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How to Read Practically Anything Faster… and Better!

Learn how to read practically anything faster and better with purpose, strategy, and critical thinking. Discover effective techniques, such as the hourglass structure and PTML, and make the most of your reading time.

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How to Read Practically Anything Faster… and Better!

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  1. How to Read Practically Anything Faster… and Better! Paul N. Edwards School of Information

  2. Purpose and Strategy • Have a purpose • Why you will read • Learn • Integrate (with other knowledge) • Remember • Have a strategy • How you will read

  3. Purpose: key questions • Why was this reading assigned? • Who is the author? • What are the arguments (hypotheses,claims)? • What is the evidence? • What are the conclusions?

  4. Purpose: read critically • What’s missing? • Are you convinced? • What are the weaknesses of the arguments, evidence, and conclusions? • What do you think about them? • What would the author say about these problems?

  5. Purpose: Finish the Job • Always read the whole thing (article, book, assignment…) • Realistic assessment of available time • Decide how much time you will spend • Make a place for reading • Physical • Mental • Schedule

  6. Strategies: Read It Three Times • Overview: discovery • Generate questions • Identify key concepts • Detail: understanding • Answer questions • Identify arguments • Notes: recall and note-taking • Less is more: don’t write too much

  7. Strategies: The Principle of High Information Content • Cover • Table of contents • Index • Bibliography • Preface and/or Introduction • Conclusion • Pictures, graphs, tables, figures • Section headings • Special type or formatting

  8. Strategies: Use the Hourglass Structure • From broad (general) to narrow (specific), and back General Specific General

  9. Page vs. Screen 300 dpi 600 dpi

  10. Strategies: Use PTML (Personal Text Markup Language) • Paper • Underlining, highlighters • Make notes in the margins • Fill in missing section headers • Post-Its (color coded; with notes) • About PDFs • Less is more

  11. Strategies: Investigate Authors, Organizations, and Contexts • Authors are people • Background? Politics? Professional position? Friends/enemies? Gender/race/class? • Organizations: cultures, norms, goals • Academia, journalism, mass media • Intellectual contexts • Why write this? To whom? • Debates within academic fields? Political importance? • Who are the authorities? Who are the renegades? Who’s winning, and why?

  12. Strategies: Plan your Time; Use your Unconscious Mind • Study time has an inherent structure • Two 1.5-hour sessions are better than one 3-hour session • Attention drops off after 1 hour • Will power diminishes over the course of a day • Use your unconscious • A lot happens while you’ re not home

  13. Strategies: Rehearse, and Use Multiple Modes • Continue to think about the book/article after you’ve finished it • Use active modes of thinking • Talk • Write • Visualize

  14. Whatever you practice, you get good at…

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