Study sheets, summaries and mind maps from your own notes

Making study sheets takes ages. AI can help you prepare them in minutes from your own material: your notes, the handout, the textbook chapter, the teacher's slides. Two rules, though: start from your documents rather than its general knowledge, and check what it produces.

Start from your own notes

If you ask "make me a sheet on the First World War", you get a general sheet, which may match neither what your teacher covered in class nor what will come up in the exam. Paste or attach your notes instead, and ask it to stick to them.

"Here are my notes on the First World War. Make me a one-page revision sheet based on this text only: the key dates, the concepts to know with a short definition, and the three main ideas. Don't add anything that isn't in the notes; if something seems to be missing or wrong, flag it separately."

If your notes are handwritten, take a photo: many assistants can read a photo of text, but difficult handwriting may be misread. Check the transcription before anything else.

Three useful formats

• The summary: in five sentences, then in just one. If the one-sentence version feels right, you've grasped the essentials.
• The sheet: definitions, dates, formulas, examples. Ask for a short format you can reread in two minutes.
• The mind map: the central idea in the middle, the main parts as branches, the details as sub-branches. AI can give you its structure as an outline, which you then draw on paper or in a mind-mapping tool.

"Based on these notes, suggest the structure of a mind map: one central idea, four to six branches, and two or three keywords per branch. Present it as a bulleted outline."

Always check

A wrong sheet is worse than no sheet at all: you'll learn the mistake by heart. AI can leave out an important point, swap two dates or add a detail from somewhere else. Before revising, compare the sheet with your notes, line by line, at least the first few times. A tip: ask it to show, for each point, the passage of your notes it comes from.

Making it is already revising

Much of a study sheet's value comes from making it: sorting, choosing, rephrasing. If the AI does it all, you lose that work. A good compromise: write your own sheet first, then ask the AI what you missed or phrased badly.

"Here are my notes, then the sheet I made. Compare the two: which important concepts did I miss, and what did I phrase badly? Don't rewrite the sheet, just give me the list."