Often overlooked, course readers and handouts are more important than most students realise. These documents – module readers, syllabi, lecture handouts, assigned articles – might not be as flashy as textbooks or as exciting as new lectures, but they can be the secret sauce to academic success. In fact, research over decades has found that no more than about 30% of students complete their assigned readings in a course. That means if you actually use these resources fully, you’re giving yourself a huge advantage. Below, we offer five tips to help you make the most of your course readers and handouts and get ahead in your first year (and beyond).
Read the reader (right away!)
Your course or module “reader” (or syllabus/handbook) is essentially the roadmap for the term – don’t just file it away and forget it. If you’re studying full-time, you might have four modules a year (each worth 30 credits, for example), and each will come with a course reader or syllabus. The moment you receive it, read it from cover to cover. The reader lays out everything you need to know: what topics will be covered each week, key objectives, assignment details and deadlines, how you’ll be assessed, and often even the grading criteria. It’s your foolproof guide to what the professor expects of you. There’s a reason professors emphasise it – as one college advisor put it, the syllabus is the “best kept secret weapon to acing a class” that too many students ignore. By carefully reviewing it upfront, you can avoid unpleasant surprises (like finding out about an assignment the day before it’s due).
Once you’ve read through the reader, start planning. Mark down all important dates (assignment due dates, exam weeks, project deadlines) on a calendar. This gives you a broad overview of your semester. For example, if you notice two essays and a lab report all due in the same week, you can plan ahead to start one of them early. If the module reader includes essay or project questions, decide early which question or topic you might tackle. That way, you can hit the library well in advance to grab the recommended books or articles. Be the first on your course to check out those key readings – it’s much easier than fighting over a limited number of library copies later on. Getting a head start like this not only reduces last-minute stress, it also shows initiative. (Some professors might even allow you to discuss your chosen topic with them earlier, which can give you extra guidance.) In short, treat the course reader as your strategy guide for the module – refer to it often and let it guide your semester.
Annotate the Reader
Don’t keep your course reader or syllabus in pristine condition – by the end of the term it should be a working document. Mark it up with your notes and highlights. For example, underline or highlight the listed essay questions or tasks that you need to keep in mind. Tick off each reading in the bibliography as you complete it – and add brief notes next to each, or in the margins, about what you learned or questions you have. Use the margins to jot down follow-up notes from each week’s lectures and seminars. Over time, you’ll accumulate a running commentary in your reader that connects the course content to your own observations. If you only pull out the reader a few days before an essay deadline and find it’s still as neat and clean as when you got it, that’s a bad sign – the odds of doing well will be stacked against you, because it means you haven’t been engaging with the material all along.
This kind of active engagement – annotating and note-taking on the reader – is proven to help you learn. Educational research considers annotation an active reading strategy that significantly improves comprehension and retention of information. In other words, by writing in the margins and interacting with the text, you’re processing the material more deeply. One student writer describes annotation as “simulating a conversation” with the author – questioning their ideas, responding to them, and thereby retaining their knowledge better. Marginal notes, highlights, or summary comments turn passive reading into an active dialogue. Yes, it takes extra time in the moment, but that time isn’t lost – it’s invested. The University of North Carolina’s Learning Center points out that spending time to annotate now will save you time later when you’re studying for exams, because you’ve essentially built a personalised study guide into your reader. You won’t have to re-read everything from scratch – your highlights and notes will draw your attention to the key points. Even more, you’re likely to remember the content long after the course ends, because you truly processed it when reading. So grab a pen (or use digital annotation tools) and start marking up your reader from week one. It might feel strange to write in official course materials at first, but as one famous educator said, “Marking up a book is not an act of mutilation but of love” – it’s a sign that you’re actively engaging with what you’re learning.
Read the handouts (don’t procrastinate!)
