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[captain_obvious]

A while back, LarryC posted his excellent advice on how to read a book in an hour.  I've found this really useful with scholarly works-- things that have introductions, conclusions, and paragraphs with obvious topic sentences.

Now I'm wondering..... for those of you who read a lot of non-scholarly work, say folks in literature, for example, what are your tips in getting quickly through this material?  Do you really have to just sit down and plow through it, or is there a secret method I don't know about?


thanks!
CO

[elsie]

Literature should be savored, not plowed through, unless it's a page turner which won't allow you to read slowly.

[yellowtractor]

I work interdisciplinarily, across several fields in the humanities, including literature.  I don't think there exist any special speed tips for quality literature:  I mean, if it's that good, it really demands every word.  Good writing is not so much about conveying content, in the same sense that prose in a monograph does.  Or perhaps better to say that in good writing every word conveys content.

Which is to say that when I have to switch from reading monographs to reading great novels or poetry there's often a period of cognitive dissonance--lasting from minutes to days--in which I have to slow myself down.  I read too many monographs-in-an-hour when I was a grad student; this praxis of reading shortchanges the good stuff.

[captain_obvious]

Literature should be savored, not plowed through, unless it's a page turner which won't allow you to read slowly.

Oh, if only!  I'm all for savoring, but the reality is simply that there's no time for it. 

Fankly, these aren't books I would choose to read for the joy of it.  They've been assigned to illustrate a larger theoretical point about my--generally very non-literary--field.  It's not so much that this book is great literature as that, like a novel, it lacks the structural characteristics that generally make gutting a book possible.  I'm finding myself spending a ridiculous amount of time on this thing, and frankly, it's just not worth it.  But I do need to get through it.  Hence my question here.

[yellowtractor]

Literature should be savored, not plowed through, unless it's a page turner which won't allow you to read slowly.

Oh, if only!  I'm all for savoring, but the reality is simply that there's no time for it. 

Fankly, these aren't books I would choose to read for the joy of it.  They've been assigned to illustrate a larger theoretical point about my--generally very non-literary--field.  It's not so much that this book is great literature as that, like a novel, it lacks the structural characteristics that generally make gutting a book possible.  I'm finding myself spending a ridiculous amount of time on this thing, and frankly, it's just not worth it.  But I do need to get through it.  Hence my question here.

I think "fankly" should be a word.  I would read more books more faster if more books had "fankly" in them.  I love this new word.  Seriously.

[captain_obvious]

Literature should be savored, not plowed through, unless it's a page turner which won't allow you to read slowly.

Oh, if only!  I'm all for savoring, but the reality is simply that there's no time for it. 

Fankly, these aren't books I would choose to read for the joy of it.  They've been assigned to illustrate a larger theoretical point about my--generally very non-literary--field.  It's not so much that this book is great literature as that, like a novel, it lacks the structural characteristics that generally make gutting a book possible.  I'm finding myself spending a ridiculous amount of time on this thing, and frankly, it's just not worth it.  But I do need to get through it.  Hence my question here.

I think "fankly" should be a word.  I would read more books more faster if more books had "fankly" in them.  I love this new word.  Seriously.

See, now this is what I'm talking about!  We just need to get editors to let "fankly" slip in, and then all the reading will zoom on by =)

[yellowtractor]

Literature should be savored, not plowed through, unless it's a page turner which won't allow you to read slowly.

Oh, if only!  I'm all for savoring, but the reality is simply that there's no time for it. 

Fankly, these aren't books I would choose to read for the joy of it.  They've been assigned to illustrate a larger theoretical point about my--generally very non-literary--field.  It's not so much that this book is great literature as that, like a novel, it lacks the structural characteristics that generally make gutting a book possible.  I'm finding myself spending a ridiculous amount of time on this thing, and frankly, it's just not worth it.  But I do need to get through it.  Hence my question here.

I think "fankly" should be a word.  I would read more books more faster if more books had "fankly" in them.  I love this new word.  Seriously.

See, now this is what I'm talking about!  We just need to get editors to let "fankly" slip in, and then all the reading will zoom on by =)

I'm trying to decide whether I'm brave enough to post the verb "to fankle" on the Terms & Definitions thread.

But this is off-topic...wait, how many more papers do I have to grade tonight before I allow myself food or sleep?

[captain_obvious]

Before food = zero
Before sleep = ????

Me, I'm back to the not-literary-not-scholarly book.

feh.

double feh.

I am fankled.  What else can I say?

[metric]

A while back, LarryC posted his excellent advice on how to read a book in an hour. 

Does anyone know where this post is, or perhaps could paraphrase this technique if you know what it is? I couldn't seem to find it, but I have a huge pile of reading to do and am very curious about whether this advice might help. Please hurry, the pile is getting even bigger as I type this!

Thanks!

[holyhush]

LarryC wrote (copied from the Word file I copied his post into):

1. Create a clean space--a table, the book, paper and a writing utensil, and nothing else.

2. Read two academic reviews of the book you photocopied beforehand. Don't skip this step, these will tell you the book's perceived strengths and weakness. Allow five minutes for this.

