The discourse of academic study requires the learners to adopt the fundamental skills that promote comprehension of ideas and facts. The adoption of proper learning strategies, thus, improves a student’s understanding, enable self-assessment of different abilities, and enhance sharing of findings as well as the identification of the student’s weaknesses and strengths (Bretag et al., 2009). Essentially, the blended learning strategies have been found to be very effective for the learners. The primary focus of this paper, therefore, is to show how aspects such as developing good note taking, paraphrasing and informed summarise of the academic sources are related to the student learning.
Developing Good Note-taking Strategies
Note taking is an essential part of student learning. Although the practice of note-taking has widely been perceived as mere transcription of information through the use of symbols and shortened words, the approach is now far-reaching (Bretag et al. 2009). Note-taking plays two essential roles that include; recording of information and aiding reflection (Ruby & Ruby, (2014). In respect to reflection, Ruby and Ruby argue that note-taking assists in the development of the intellectual processes such as making decisions, making judgments as well as determining issues. Additionally, note-taking provides a learner with the real-time thought process. For this reason, notes are considered as a rough draft that allows coding of information is hence reducing the mnemonic processes and help in the formulation of a solution.
Chiefly, students take notes as a way of recording information for later use (Cho & Brutt-Griffler, 2015). Nevertheless, Cho and Brutt-Griffler (2015) note that other than documenting the information, the process of note-taking aids memorization. Consequently, the student can store some of the information in mind. The role played by note-taking can be termed as the write-to-learn role (Ruby & Ruby, 2014). That is, firstly, notes taken helps in the stabilization of knowledge to be acquired and later used during the examination. Secondly, notes help a learner in resolving problems such as writing reports, solving equations as well as understanding multifaceted documents.
Intuitively, learners develop the methods and processes of note-taking since they cannot take notes on everything mentioned by the tutor (Cho & Brutt-Griffler, 2015). In this sense, therefore, the process of note taking involves both the linguistic processes and the markers of the speaker’s text. The major linguistic processes used in note-taking include; truncation of apocopes and long words, use of abbreviations (Trevors, Duffy & Azevedo, 2014). On the other hand, markers in a speaker’ text equally influence the quality and quantity of the notes taken by the student. Other indicators that influence note taking include; definition of terms, dictation, writing on the board, listing, and macro-textual planning notes that help in the structuring (for example, the use of expressions such as one/two or firstly/secondly) (Grabe & Zhang).
Paraphrasing of Academic Sources
Grabe and Zhang (2013) contend that the inclusion of other people’s ideas in a student’s writing is quite acceptable. Nonetheless, this is not a haphazardly conducted process. Consequently, there are two major ways through which the process can be executed. The two ways are; summarising and paraphrasing of the academic sources (Grabe & Zhang, 2013). Paraphrasing is fundamentally a comprehension check for learners. That is, paraphrasing entails noting down the content that the learner has already understood from the text. Paraphrasing does not only include the comprehension of a text but also facilitates long-term memory of the content read.
There are various reasons why paraphrasing is considered as a vital learning strategy (Hirvela & Du, 2013). Firstly, it tends to improve the learner’s memory through active engagement in the text. Secondly, the personal use of the vocabulary, thinking and writing style ensures that the learner adds to his/her regular mental inventory and improves mastery of the text’s content. Thirdly, paraphrasing boosts one’s understanding. The manner in which a learner translates a given idea using own words entails thinking or interpreting what the speaker or the writer want to say and in so doing, one understands the text better (Hirvela & Du, 2013). Fourthly, paraphrasing enables the learner to organize the relevant ideas accordingly. In other words, it helps the learner in clarifying ideas, put the ideas in a different order and simplify the language used.
Summarising Academic Sources
Summarising is also equally important learning strategy that improves a student’s learning. Like paraphrasing, summarising entails the reprocessing of information and expressing it using own words (Chiu, 2015). Active listening and reading are essential when it comes to summarising of the academic sources (Cho & Brutt-Griffler, 2015). As a result, the skills appreciably enhance a student’s ability to comprehend ideas. In addition, there is a long-term mastery of the subject matter since summarizing goes beyond the understanding to expressing the same understanding. In summarizing a text, the student is supposed to reduce a larger text to bare essentials (Chiu, 2015). The process of summarising involves; elimination of the redundant and extraneous instances, focusing on the main ideas, identify the phrases and the keywords that create the general idea as well as identifying the primary ideas and other important details that support them(keywords and phrases).
