Mood Understand Recall Digest Expand Review

Set a positive mood for yourself to study in. Selecting the appropriate time, environment, and attitude is the most important part of this procedure. The mood. When selecting a time to study, often this will be the most crucial part of all. Why? The mood is the key factor in deciding whether or not you accomplish your work or not. If your mind is on something other then studying, you might as well not study.

Understand. Mark any information you don't understand in a particular unit. Keep a focus on one unit or a manageable group of exercises. INCORPORATE BITE SIZE PIECES! It helps you breakdown the information and give you more motivation to do it if there’s less work to be done. Note cards are a great source to learn any subject.

Recall After studying the unit, stop and put what you have learned into your own words. Doing this helps you incorporate yourself into the work. Makes it easier to remember.

Digest Go back to what you did not understand and reconsider the information; Contact external expert sources like other books or your instructor if you still cannot understand it. Seeing your instructor every now and then is preferred. Maintaining the first name basis with your teacher could not hurt you, but only benefit you as well.

Expand In this step, ask three kinds of questions concerning the studied material: If I could speak to the author, what questions would I ask or what criticism would I offer? How could I apply this material to what I am interested in? How could I make this information interesting and understandable to other students? Most of the time you won’t be able to make it interesting to you.

Review Go over the material you've covered, review what strategies helped you understand and/or retain information in the past and apply these to your current studies. So if something worked in the past for you, now is the time to incorporate it. It would be best to take a minute break in between and do something you enjoy. After that break you have to go right back to studying.

Work Cited Flippo, Rona, and Caverly, David. Handbook of College Reading and Study Strategy Research. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hayes, John R. “M.U.R.D.E.R.” a Study System.” Study Guides and Strategies Nov. 2007