:: 11 Principles Of Study Skills ::

Principle 1: Believe in yourself
Every brain has genius capacity. It takes time, effort and guided study to get access to this potential, but IT IS POSSIBLE for anyone to do it if he or she wants to badly enough.

Set goals and develop plans to achieve them.
You must believe in yourself in order to be able to successfully travel that long road to your goals.

Always be positive, bearing in mind that you are a confident and capable learner.

Principle 2: Prepare
The difference between mediocre performance and excellent grades can often be the quality of your preparation. Preparing your study environment, your attitude, and your focus will have an amazingly positive impact on the effectiveness of your learning activity.

Principle 3: Organize yourself and your work
Always have a plan for your studying. Write out that plan. Review your plan constantly and revise it constantly.

It is that simple. The difficult part is in coming up with A PLAN THAT WORKS. It’s difficult because it rarely comes out right the first time.

Most people fail at this because they give up when the first attempt at planning does not work out perfectly. The best thing to do is to expect changes and be ready for the process. Needing to make changes to your plan doesn’t mean failure.

Principle 4: Spend time on what matters
Set priorities and make sure you are spending time on tasks that will help you accomplish the goals that are those priorities.

Principle 5: Discipline yourself
There is NO SUBSTITUTE for self-control and discipline. The best study techniques, tricks and hints are useless if you have no willpower to put them into practice.

It helps your discipline if you have goals, an organized plan of action, and a strong belief in yourself, BUT you must also have the desire to KEEP AT IT when the going is not easy.

Principle 6: Be persistent
Just keep on keeping on! Persistence is more important than talent, genius, or luck.

Principle 7: Divide and conquer
This concept is central to successfully completing any large study task(reading a thick textbook, preparing for final exams).

Analyze the task, divide it into smaller separate tasks, and make a written list of all the smaller tasks. Then, put the tasks in order of priority. Start with the first small task on the list, complete it and cross it off the list, and go on to the next task.

A short list with one big item on it that can’t be crossed off until the whole thing is done can be discouraging. A long list that shrinks visibly is a good motivator.

Principle 8: Become an information filter
When you practice good reading and note-making techniques, you are becoming an information filter; you are learning to distinguish between what is important and what is not.

It takes practice to be able to filter out the unnecessary material. It takes even more practice to be confident that you have focused on the correct material.

Principle 9: Practice output as well as input
To get the most out of the input(data), you must actively turn it into information that is useful. You must process it properly and PRACTICE OUTPUT. Output is not automatic. You must devise several patterns of output so information is more easily recalled at a stressful moment, such as the middle of a final exam.

Principle 10: Do not fear mistakes
Mistakes are the best teachers. Don’t be afraid to try something new just because you don’t think you will get it right the first time. Without mistakes, we would not have any information about how to do better next time. Mistakes help you eliminate wrong ways and guide you to the right way.

Principle 11: Be active
Be active with the material. You cannot be a passive reader or listener and expect to get much out of textbooks or lectures. It just won’t happen.

All study, reading and listening skills come down to the same thing: as soon as you hear or read something, you need to do something immediately in your brain.
Think about it, evaluate it, and decide where it fits in relation to other information. MAKE IT YOUR OWN!