Study Advice: rewriting notes anyone?

[trunksvegeta]

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To all of you MS2 and up..
Would it be a waste of time to rewrite notes to remember them in med school (1st year)? In undergrad this helped me remember many things and worked great,however that was with an undergard course load and often took some time but I know it helped. But I'm afraid with the vast volume of information in med school, it may be useless and take too much time. It seems, most students find it difficult being able to simply read all of the info,,,so I figure rewriting will just be a lost cause bc I simply wouldnt have the time literally to do this with all the stuff we need to know.

Has anyone been successful rewriting their notes in med school, or have you had to completely rely on understanding and memorizing from reading? Do you read over the topics over and over to remember concepts? Thanks!!

 

[dreds]

hey trunks,
i go through my lecture notes once to get the concepts, then the next time i consolidate the notes into study sheets that provide the info at a glance & are easier to review. i think it's worth the extra time because a huge binder full of lecture notes is a bit overwhelming. my advice is to do what you feel works for you. med students have a variety of study methods & it really depends on the person. don't be bothered if most people have a different approach; just do what makes you comfortable. if you do decide to "rewrite" the notes, it will save a lot of time (& be easier to review) if you exclude obvious concepts & things you already know.
good luck!
dreds

 

[Arsenic]

hey trunks,
i go through my lecture notes once to get the concepts, then the next time i consolidate the notes into study sheets that provide the info at a glance & are easier to review. i think it's worth the extra time because a huge binder full of lecture notes is a bit overwhelming.

i love doing this but sometimes you just get overwhelmed and either cant finish summarizing it all or you run out of time to memorize...

its an awesome way to study though, you end up condensing all you need to know into a perfect little packet... the problem then comes in memorizing your packet.... ideally you would have at least a day to do this, in reality I've had to do this REALLY late on the night before the exam. awwww.... med school

 

[loveumms]

During undergrad I did the same thing. I would take notes during class and then re-write and "clean" them up. It worked great then but when I got to med school I tried doing this for the first block and was quickly overwhelmed. It is literally impossible to do ... especially during second year when there is so much material.

What I found that worked was listening to the audio and then adding additional key points to the notes (at my school they gave us note sets so I would just add to them). Then I would study from that and make note cards or study sheets for stuff that was difficult for me to commit to memory.

Also, what really helped me was reading through the notes and figuring out what was really important to know. In undergrad, I would basically just memorize my whole note set, but during the first two years of med school I found that this wasn't possible (there was just too much material). So, I would go through the notes each day and categorize the material. I would write down the essential concepts that I absolutely had to understand and memorize. I would then try to learn as much of the "other" material as I could and what I couldn't, well most of the time it didn't turn out to be all that important. I found this to be quite effective and I didn't get too stressed out.

 

[Blade28]

Occasionally, I'd spent a few hours on a weekend day and type out a summary of all the notes I thought were either (1) crucial, or (2) difficult to remember, and thus necessitating extra repetition. I'd usually end up with 2-3 sheets of notes, and that way I could carry them around with me and focus on just (what I felt to be) the essentials.

Kinda of like making notecards/flashcards, in a way.

 

[fun8stuff]

Occasionally, I'd spent a few hours on a weekend day and type out a summary of all the notes I thought were either (1) crucial, or (2) difficult to remember, and thus necessitating extra repetition. I'd usually end up with 2-3 sheets of notes, and that way I could carry them around with me and focus on just (what I felt to be) the essentials.

Kinda of like making notecards/flashcards, in a way.

yeah, i used this method in undergrad for my advanced level courses that had like 100-200 pages of notes per exam and will probably continue to in med school. it worked really for those types of classes- especially for when i would only study the day before.

if i started studying a few days before, a lot of times i would make a new sheet from the old sheet filled with the stuff i was still having a hard time commiting to memory. i would also make charts and diagrams as much as possible.

 

[Cholinergic]

Would you all say it's the process of writing and rewriting that helps it stick or simply studying what you've written over and over? Or a combination of both?