Throughout your course, most lecturers will provide weekly handouts or readings for lectures and seminars. These might be printouts, slides, journal articles, or chapters – sometimes quite hefty packets of reading. It’s important to have the right attitude: don’t complain too much about the workload (everyone else in your class is in the same boat!), and don’t fall into the trap of procrastinating on your weekly readings. It’s actually possible that you’ll spend more time dreading or complaining about the pile of reading than it would take to just sit down and read it. Think about those times you’ve put off an article for days, only to find it takes an hour to read – you could have finished it sooner and saved yourself the stress. Instead of postponing it, get into a routine of tackling your background reading at a set time each day. For instance, you might block out an hour after lunch or dedicate a portion of your evening to course reading. When it’s part of your daily schedule, it becomes a habit rather than an overwhelming chore. You’ll also find that consistent, spaced-out reading is much better for memory than last-minute cramming. Psychological studies on learning show that spacing your study sessions (reading a bit each day) helps encode information into long-term memory – one study even found spaced practice to be up to twice as effective as cramming for retaining information. In short, doing your readings regularly will not only make the material easier to digest, it will also help you remember it when exams come around.
If you struggle with motivation, try the classic carrot-and-stick approach – though we recommend more carrot (reward) than stick. Set a goal and a reward for yourself: for example, “If I get all my reading done by Friday afternoon, I’ll treat myself to a night out or a relaxing weekend activity.” Small immediate rewards can seriously boost your drive. In fact, research from Cornell University found that giving yourself an immediate reward for working on a task increased interest and enjoyment, and led to people sticking with the task longer. In one experiment, students who got an immediate bonus for reading were 35% more likely to continue reading even after the reward was removed, compared to those promised a later (delayed) reward. The takeaway? Rewarding yourself now (even with something small like a favorite snack, a break, or an outing) for completing your readings can train your brain to find the activity itself more satisfying. So, if you finish this week’s chapters on schedule, go ahead and meet your friends guilt-free or enjoy that Netflix binge – you earned it! Just make sure you actually hold yourself to your plan: no readings, no reward. Over time, you might find you don’t even need the reward as much because keeping up with your handouts will start to feel routine.
Use the handouts (respectfully)
Treat all your handouts and assigned readings with due respect – they are not busy-work or optional extras; they’re part of the course content and often contain the insights or examples that tie directly into your lectures and exams. Remember, your lecturers are clever people who know their field well. The material they select for you is chosen deliberately to be relevant, up-to-date, and (hopefully) interesting. If a professor has gone to the trouble to compile a 20-page packet for week 3, it’s because those pages add something important to your understanding of the topic. Approach each handout with an open mind, looking for the key points the lecturer wants you to grasp. You might even discover the readings make the lectures easier to follow (or vice versa), since they’re usually designed to complement each other. Instead of thinking of it as “extra” work, realise that the handouts are part of the work – exam questions and essay prompts often draw from these readings. Many students who skip the handouts end up surprised when test questions cover material from them. Don’t be that student – use the handouts to your advantage.
As you read the handouts, engage actively with them. Just as with your course reader, it helps to make notes, highlight, or otherwise interact with the text. Everyone will have their own style, but here are a few ideas. You could scribble brief summaries in the margin next to each section of the text, or write a one-sentence takeaway at the end of the handout to solidify what you learned. Some students like to color-code their annotations – for instance, using a red pen or highlighter to mark follow-up questions or things they want to clarify later, and a blue pen to underline key concepts or definitions. Others might put stars or asterisks next to examples that could be useful for assignments. If you do choose to color-code or use symbols, keep your system simple and consistent (you don’t need a rainbow of 17 colors and a decoding chart in the back of your notebook!). The goal is to make the important information stand out and to create cues that will help you quickly find things when reviewing later. By actively using the handouts – not just passively reading them – you’ll understand and remember the content more deeply. And when it’s time to write that essay or study for the exam, you can pull out your annotated handouts and instantly recall why you highlighted that paragraph or what that margin note meant. In short, don’t just read the handouts – use them as learning tools.
