The skills in this section of Mind Tools help you to master information. By using these techniques, you will be able to improve:

Your reading skills, so that you can find the information you need quickly and easily. The way you make notes, so that they become clear and easy to understand, and quick to review. Your review techniques, so that you can keep information fresh in your mind. By improving the speed at which you assimilate information, you can keep be more effective at keeping yourself up-to-date on events within your field, absorbing information within reports or learning specialist information needed to complete a project.

These are also very useful tools for mastering course material where you are studying for exams. They work particularly well in conjunction with the memory techniques described elsewhere in Mind Tools - used together these two sets of tools will give you a formidable advantage in organizing and remembering information.

Techniques discussed are:

1. How to take notes effectively - Concept Maps
2. Fully absorbing written information - SQ3R
3. Speed Reading
4. Reading faster by thinking what to read - Reading Strategies
5. Keeping information fresh in your mind - Review Techniques

Concept Maps are powerful tools for recording and organizing information. They do this in a format that is easy to review. Once you understand and start using Concept Maps, you will rarely want to take notes using conventional techniques again. The next three techniques (SQ3R, Speed Reading and use of Reading Strategies) help you to assimilate and understand written information quickly and efficiently. The section on Review Techniques will help you to keep information that you have already learned alive in your mind.