There are two general types of rate training manuals. RATING manuals (such as this one) are prepared for most enlisted ratings. A rating manual gives information that is directly related to the occupational standards on one rating. SUBJECT MATTER manuals or BASIC manuals give information that applies to more than one rating. (Example: Tools and Their Uses, NAVED-TRA 10085 [latest edition].)

Rate training manuals are revised from time to time to keep them up to date technically. The revision of a rate training manual is identified by a letter following the NAVEDTRA number. You can tell whether any particular copy of a training manual is the latest edition by checking the NAVEDTRA number and the letter following this number in the most recent edition of List of Training Manuals and Correspondence Courses, NAVEDTRA 10061 (latest edition). (The NAV-EDTRA 10061 is actually a catalog that lists all current training manuals and courses. You will find this catalog useful in planning your study program .)

Each time a rate training manual is revised, it is brought into conformance with the official publications and directives on which it is based. However, during the life of any edition of a rate training manual, changes will be made to the official sources, and discrepancies will arise. You should always refer to the appropriate official publication or directive. If the official source is listed in NAVEDTRA 10052, the Naval Education and Training Program Management Support Activity will use it as a source of questions in preparing the fleetwide examinations for advancement. In case of discrepancies between any publications listed in NAVEDTRA 10052 for a given rate, the examination writers will use the most recent material.

Rate training manuals are designed to help you prepare for advancement. The following suggestions may help you make the best use of this manual and other Navy training publications when you prepare for advancement.

1. Study the naval standards and the occupational standards for your rating before you study the training manual, and refer to the standards frequently as you study. Remember, you are studying the manual primarily to meet these standards.

2. Set up a regular study plan. It will probably be easier for you to stick to a schedule if you can study at the same time each day. Try to schedule your studying for a time of day when you will not have too many interruptions or distractions.

3. Before you study any part of the manual intensively, become familiar with the entire book. Read the preface and the table of contents. Check through the index. Thumb through the book without any particular plan. Look at the illustrations and read bits here and there as you see things that interest you. Review the glossary, which provides definitions that apply to words or terms as they are used within the engineering field and within the text. There are many words with more than one meaning. Do not assume that you know the meaning of a word. Look it up in the glossary.

4. Look at the training manual in more detail to see how it is organized. Look at the table of contents again. Then, chapter by chapter, read the introduction, the headings, and the subheadings. This will give you a pretty clear picture of the scope and content of the book. As you look through the book, ask yourself some questions:

What do I need to learn about this?

What do I already know about this?

How is this information related to information given in other chapters?

How is this information related to the occupational standards?

5. When you have a general idea of what is in the training manual and how it is organized, fill in the details by intensive study. Try to cover a complete unit in each study periodit may be a chapter, a section of a chapter, or a subsection. The amount of material that you can cover at one time will depend on how well you know the subject.

6. In studying any one unitchapter, section, or subsectionwrite down questions as they occur to you. You may find it helpful to make a written outline of the unit, or, at least, to write down the most important ideas.

7. As you study, relate the information in the training manual to the knowledge you already have. When you read about a process, a skill, or a situation, try to see how this information ties in with your own past experience.

8. When you have finished studying a unit, take time out to see what you have learned. Look back over your notes and questions. Maybe some of your questions have been answered, but perhaps you still have some that are not answered. Without looking at the training manual, write down the main ideas that you have gotten from studying this unit. Do not just quote the book. If you cannot give these ideas in your own words, the chances are that you have not really mastered the information.

9. Use nonresident career courses whenever you can. The courses are based on rate training manuals or on other appropriate texts. Remember that you can complete a mandatory rate training manual by passing a nonresident career course based on the rate training manual. You will probably find it helpful to take other courses as well as those based on mandatory manuals. These courses will help you to master the information given in the training manual and to see how much you have learned.

10. Think of your future as you study rate training manuals. You are working for advancement to third class right now, but you will soon be working toward higher rates. Anything extra that you can learn now will also help you later.

Other NAVEDTRA Publications

Some additional and useful NAVEDTRA publications are listed and described in the following paragraphs. You may also want to consult the training manuals for other ratings in occupational fields 3 and 4 (Engineering and Hull). These manuals will help you to increase your knowledge of the duties of others in the engineering department and will help you to prepare for your next promotion.

Another valuable publication is The Metric System, NAVEDTRA 475-01-00-79, which is packaged with a self-study course. Over the next few years, the metric system will be more widely used by the Navy as well as by the civilian world. The following chapters of the Naval Ships Technical Manual are of particular importance to the Engineman. For your convenience, both the new and old numbers for each chapter are listed. You will find it easy to work with metrics once you have mastered the basic terms. Translating values from our present system to the metric system may seem difficult to you at this time, but this operation will become unnecessary once the new measurements are totally adopted. See your educational services officer for information on how to obtain this study package.