|𝔻⟩irac's Student: Prime, Compress, Author

When I was in graduate school studying for my qualifying/comprehensive exams, I had to devise a way I could learn as much information as I could. For one, I'm a terrible timed-test taker, I do not compete well in this setting. Remove the time constraint and I'm much more competitive; probably the case with others as well. However, that is a luxury that is rarely afforded to students since the goal of timed examination is to determine how well an individual can recall and utilize concepts in comparison to their peers. Because of my poor test taking abilities I was obsessed with preparing the best I could and formulated a technique that works for me. I'm positive elements of this approach exist in more well known standard methods.

My reason for writing about this approach now rather than 10 years ago is that I've been spending a lot of my time learning new things in the fields of AI, neuroscience, and thermodynamics computing. Because I have no formal background in these topics, I needed to leverage my previous approaches that worked well for me, hence my method used for my comprehensive exams.

Overview

My method is primarily designed for learning from books, but could potentially be adapted for audio or video content. It involves three key steps:

Prime: Prepare your mind by uninterrupted reading.
Compress: Annotate key ideas in your own concise style.
Author: Write as if you were the author of a textbook.

This is what I refer to as the PCA method, which is somewhat ironic given that principal component analysis is a method of compressing data, yet retains a richness of information.

🧨 Prime

The goal here is to familiarize yourself with the concepts and ideas in the learning material without interruptions. During this initial exposure, do not take notes; focus solely on understanding the content. Additionally, avoid consulting supplementary materials, even if parts of the text are unclear. This maintains the focus and efficiency of the session.

For effective priming, shorter segments are generally more manageable than entire chapters, as chapters often cover broad topics with complex details. Engaging with smaller content blocks allows for a more focused approach.

At the end of reading you should feel like you have a general sense of the content and what is important.

📦 Compress

I find this step crucial as it solidifies the understanding of the material. Re-read the text from the Prime step and take notes using paper and pen in real-time. The format of your notes should reflect your personal preferences, whether as text chunks or bullet points, etc. Include diagrams and summaries of important figures in your own style. Add footnotes for references or important details to revisit later.

The aim is to distill the content into a personalized, dense, and informative resource. These notes are meant for your use, tailored to your understanding. Don't write them thinking you'll share them with others, so "being messy" is okay!

📚 Author

Now, adopt the mindset of an "Author" or "Teacher." Use the notes from the Compress step as a basis to expand into a clear, detailed, and presentable format. This step involves refining your notes into a resource useful to others. Aim for thoroughness and professionalism.

Initially, try to rely on your memory and notes to guide your writing, ensuring the content is conveyed effectively. However, feel free to refer back to the original material and your notes, research further as needed, and enhance your explanations with additional resources.

Sometimes I call this step the "Being Feynman" step, in reference to the Richard Feynman technique. You could say PCA is a form of the Feynman technique, but as Dirac's self-appointed student it would be blasphemous to do so, 😉.

Re-read & Polish (Optional)

If time allows, revisiting the original text can enhance the accuracy of your work. Review your notes and the final document, possibly consulting with peers to identify and correct misunderstandings. Recognizing errors independently can be challenging, making peer feedback invaluable.

Tools You May Want to Use

Prime: Utilize the primary text, audio, or video only.
Compress: Choose quality writing tools and your preferred type of paper; I favor plain white printer paper.
Authoring: Consider various tools based on your needs:

App	Scope
$\LaTeX$	Ideal for non-computational writing, with Overleaf providing a quick start.
Obsidian	Excellent for non-computational, markdown-based documentation.
Jupyter Notebooks	Best for including computations and visualizations.
Quarto	Similar to Jupyter Notebooks but with expanded document format options.

Footnotes

Dividing the Prime step into smaller segments simplifies the Compress step by reducing the volume of notes and easing cross-reference with previous annotations. ↩

Reuse and Attribution