Let's take a case study example: understanding how logarithms work. Logarithms are used throughout the fields of mathematics and computer science; however, unless you use them regularly it's easy to get rusty on them:
- The first task that I will do is take a piece of paper and write Logarithm in the center and circle it.
- Next, I'll go to a comprehensive post on the topic, such as one on Wikipedia. When reading the first sentence, I come across a few terms that are a bit fuzzy:
- Inverse operation
- Exponentiation
I will stop reading the logarithm article and go and read those two articles until I feel comfortable with what they represent. After I feel good about those two items, I write them as their own circles that connect to the Logarithm circle. I will also add any examples that will help me understand what the terms mean if necessary.
- Next, I'll go back to the original Logarithm post and keep going through the article repeating this process until the entire page is filled with a mind map that explains each component that makes up logarithms and how they work together. This may include base case examples, such as:
64 = 2^6 is the same as log 2 (64) = 6
If this seems like a dead simple approach to study…it is. The goal of studying is to learn a topic, and one of the easiest ways to understand a complex subject is to break it into easy to comprehend components. For example, if you're trying to understand an advanced algorithm in computer science from scratch, you may feel a little intimidated.