Using your Kindle for Revision

by Liz Culverwell

It’s hard to believe but only less than a decade ago, students had to carry stacks of reference books around with them and handwrite or type their revision notes. For those of you not old enough to remember those days, not only did we end up with sore shoulders but just think how inefficient this was. We would end up with reams of coffee stained notepads which were full of barely legible notes. We then had the mad dash before an exam to consolidate these notes into something coherent. This was all before the inevitable midnight cram which I’m sure still remains the precursor to any exam. Imagine how cumbersome and difficult it was to revise under these conditions and then factor in there was no ability to search your notes or lose your school bag and all of your notes were gone. Fast forward to today and more and more students are using the Kindle to make their revision notes. It’s hardly surprising when you consider the benefits:

  • You can replace all of those heavy books with one device which is weighs less than even the lightest book used to.
  • Gone are the days of deciding which books you can fit into your school bag. It's mind blowing to consider you could fit every book you would ever need during your entire education on your Kindle, a device which can slip into your jacket pocket.
  • To produce their revision notes students using a Kindle need merely highlight the block of text they are reading, compare this to manually handwriting or retyping your revision notes. Clippings.io extends the Kindle's revision note making capabilities. While Kindle's annotation functions are simple and straightforward, the resulting "My Clippings.txt" file is quite difficult to read. Clippings.io fixes this by letting you choose which data to export and provides sorting and filtering tools that allow you to organize your notes according to your needs before exporting to the file format you desire or publishing to www.evernote.com. It's a subtle enhancement that can lead to a dramatic increase in productivity.