Summarize

Most people take notes while they are learning. These notes can be catchwords on an extra sheet or underlining in the text. Both possibilities have got one big disadvantage: the original text is needed for understanding. The catchwords can not be used as a substitute of the whole text because they are too short.
That's why it is better to make a short summary of the text. Advantages of summaries are:

• You have to think about the whole text if you want to make a summary. Already forgotten parts from the beginning get repeated again.
• You realise very quickly, what you didn't understand, because summarizing means to reproducing the central issue with your own words.
• Summarizing instead of just writing catchwords forces you to concentrate on the subject.
• A summary is also comprehensible without the original text. It's easier and faster to to read through the summary than to repeat the whole subject.
• As time passes you'll develop your own personal lexicon.Time after time you'll get a personal lexica. Because of the fact that summaries are shorter, it's easier to enlarge your knowledge later on. This wouldn't be possible with a combination of underlining and taking notes.