Chiu (2015) argues that in the learning milieu, students learn some fundamental summarizing strategies which in other words play a vital role in helping the learners to carry out the task more effectively. Firstly, the learners seek to clarify that which is important in the text. Therefore, in learning to make effective summaries of resources, students should comprehend the innate structure of the text for the summary. For instance, the realization that a certain text’s structure contains the main characters, events taking place in different locations or even falling and rising of action, aids the learner’s understanding of the text. Consequently, the learner makes an informed summary of the text. Secondly, making of a text’s summary is also enhanced through the understanding of the existence of multiple text structures. The recognition of such structures helps the learner in deciphering the expository content of a given text. Some of the examples of the expository text structures are; argument structures, description structures, problem/solution structure, generalization structure, and comparison structure, and definition structure.
How the Learning Strategies Help in Voiding Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a serious academic offence that learners must avoid at all costs. Proper note taking, paraphrasing and summarising are some of the methods through which learners avoid plagiarism (Wiwanitkit, 2013). Note taking is the first essential step of ruling out plagiarism. According to Bailey, (2014), direct writing from the sources is likely to result to plagiarism. Bailey (2014) also maintains that quality notes free of plagiarism act as the transition space between what is read and what is written down. Hence, reading a text, summarising or paraphrasing provides the learner with time to consider what is helpful to him/her. For instance, a given text may provide more details than required by the learner. In such a case, the learner reads the text and summarizes it in own words to enhance understanding. Other times, an entire text may be of great importance to the learner. As a result, the learner reads through the text carefully and derives the relevant information while avoiding direct transfer of the information (Bakhtiyari et al., 2014).
In conclusion, the learning strategies (note-taking, paraphrasing and summarising) are some of the most important aspects that a learner must learn. The strategies help learners understand what they have read as well as impacting the same in the memory. Learning to take notes, summarise and paraphrase the academic materials are essential strategies through which students can avoid plagiarism. The strategies express the originality of the ideas and also portray that the learner understands a given text. Since learning entails an in-depth understanding of the academic resources, it is thus evident that taking notes, summarising and paraphrasing are inevitable practices. Learners should thus endeavour to know how to executive these fundamental learning strategies.
References
Bailey, S. (2014). Academic writing: A handbook for international students. Routledge.
Bakhtiyari, K., Salehi, H., Embi, M. A., Shakiba, M., Zavvari, A., Shahbazi-Moghadam, M., &
Mohammadjafari, M. (2014). Ethical and unethical methods of plagiarism prevention in academic writing.
Bretag, T., Mahmud, S., Wallace, M., Walker, R., McGowan, U., East, J., & James, C.
(2009). ‘Teach us how to do it properly!’An Australian academic integrity student survey. Studies in Higher Education, 39(7), 1150-1169.
Chiu, C. H. (2015). Enhancing Reading Comprehension and Summarization Abilities of EFL
Learners Through Online Summarization Practice. The Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, 5(1), 79-95.
Cho, H., & Brutt-Griffler, J. (2015). Integrated reading and writing: A case of Korean English language learners. Reading in a Foreign Language, 27(2), 242.
Grabe, W., & Zhang, C. (2013). Reading and writing together: A critical component of English for academic purposes teaching and learning. TESOL Journal, 4(1), 9-24.
Hirvela, A., & Du, Q. (2013). “Why am I paraphrasing?”: Undergraduate ESL writers’
engagement with source-based academic writing and reading. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 12(2), 87-98.
Ruby, P., & Ruby, R. (2014). Note taking skills: everybody needs them. J. Bus. Econ,5(4), 443-448.
Trevors, G., Duffy, M., & Azevedo, R. (2014). Note-taking within MetaTutor:interactions between an intelligent tutoring system and prior knowledge on note-taking and learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 62(5), 507-528.
Wiwanitkit, V. (2013). How to avoid plagiarism. Annals of biomedical engineering, 41(1), 3-3.s
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