Reading online can be an extremely different experience than having a book in front of you. A couple advantages of online reading are the visuals and hyperlinks that hard-copy books cannot provide. There are some great tips and tools I want to share to make reading online easier and more beneficial. First you must be knowledgeable of what you are expected to gain from the reading. This helps you pull out the important information as you read. For example are their certain class themes that will be illustrated by the article? As you read, it is important to write down key points, highlight, or create an outline. This ensures that you have an understanding of the reading as well as retain it. The E-Learning Companion (2014) provides a checklist of tips before you read, while you are reading, and after you read (p.188-190). Sometimes when a student sees graphs and pictures, it is easy to skip over that part thinking it is not as important. I suggest you do not do this. It is important to spend time reviewing graphs and charts because they provide essential visual information that a professor may expect you to know. The following link lists some great tips to help improve your intelligent reading skills online. http://www.mindtools.com/rdstratg.html
Next, let’s explore the extensive online study tools provided by the web. These tools allow you to organize all your class material to make studying less overwhelming. I suggest as a college student that you take advantage of any tools that make studying easier. For example for your history classes, there is a timeline study tool provided by http://www.timetoast.com/ allowing you to organize all those dates. I suggest mind maps to help you organize all the main ideas of writing a research paper or as you read an online article. https://bubbl.us/ It allows you to create bubbles, then draw arrows off those bubbles color coding them and organizing them as you wish. The most helpful tool when writing a research paper is https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ providing APA, MLA, and Chicago formatting for in-text and bibliography citation. By using mind maps and timetoast you are engaging your brain on the topic being studied helping you to retain the information. I strongly suggest exploring and utilizing all these online tools to help you be the most successful in college.