This is all descriptive of my current thoughts on the matter, not prescriptive—I don’t assign high confidence to my effectiveness in this area except when it comes to the scientific paper part. When it comes to that I am almost sure my way is both distinct from and superior to what most people at my scholastic stage do.
The “how to read” guide is complementary to the “how to write” guide that your author read.
There’s lots of ways to convey information. Reading strategies arise when the author and the reader have a certain mutual understanding concerning how the information is to be presented. The trick is to figure out the conventions of your genre. Humanities books are different from Science books, Science books are very different from scientific abstracts. I think I went somewhat backwards in that I earnestly read scientific abstracts on the internet before I really attempted the reading of scientific textbooks with adult earnestness. Humanities textbooks didn’t come much later, with college. I was initially frustrated with the lack of brevity with which humanities were written—reading them in the science reading style doesn’t work and will result in much information loss. I think that a humanities-style reading in the Sciences would probably result in excessive time usage, confusion, and memory overload. I believe that this is not because humanities and sciences are inherently different, but because the two genres have different conventions.
Your reading style will also be shaped by your goals in reading (and the goals of the majority of readers reading shape the reading conventions). For non-fiction, the primary distinction is whether you are reading to fill in known unknowns (looking for an answer to a question) or unknown unknowns (increasing general knowledge in an area without having any questions).
For science textbooks if the material is review (approximately, stuff that we’ve known about since before 1920) I just read it like a novel and skip the parts I already know. My mind will form the models of how things work on the fly as i read, and everything is assumed to be true unless uncertainly is stated. It helps to make little marks concerning where you are confused or perceive a gap, as well as noting the information you intend to commit to memory (if any).
Science textbooks for which the material is novel (stuff that’s still uncertain) the *citations jump out of the page for me. The textbook will typically provide an extremely condensed review of the material in question. My mind will group concepts in terms of each experiment. Each experiment must be evaluated critically as evidence (What do the experimenters think they demonstrated, what do I think it means, etc) . This sort of textbook is a tool for eating tons of abstracts at once—the citations are the roadmaps which divide one concept from another.
For scientific papers, I begin by thoroughly read every word of the abstract. Do I know what all the words mean? Do I understand what’s going on? If not, read the introduction—otherwise skim it or skip it altogether and go directly to methods. Form opinions about the validity / implications of the data. Briefly check whether my conclusions match those of the authors. If they match, I’m done. If they don’t match, read the rest of the paper and figure out the reason for the difference of opinion.
My best strategy with Humanities textbooks thus far has been to read the section I’m interested in front to back, like a novel.
Do you write notes by hand, on a computer?
I don’t think it matters. What does matter is whether you write the notes in the book, or outside of it. Notes in the book will call your attention to the area when you are reading that page. Notes outside of the book (and don’t keep too many of these, or your notes will be a book) will direct you to areas in the book. The former is kind of like episodic memory—it will trigger when you go there. The latter is like working memory—limited in space but useful for managing multiple things at once.
Accordingly, I only use notes if I want to remind myself of something. The actual organization of the material itself happens non-verbally. If I need to commit a complex set of concepts to memory (usually in preperation for a test) I’ll make a diagram or a drawing.
Do you wear noise-canceling headphones?
Earplugs are cheaper. I typically only block out other stimuli if I’m under time pressure or if the material is really boring and my attention keeps running away. But I think boredom is “System 1” way of telling “System 2″ that you are wasting your time so there is no good reason to read something boring unless you’ve been assigned it for a class (in which case, if you aren’t one of the lucky multitudes who possess the gift of extrinsic motivation , tell system 1 to shut up).
I do find that reducing background noise can somewhat reduce overall tension and stress.
How often do you decide not to finish a book?
I only ever finish novel-style books. These can be non-fiction or science, but they’ll be specifically designed for the purpose of keeping the reader hooked. For the other type, you can’t really speak of finishing something that isn’t linearly read.
Edit: As a final note—for me (and I suspect for most people) the limited resource is not time, but willpower. Tedium is the #1 source of willpower leakage, with frustration coming in at #2. The above advice is what I do—if I were to attempt to give advice that universally applies to everyone who is similar enough to me that they read Lesswrong, I’d say “read in the manner which is most enjoyable”. It doesn’t matter if you lose time doing so. Following your interest levels will automatically optimize for information density and relevance (assuming you are reading for self-directed reasons).
