# How should I study history notes? — DocFind Last reviewed: September 27, 2026. HTML version: https://docfindapp.com/answers/how-to-study-history-notes **Test yourself on your notes instead of rereading them, come back to each topic weeks later rather than the night before, and practise explaining why events happened, not only when.** Those three come from a What Works Clearinghouse practice guide, *Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning*, which rates the evidence behind each recommendation. It was published in 2007 and written for teachers, but its examples include history classes, and two of the three points above are the ones it rates most strongly. ## Quiz yourself; do not just reread

The guide's recommendation "Use quizzes to re-expose students to key content" is one of only two it rates "Strong" ([*Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning*, IES practice guide](https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/WWC/Docs/PracticeGuide/20072004.pdf), Table 2, read 27 September 2026). The University of North Carolina's Learning Center puts the student version bluntly: "Re-reading leads to quick forgetting", while "Quizzing yourself is a highly effective study technique" ([*Studying 101: Study Smarter Not Harder*](https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/studying-101-study-smarter-not-harder/), read 27 September 2026).

For history notes that means turning statements into questions. "The treaty was signed in 1648" becomes "When, and why then?" Cover the answer, say it, check it. The questions you miss are the ones to come back to — UNC's page suggests quizzing yourself "on only those questions" you do not yet know.

## Space the review out

The guide's first recommendation is "Space learning over time", specifically to "review key elements of course content after a delay of several weeks to several months after initial presentation", rated "Moderate". Its example is from a history class: a study of eighth-graders' memory "for historical facts" compared a review one week after teaching with one sixteen weeks after, and on a test nine months later "the 16-week delay group showed significantly greater performance (almost 100 percent increase)" (same guide).

In practice: when you finish a topic, put a date in your calendar a few weeks out to quiz yourself on it again, and do the same before the exam rather than starting from scratch then.

## Ask why, how, and what if

The other recommendation rated "Strong" is to "Ask deep explanatory questions". The guide's examples of deep explanations include "causes and consequences of historical events" and "motivations of people involved in historical events", and the question forms it lists are "why, why-not, how, what-if, how does X compare to Y, and what is the evidence for X?" (same guide).

That matches what history teachers ask for. UNC's Writing Center says "most UNC history instructors will expect you to both know information and interpret it to answer a question about the past", and that being able to list names in chronological order "will mean little unless you can show why and how that chronology is significant" ([*History — The Writing Center*](https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/history/), read 27 September 2026). So for each event in your notes, write one line on its cause and one on what it changed.

## A way to lay out the notes

This part is our suggestion, not the guide's. Keep three things per topic: a short timeline on one page, a list of questions down the margin of your notes (the quiz from the first section), and a line for each important source saying whether it is a primary source from the period or a later historian's account — the distinction UNC's history handout draws between "primary sources" and "secondary sources". Exam questions that ask you to interpret usually turn on that difference.

## What the evidence does not settle

The guide is honest about its limits. It rates several of its own recommendations "Low", including the one on teaching students to judge what they have learned, and it notes that "few studies have examined acquisition of complex bodies of structured information", which is what a history course is (same guide). Treat the spacing figures above as one study's result, not a promise about your exam.

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