Don’t kid a kidder
“Don’t kid a kidder” means you shouldn’t try to fool someone who is not easily fooled – and your lecturers have seen it all. Anything you might try to pull, any shortcut or excuse, they’ve likely encountered many times before. So, be genuine. Don’t bother faking that you did the reading when you didn’t – for example, don’t scrawl a bunch of random notes on the front page of a handout five minutes before class just to look prepared. Professors can tell when a student is bluffing or when a comment is superficial. It’s far better to be honest and say, “I didn’t quite understand this part, could you explain?” or even admit you fell behind (occasionally) than to pretend. And absolutely do not skip the seminar or lecture just because you didn’t finish the reading – still show up and listen. There’s always something you can gain from the discussion, even if you mostly just absorb information that day. Who knows, the class conversation might cover the key points of the reading you missed, or a classmate might ask a question you had as well. Plus, attending shows your professor that you’re still committed, which is better than being a no-show. You can always catch up on the reading later, but you can’t recreate a live discussion or lecture you skipped.
Also, be aware that some lecturers will actively test whether you’re paying attention to the materials. A classic move: hiding an “easter egg” in the handouts or syllabus to see which students notice. For instance, one university professor actually hid a $50 cash prize on campus and put the instructions to find it buried in the course syllabus text. At the end of the semester, he checked the hiding spot – and the money was still there, unclaimed, because not a single student had read the syllabus thoroughly enough to find the clue. Oops! The point is, profs include subtle details or even silly out-of-place content not just for fun but to see who is on the ball. So if you see, say, a picture of Peter Rabbit randomly inserted on page 94 of your economics course pack, and you’re definitely not studying children’s literature, it’s likely there to test whether you’re doing the reading diligently. It might be a reference to something or just a tongue-in-cheek way for the lecturer to reward the attentive (sometimes they’ll ask in class, “By the way, did anyone catch the rabbit on page 94?”). You don’t want to be the student sinking in your seat because you have no idea what they’re talking about. The overall lesson: don’t kid a kidder. Read what you’re given, take it seriously, and don’t try to bluff your way through. Even if you slip up now and then, owning up and learning from it impresses educators far more than any half-hearted cover-up. And when you do put in the effort, professors notice that too – you’ll build a reputation as a conscientious student.
In Conclusion: Course readers and handouts might not always be thrilling reads, but they are keys to succeeding at university. They compile the guidance and knowledge your lecturers most want you to have. By reading them early, annotating them, keeping up with them each week, and engaging with their content, you’ll be far ahead of the average student. Not only will you save yourself frantic cramming and stress later on, but you’ll also deepen your understanding of the material and improve your performance on essays and exams. So next time you’re handed a thick course packet or a detailed module guide, don’t groan – embrace it. Treat it like the valuable resource it is. As you’ve seen, putting in that bit of extra effort consistently can turn these often-overlooked documents into your secret weapon for academic success. Good luck, and happy reading!
Sources:
- St. Clair-Thompson et al. (2017). Exploring the Reading Practices of Undergraduate Students – Research finding that only a small proportion of students complete assigned readings researchgate.net.
- Slaymaker, K. (2022). The Importance of the College Syllabus – College Raptor (tips on using the syllabus to plan your semester)
- Wang, E. (2024). Why you should annotate your books – JHU News-Letter (benefits of active reading and annotation) jhunewsletter.com.
- UNC Learning Center – Annotating Texts (study tips handout on annotation improving retention; value of annotation for exam prep) learningcenter.unc.edu
- Harding, J. (2023). Why Spaced Study is Far More Effective than Cramming – Engaging Minds (benefits of spacing out studying vs. cramming) engagingmindsonline.com.
- Woolley, K. (2018). It’s About Time: Immediate Rewards Boost Motivation – Cornell Chronicle (study on immediate vs. delayed rewards for tasks like reading) news.cornell.edu.
- Adams, A. (2021). Professor Hid a Cash Prize in Syllabus — and None of His Students Found It – People Magazine (anecdote of professor testing if students read the syllabus) people.com.