tactic for concepts I could not mneumonic my way out of like certain biochemical pathways or random microbial facts. Your in-house anki deck and ANKIng is generally the best go to answer, and I think AI note-anki should only be used if you are really really desperate.

vaya con dios

 

[amoxicillin_resistant]

No but there is an anki add-on that will convert notes to anki using AI, I don't know the name of it off the top of my head though

I have tried many of these. its real jank.

some create anki cards like

“this note was created by author {{c1:😀r. Smith}} and {{c2:😀r. Jones}}”

or sometimes the definitions are totally off if your notes are not formatted in a pretty way. AI hates it when data is not formatted in proper sentence structure or if there is a diagram with words floating on top of weird images.

So basically all pathways, diagrams, and anatomy is all off the table.

I would maybe wait on using these types of AI tools, most are pay2use as well which i think is kinda funny because they are charging you to train their bot

 

[MateoGM416]

I have tried many of these. its real jank.

some create anki cards like

“this note was created by author {{c1:😀r. Smith}} and {{c2:😀r. Jones}}”

or sometimes the definitions are totally off if your notes are not formatted in a pretty way. AI hates it when data is not formatted in proper sentence structure or if there is a diagram with words floating on top of weird images.

So basically all pathways, diagrams, and anatomy is all off the table.

I would maybe wait on using these types of AI tools, most are pay2use as well which i think is kinda funny because they are charging you to train their bot

That's fair, I never used them myself