Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.
This is the second, revised and expanded edition. The first edition was published under the slightly longer title "How to Take Smart Notes. One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking - for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers". The key to good and efficient writing lies in the intelligent organisation of ideas and notes. This book helps students, academics and other knowledge workers to get more done, write intelligent texts and learn for the long run. It teaches you how to take smart notes and ensure they bring you and your projects forward. The Take Smart Notes principle is based on established psychological insight and draws from a tried and tested note-taking technique: the Zettelkasten. This is the first comprehensive guide and description of this system in English, and not only does it explain how it works, but also why. It suits students and academics in the social sciences and humanities, nonfiction writers and others who are in the business of reading, thinking and writing. Instead of wasting your time searching for your notes, quotes or references, you can focus on what really counts: thinking, understanding and developing new ideas in writing. Dr. Sönke Ahrens is a writer and researcher in the field of education and social science. He is the author of the award-winning book “Experiment and Exploration: Forms of World Disclosure” (Springer). Since its first publication, How to Take Smart Notes has sold more than 100,000 copies and has been translated into seven languages.
You can predict how well a student will do simply on the basis of their use of effective study strategies. This book is for college students who are serious about being successful in study, and teachers who want to know how best to help their students learn. Being a successful student is far more about being a smart user of effective strategies than about being 'smart'. Research has shown it is possible to predict how well a student will do simply on the basis of their use of study strategies. This workbook looks at the most important group of study strategies – how to take notes (with advice on how to read a textbook and how to prepare for a lecture). You’ll be shown how to: * format your notes * use headings and highlighting * how to write different types of text summaries and pictorial ones, including concept maps and mind maps (you'll find out the difference, and the pros and cons of each) * ask the right questions * make the right connections * review your notes * evaluate text to work out which strategy is appropriate. There's advice on individual differences and learning styles, and on how to choose the strategies that are right for both you and the situation. Using effective notetaking strategies will help you remember what you read. It will help you understand more, and set you on the road to becoming an expert (or at least getting good grades!). Successful studying isn’t about hours put in, it’s about spending your time wisely. You want to study smarter not harder. As always with the Mempowered books, this thorough (and fully referenced) workbook doesn't re-hash the same tired advice that's been peddled for so long. Rather, Effective Notetaking builds on the latest cognitive and educational research to help you study for success. This 3rd edition has advance organizers and multi-choice review questions for each chapter, plus some additional material on multimedia learning, and taking notes in lectures. Keywords: best study strategies for college students, how to improve note taking skills, study skills, college study, taking notes
Bloom, the best-known literary critic of our time, shares his extensive knowledge of and profound joy in the works of a constellation of major writers, including Shakespeare, Cervantes, Austen, Dickinson, Melville, Wilde, and O'Connor in this eloquent invitation to readers to read and read well.
Letters of Note, the book based on the beloved website of the same name, became an instant classic on publication in 2013, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. This new edition sees the collection of the world's most entertaining, inspiring and unusual letters updated with fourteen riveting new missives and a new introduction from curator Shaun Usher. From Virginia Woolf's heart-breaking suicide letter to Queen Elizabeth II's recipe for drop scones sent to President Eisenhower; from the first recorded use of the expression 'OMG' in a letter to Winston Churchill, to Gandhi's appeal for calm to Hitler; and from Iggy Pop's beautiful letter of advice to a troubled young fan, to Leonardo da Vinci's remarkable job application letter, Letters of Note is a celebration of the power of written correspondence which captures the humour, seriousness, sadness and brilliance that make up all of our lives.
Every collage has a tale to tell. Tell your story in paper, fabric, and objects collected from your world. Storytelling With Collage will inspire you to capture your poetic thoughts, fond memories and passionate daydreams in a soft and simple style. Using simple tools and supplies that delight you, you'll learn to work with a variety of prompts and will discover how each element you select--from small shells collected on your last trip to the pretty paper you unwrapped from a recent gift--has its own part of a complete narrative. Nine collage prompts will walk you step-by-step through a collage creation as you work with textured papers, fabric, stitching, found objects, images, natural materials, color, wax and metal. In addition, inside you will find: • Numerous Tasks--ideas for combing your world for collage fodder • Beautiful photos to inspire you to customize your own worktable • Perspective on finding inspiration outside your window through the seasons • Extra inspiration in each chapter from the Collage Stories and works by 25 contributing artists Capture the textures and colors of your moments today through your own Storytelling With Collage!
