#im not sure how best to advise on going about annotating the text from like

[valtsv]

hi! do you have any advice/ tips on reading Hamlet/ Shakespeare on your own? I read some in highschool, but it was always with the aid of the teacher and course material. now im older and wanna read Hamlet, but i find it sorta daunting with the old English, heavily symbolism etc. etc. feels like im not completely understanding what im reading. basically, how do you go about reading and annotating Shakespeare? ty in advance!

hmm. well a lot of copies come with footnote annotations that help to translate some of the more unfamiliar words, phrases and things that might not make sense without context that the original audience would have been familiar with but have since been lost, so try to get your hands on one of those if you can. sparknotes also has a very good translation (just search online "sparknotes hamlet translation") into more contemporary english + annotations which can be helpful to bridge the gaps in your understanding of the original text (and there's no shame at all in that; i didn't understand a lot of the original text without guidance the first time i read it). my only other tip is to use a pencil to make any annotations directly onto the text itself if you have a physical copy, so that way if your interpretations change or become more complex as your understanding grows you can easily edit them and don't have to worry about "ruining" the pages with crossings-out or corrections. it can really help you to feel comfortable expressing your thoughts, because you don't have to worry about making mistakes.

[anatolysergievsky]

This isn't really a collage ask but basically is. Do you have any tips for how to study? Cause I have finals for the first time this year and I don't know how to study at all.

Sure thing! Btw good luck on your finals– I’m sure you’ll do great on them so long as you don’t worry too much or stress yourself to the point of bad performance (that’s something I have trouble reminding myself of).

As a couple of notes, I’ll be saying how I study and what works for me but that style might not necessarily work for you. If you find it doesn’t, I can link you to some studyblrs that might mesh more with your learning style! Mine is very much a style that just relies on constant work and rereading and basically unending focus. Also, it’s kind of important to note that I study 16-17 hours a day, 7 days a week during the school year and you might not be able to/want to put in that kind of obsessive dedication so your approach to studying might be different than mine at points (like I said above). That said, here are some important things I always keep in mind!

Keep in mind the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. I really can’t stress this enough– reading about this completely changed how/when I study. You can wiki it if you want but the thing to know is that after you learn something, most of that knowledge is going to be forgotten within hours or days if it isn’t reviewed. So after a lecture/class/reading, take a break of an hour or two and then REVIEW what you just learned. It strengthens the memory of that material significantly, especially if you do these periodic reviews often (the first one is the most important, though). It’s related to what everyone tells you about cramming not being good for you but instead of just advising you to review over time, it tells you EXACTLY when to review in order to maximize your retention. Just breezing through the stuff again a few hours after can make such a huge difference when it comes to studying for the test weeks later that you’ll be amazed.

State dependent learning/memory! This was something that was talked about in a psychology lecture I went to. Essentially, you remember things best when you’re in a similar state to the one you learned it in, the example given being how it’s much easier to remember what you hate about your friend when you’re fighting with them rather than when you’re laughing with them. The same goes for learning school-related stuff! If you were sad when you read something, you’ll remember that stuff easier when you’re sad again (same goes for any other emotion). In my case, I would generally listen to the same music (a one hour long piano compilation) while I studied all day every day. Then I would listen to that before I went to take my tests. You can do the same thing with always chewing one type of gum during math study, for example. Anyway, state dependent learning is very useful if you’re consistent with it (always having the same type of gum, always listening to the same type of music).

It’s very difficult but please try to stay calm during tests– your brain works so much better when you’re calm. A lot of people say they work best under pressure but stress has been shown to both lower your creativity and worsen your memory.

The recency and primacy effects are important to keep in mind when you’re doing a long study session. When you stop studying, the information that will be easiest to recall later will be the last and first things you read/learned. The middle items tend to get lost and the recall for them is much blurrier. Don’t put your most important studying in the middle of your session because that’s what you’ll remember the least from.

As a personal one that I haven’t done research on or anything, if you have flashcards or anything like that, I really suggest walking while you use them. I have always thought that it helps me with memorization.

Don’t study for more than two hours without giving yourself a couple minutes for a break. You’re not encoding anything very well after that and the break refreshes your brain so it’s worth the loss of a few minutes.

Don’t begin to study until you are FREE to do so. Get the dishes done before you begin, get your emails answered, get your little worries taken care of etc. It’s not very productive to settle down to study only to be worrying about something else or getting up every twenty minutes to do your chores or something of the sort. This is something I’m very into, personally– I get my exercise, texts, emails, shower etc done as early in the morning as I possibly can so they’re not hanging over my head.

Triple read all of your textbooks if possible! Here’s my method:

First read: Just go through without doing anything.

Second read: Read everything again but annotate either on paper or on the margins (if you bought the book). Think about how the piece in its entirety works since you have already read to its conclusion.

Third read: Read everything again, including your annotations. Think about what you still don’t understand and research it online or talk to the teacher about it.

Review past tests from the class and also review past assignments. Remind yourself what the teacher looks for and don’t waste your time studying, for instance, definitions if they focus more on application of learning questions.

Elaborate when you rehearse definitions/words/concepts, don’t just use rote learning (flashcards, essentially). You remember so much more when you make the learning significant in some way for you. For an example, instead of just saying “’aslan’ is ‘lion’ in Turkish” fifty times to remember it, you would connect it to the Narnia books and remember it that way– “the lion in Narnia is aslan, aslan means lion.” Rote learning is not very effective or long-lasting.

Personally, I love quizzing myself, especially with definitions. It helps to say the stuff out loud since you then have not only a visual memory of reading the words but you also have an auditory memory of hearing the words said. That has saved me a lot of times, actually, but I’m not sure how well it works for other people! I can almost always remember hearing myself say the definitions/word/explanation etc.

These are pretty vague since I’m not sure what kind of studying you’re doing! I have different methods for languages, math, logic, science, psychology, etc. So if you need any help with particular subjects, let me know! And if you need any more help in general, even with me reading an online text so I can help you understand it, feel free to send me more asks or IMs! I hope this is all coherent.