 

[dara678]

I wouldn't recommend rewriting the notes verbatim, as you will not have enough time to do it all. In my classes we have "learning objectives" before each lecture, with questions about important points in the lecture. I try to complete all of the learning objectives (kind of like homework) and that serves as my supplementary set of notes. If you don't have something like that, then I think it's definitely worth it just to summarize and paraphrase the major points of each section of the lecture -- especially focus on things that are difficult to remember, like the exact chromosomal translocation of Burkitt's lymphoma or something -- and then study off of those.

I usually read my lecture notes once and my learning objective notes a couple of times before the exam -- it has served me well.

 

[VitaMedicus]

I'm not an MS2 yet but I have a different kind of experience about rewriting my notes. One method I found pretty effective was to copy my notes on the computer. I have my own web server and a free light-weight forum software installed on it so I'm able to organise all the data using the forum system's built-in functions and store it in the forum's database. That way my previous notes are easily browsed, edited if I learn something new on the subject, and accessible where ever I have access to the internet. The disadvantages of this system are: not everyone has the patience or resources to set up their own internet server, reading great amounts of text on a cumputer screen is not an easy thing for most people, and copying things like drawings and tables and such is quite a challenge on the computer. But it worked for me and could be worth a try if you're not afraid of the effort involved in the setting-up.

 

[njbmd]

To all of you MS2 and up..
Would it be a waste of time to rewrite notes to remember them in med school (1st year)? In undergrad this helped me remember many things and worked great,however that was with an undergard course load and often took some time but I know it helped. But I'm afraid with the vast volume of information in med school, it may be useless and take too much time. It seems, most students find it difficult being able to simply read all of the info,,,so I figure rewriting will just be a lost cause bc I simply wouldnt have the time literally to do this with all the stuff we need to know.

Has anyone been successful rewriting their notes in med school, or have you had to completely rely on understanding and memorizing from reading? Do you read over the topics over and over to remember concepts? Thanks!!

Hi there,
Re-copying class notes is a total waste of time in medical school. You should fill in any gaps as soon as possible but rote re-copying makes you into a note clerk and not much else. Summarize your notes in margins if you need to write as you study. You can leave plenty of room to do this as you take notes. Recite your notes back to yourself or into a tape recorder for drilling later or listening while you exercise.

Medical school exam questions can come from syllabus, class notes, required text reading and other materials like handouts. You need to understand and synthesize these materials. Rote re-copying of your notes takes away from study of your other materials.

Read, recite, review and rehearse are the best ways to both understand and remember your course materials. Many medical schools have student run note services that can greatly help you with organization of your class notes. At my school our note-takers were required to synthesize and type notes for the class. They were paid for this work and did an excellent job.

You will have plenty of time to get through everything if you use your study time wisely and efficiently. You do not need to memorize everything but you do need to quickly learn how to keep building on your knowledge as you acquire it. Organization is the key to doing this efficiently.

Good luck!
njbmd 🙂

 

[JaneDough]

I used to rewrite my notes, but when I got too pressed for time during clinicals, I just started reading twice. The first time I read very quickly, and highlight only the stuff that is new to me, and I star the stuff that is high-yield/testable material. The second pass through I focus mainly on the previously marked stuff. I found this worked better for me and took less time, but if you have something that is working for you, why mess w/ it?

 

[dara678]

You need to understand and synthesize these materials.

njbmd is absolutely right!! medicine is about the whole patient, not isolated symptoms or biochemical pathways. rewriting notes -- while it may be helpful -- will not help you "get" the big picture. making note sheets that synthesize material -- now that's worth the effort.

 

[Reborn24]

cool

 

[Runtita]

While I agree that medicine is about the whole patient and we shouldn't all be out there just memorizing pathways, rewriting and rewriting notes is what got me through biochem. Every night, after every lecture.

Memorizing Netter's cross-sections got me through anatomy.

