A Practical Guide to Study

There is no dearth of manuals of methodology, even in the areas of philosophy and theology. But these are normally meant for advanced students who are about to begin research on their doctoral thesis. The ones instead who really need a helping hand are the students who come out of high school and find in the University a method which is quite different from the one they were used to: no more daily homework, no dialogue between professors and students, but instead courses, lectures and seminars which, though seeming to leave the students passive, actually call for a greater and a more personal effort of assimilation. Our methodological counsels are therefore directed in the first place to beginners, with the aim of helping them overcome the initial consternation and of making their study more profitable from the very beginning. However, some of the bibliographical indications and techniques of research described within certainly go beyond the needs and even the capacities of a beginner, for we would like that this methodological primer be useful also to the more advanced student. The points made here are meant to be assimilated not so much through private reading but through the practical exercises of a proseminar done under the guidance of an expert.