This is all descriptive of my current thoughts on the matter, not prescriptive—I don’t assign high confidence to my effectiveness in this area except when it comes to the scientific paper part. When it comes to that I am almost sure my way is both distinct from and superior to what most people at my scholastic stage do.
The “how to read” guide is complementary to the “how to write” guide that your author read.
There’s lots of ways to convey information. Reading strategies arise when the author and the reader have a certain mutual understanding concerning how the information is to be presented. The trick is to figure out the conventions of your genre. Humanities books are different from Science books, Science books are very different from scientific abstracts. I think I went somewhat backwards in that I earnestly read scientific abstracts on the internet before I really attempted the reading of scientific textbooks with adult earnestness. Humanities textbooks didn’t come much later, with college. I was initially frustrated with the lack of brevity with which humanities were written—reading them in the science reading style doesn’t work and will result in much information loss. I think that a humanities-style reading in the Sciences would probably result in excessive time usage, confusion, and memory overload. I believe that this is not because humanities and sciences are inherently different, but because the two genres have different conventions.
Your reading style will also be shaped by your goals in reading (and the goals of the majority of readers reading shape the reading conventions). For non-fiction, the primary distinction is whether you are reading to fill in known unknowns (looking for an answer to a question) or unknown unknowns (increasing general knowledge in an area without having any questions).
For science textbooks if the material is review (approximately, stuff that we’ve known about since before 1920) I just read it like a novel and skip the parts I already know. My mind will form the models of how things work on the fly as i read, and everything is assumed to be true unless uncertainly is stated. It helps to make little marks concerning where you are confused or perceive a gap, as well as noting the information you intend to commit to memory (if any).
Science textbooks for which the material is novel (stuff that’s still uncertain) the *citations jump out of the page for me. The textbook will typically provide an extremely condensed review of the material in question. My mind will group concepts in terms of each experiment. Each experiment must be evaluated critically as evidence (What do the experimenters think they demonstrated, what do I think it means, etc) . This sort of textbook is a tool for eating tons of abstracts at once—the citations are the roadmaps which divide one concept from another.
For scientific papers, I begin by thoroughly read every word of the abstract. Do I know what all the words mean? Do I understand what’s going on? If not, read the introduction—otherwise skim it or skip it altogether and go directly to methods. Form opinions about the validity / implications of the data. Briefly check whether my conclusions match those of the authors. If they match, I’m done. If they don’t match, read the rest of the paper and figure out the reason for the difference of opinion.
My best strategy with Humanities textbooks thus far has been to read the section I’m interested in front to back, like a novel.
I don’t think it matters. What does matter is whether you write the notes in the book, or outside of it. Notes in the book will call your attention to the area when you are reading that page. Notes outside of the book (and don’t keep too many of these, or your notes will be a book) will direct you to areas in the book. The former is kind of like episodic memory—it will trigger when you go there. The latter is like working memory—limited in space but useful for managing multiple things at once.
Accordingly, I only use notes if I want to remind myself of something. The actual organization of the material itself happens non-verbally. If I need to commit a complex set of concepts to memory (usually in preperation for a test) I’ll make a diagram or a drawing.
Earplugs are cheaper. I typically only block out other stimuli if I’m under time pressure or if the material is really boring and my attention keeps running away. But I think boredom is “System 1” way of telling “System 2″ that you are wasting your time so there is no good reason to read something boring unless you’ve been assigned it for a class (in which case, if you aren’t one of the lucky multitudes who possess the gift of extrinsic motivation , tell system 1 to shut up).
I do find that reducing background noise can somewhat reduce overall tension and stress.
I only ever finish novel-style books. These can be non-fiction or science, but they’ll be specifically designed for the purpose of keeping the reader hooked. For the other type, you can’t really speak of finishing something that isn’t linearly read.
Edit: As a final note—for me (and I suspect for most people) the limited resource is not time, but willpower. Tedium is the #1 source of willpower leakage, with frustration coming in at #2. The above advice is what I do—if I were to attempt to give advice that universally applies to everyone who is similar enough to me that they read Lesswrong, I’d say “read in the manner which is most enjoyable”. It doesn’t matter if you lose time doing so. Following your interest levels will automatically optimize for information density and relevance (assuming you are reading for self-directed reasons).