For some classes, the "big picture" approach works great, but for biochem and anatomy, it's all in the DETAILS.

 

[Mike59]

In terms of you doing well on your tests, it all depends how you're tested and that's school specific so do what you gotta do....

But when it comes to retaining information long term, recopying notes is a HUGE waste of time in my opinion. You need to establish a mental template of concepts, and if you can't remember it, just refer to a book cause it's already written down. Life's too short to spend that much time copying out that much information cause you're going to forget 90% of it in 6 months (if not earlier, at least I do, maybe I'm just dumb!?) 😛

 

[thackl]

I don't know if 'rewrite' is the correct word for me. I always study with pencil/paper to 1.) write down what I think is important 2.) slow me down (speed is not good for my overall understanding 3.) writing helps me remember (a lot) 4.) if I can write it out, I likely understand it.

Later in the block, I will further consolidate and use those notes for final studying.

 

[trunksvegeta]

Hi guys,
thanks for the insight!!

I think for some things, like critical pathways or structures, I may write them out to remember. Also, I tend to read fast but not retain the info immediately, so yes, noting key points to paper does slow down the process of going thru the info but helps me remember it a lot more. i think I'll have to make the little study sheet of the stuff I need work on so that I'm not overwhelmed with the vast info.

 

[Runtita]

I also think it depends on how you learn and think. I am a big picture person who tends to miss catching details. I can tell you the answer but I can't tell you how I got it. So I write out the details; this helps them get into my brain.

According to student services at my school, most people in med school are detail-oriented and find it harder to put things together to get the big picture, so rewriting details may be meaningless to them, since they already know the details. It may be more important to them to learn to synthesize the details into a larger concept.

Different thinking styles require different studying styles.

 

[BigBadBix]

My system was very similar to what thackl described. I would just write down a summary of the notes/readings in my own words and format, and then review my summary the day before a test. For me, just reading notes that someone else has created is too passive--I tend to space out and skim over things. I find that writing things down helps me with both conceptual topics (because it forces me to understand them more thoroughly and to put them into context with everything else I've learned) and also with rote memorization (if I write something down I invariably remember it). I did not find that this was a waste of time; I had study partners who would just read the notes/textbooks over and over, and this took just as much time as my system of going through everything once slowly and writing up my own summary.

I think in the end what works best depends on your individual learning style, which you may have to adjust for the pace and volume of info in med school.

 

[logos]

The rewriting/condensing notes thing was my prefered way to study inundergrad. However, in some of my more advanced classes it began to fail. It was just taking me so long to produce the condensed notes that I wouldnt have enough time to study them. I'm guessing that in medical school (next week!) I wont have the time either.

 

[skypilot]

Hi there,
Summarize your notes in the margins if you need to write as you study. You can leave plenty of room to do this as you take notes. 🙂

That is all I do for note taking. It works great once you get the hang of it. It is quick too, and you don't waste time organizing your notes

 

[jendc08]

Well I did the rewrite the notes technique for first year/last year and I'm a second year now...so it worked for me! I think the best advice is to do what works for you, and not get caught up in what works for everyone else. 🙂

 

[gschl1234]

To all of you MS2 and up..
Would it be a waste of time to rewrite notes to remember them in med school (1st year)? In undergrad this helped me remember many things and worked great,however that was with an undergard course load and often took some time but I know it helped. But I'm afraid with the vast volume of information in med school, it may be useless and take too much time. It seems, most students find it difficult being able to simply read all of the info,,,so I figure rewriting will just be a lost cause bc I simply wouldnt have the time literally to do this with all the stuff we need to know.

Has anyone been successful rewriting their notes in med school, or have you had to completely rely on understanding and memorizing from reading? Do you read over the topics over and over to remember concepts? Thanks!!

I tried re-writing at first but it did nothing for me. What ended up "working" (sort of) was reading the handouts over and over. You can break up the monotony by reading a paragraph, covering it up and then reciting the major points. Good luck 🙂