"Why would I need a book on how to take notes? Notes are just notes!" -- FALSE. Scientists have found that note taking can be as mentally demanding as playing chess can be for an expert. While you take notes, you listen carefully to the lecturer, you process the new material, you organize it in your working memory, and you finally write down what you think is most important. All this happens while someone is talking at an average speed of three words per second and someone is writing down at an average speed of one-third of a word per second. It doesn't sound easy now, does it? Notes are an important tool for learning. We don't take notes just to record a few facts so we can review them later. Learning happens as we take notes. Taking notes the right way leads to good study practices, better performance on exams, and long-term retention of information. "Note taking comes naturally." FALSE. Note taking is not obvious or intuitive. Research has shown that students fail to capture 40% of the main points in a typical lecture. First-year students capture only 11%. In some studies, even the best note takers seem to record less than 75% of the important information. People think they take good notes until they're told they don't. Few of us have consciously thought about how we take notes (let alone how to improve the quality of them). We often reproduce the lecturer's phrases verbatim. We don't save time by systematic use of abbreviations. We fail to become a "good psychologist" of our lecturer. We fail to pick up his enthusiasm. We fail to interpret the tone of his voice. We fail to read his body language. And the result is that we fail to take good notes. "Anyway, no one taught me how to take notes in school or in college." TRUE. Educators believe that students are able to assess the quality of their notes and follow good practices. However, studies have shown the exact opposite. The fact that there isn't a course in college dedicated to the art of taking notes (or learning in general) makes students believe that this is a natural skill that they can perfect with practice over the course of their studies. "At the end of the day, everyone has their own way to take notes." TRUE. In this book, you may be surprised to learn that I don't make any references to different types of note-taking systems like those that other books do. The reason is that it's the practices behind the note taking that matter most. For example, you should not copy the lecturer's phrases word for word, but generate the main points in your own words. And you should leave space on your notes for adding comments and testing yourself later. I encourage students to use the Cornell note-taking system because it utilizes most of the principles of effective note taking. No matter which note-taking system you decide to follow, the cognitive effort you will have to expend is equally high. Note taking may not be rocket science, but it's definitely science-cognitive science. And cognitive science has produced a lot of useful insights that we can use now to take better notes. This book presents these insights in simple words, so you can make the most of your notes and use them to study effectively. The title of this book is How to take good notes. However, note taking is just one part of the picture. Note taking is much broader in the context of this book. We take notes so we can interact with them later. What matters most is what we do with our notes after we finish taking them. Notes can do so many good things for you. They hold all your learning efforts. Treat them well. Look after them.
How much further should the affluent world push its material consumption? Does relative dematerialization lead to absolute decline in demand for materials? These and many other questions are discussed and answered in Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Over the course of time, the modern world has become dependent on unprecedented flows of materials. Now even the most efficient production processes and the highest practical rates of recycling may not be enough to result in dematerialization rates that would be high enough to negate the rising demand for materials generated by continuing population growth and rising standards of living. This book explores the costs of this dependence and the potential for substantial dematerialization of modern economies. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization considers the principal materials used throughout history, from wood and stone, through to metals, alloys, plastics and silicon, describing their extraction and production as well as their dominant applications. The evolving productivities of material extraction, processing, synthesis, finishing and distribution, and the energy costs and environmental impact of rising material consumption are examined in detail. The book concludes with an outlook for the future, discussing the prospects for dematerialization and potential constrains on materials. This interdisciplinary text provides useful perspectives for readers with backgrounds including resource economics, environmental studies, energy analysis, mineral geology, industrial organization, manufacturing and material science.