3. Read the introduction, carefully. A good intro will give you the book's thesis, clues on the methods and sources, and thumbnail synopses of each chapter. Work quickly but take good notes (with a bibliographic citation at the top of the page.) Allow twenty minutes here.

4. Now turn directly to the conclusion and read that. The conclusion will reinforce the thesis and have some more quotable material. In your notes write down 1-2 direct quotes suitable for using in a review or literature review, should you later be assigned to write such a beast.
Ten to fifteen minutes.

5. Turn to the table of contents and think about what each chapter likely contains. You may be done--in many cases in grad school the facts in any particular book will already be familiar to you, what is novel is the interpretation. And you should already have that from the intro and conclusion. Five minutes.

6. (Optional) Skim 1-2 of what seem to be the key chapters. Look for something clever the author has done with her or his evidence, memorable phrases, glaring weaknesses--stuff you can mention and sound thoughtful yourself when it is your turn to talk in the seminar room. Ten minutes, max.

7. Put the notes and photocopied review in a file folder and squirrel it away. These folders will serve as fodder for future assignments, reviews of similar books, lectures, grant applications, etc.


The above works better with some books than others, but will generally do the trick. Another good technique to have is paragraph surfing. Read the first sentence in each paragraph--and nothing else. After a few disconcerting minutes, it become surprisingly easy to make sense out of a book this way, and it is fast.

[captain_obvious]

I don't have a link to the original thread, but I did copy down LarryC's advice at the time.  Here it is, word for word:

1. Create a clean space--a table, the book, paper and a writing utensil, and nothing else.

2. Read two academic reviews of the book you photocopied beforehand. Don't skip this step, these will tell you the book's perceived strengths and weakness. Allow five minutes for this.

3. Read the introduction, carefully. A good intro will give you the book's thesis, clues on the methods and sources, and thumbnail synopses of each chapter. Work quickly but take good notes (with a bibliographic citation at the top of the page.) Allow twenty minutes here.

4. Now turn directly to the conclusion and read that. The conclusion will reinforce the thesis and have some more quotable material. In your notes write down 1-2 direct quotes suitable for using in a review or literature review, should you later be assigned to write such a beast.
Ten to fifteen minutes.

5. Turn to the table of contents and think about what each chapter likely contains. You may be done--in many cases in grad school the facts in any particular book will already be familiar to you, what is novel is the interpretation. And you should already have that from the intro and conclusion. Five minutes.

6. (Optional) Skim 1-2 of what seem to be the key chapters. Look for something clever the author has done with her or his evidence, memorable phrases, glaring weaknesses--stuff you can mention and sound thoughtful yourself when it is your turn to talk in the seminar room. Ten minutes, max.

7. Put the notes and photocopied review in a file folder and squirrel it away. These folders will serve as fodder for future assignments, reviews of similar books, lectures, grant applications, etc.

8. Miller time. Meet some friends and tell them the interesting things you just learned (driving it deeper it your memory).

The above works better with some books than others, but will generally do the trick. Another good technique to have is paragraph surfing. Read the first sentence in each paragraph--and nothing else. After a few disconcerting minutes, it become surprisingly easy to make sense out of a book this way, and it is fast.

[captain_obvious]

haha!  jinx ;-)

Now, while we're on the subject, have any of you gotten advice that conflicts with Larry's?  On the first meeting of my research methods class last week, the prof gave us her take on how to gut a book.  Essentially, it was to read every chapter (possibly using Larry's paragraph surfing technique) and, instead of taking regular notes, to create your own index of interesting/important topics and ideas as you go.  At all costs, she wanted you to AVOID reading any book reviews ahead of time, as she felt that might bias your own take on the text too heavily.  She did, however, suggest that we find out as much about the author's background and the historical context of the work as possible before reading.

So what do you all thing?  I feel really comfortable with LarryC's approach, but I'm curious if others feel strongly one way or the other on the note taking and review reading issues.

[metric]

Hi Captain Obvious. What do you mean by "regular notes" as opposed to the other kind that you mention?

[captain_obvious]

Well, I guess I've never taken notes in the form of an "index" before.  In high school and undergrad, I noted important topics and arguments, relevant factual information I hadn't previously known, quotations I found especially interesting.  You know-- notes. 

What's your note taking method?

[metric]

It depends. I think I take two kinds of notes. If I am reading for a course, I just kind of note down the chapter heading, and then outline it from there in a very paraphrased form. I write down the key point of each sub-section and paragraph. It is somewhat mechanical and reminds me of the "finding the main idea" question of the GRE.  I think this is more for memorizing the gist of the whole article or book. If anything stands out, because I think I might use it in a paper later, I put a sticky note on it. If I am reading something specifically for a paper, I use large, lined sticky notes and attach them to each page of the article, but only for things that stand out. I definitely do not think I have the ideal system at this point but I am working on it. I was even thinking about getting ambitious trying to put actual notes in endnote, because I think there is a field for this. But that would mean procrastinating for another couple of days because I would actually have to go out and buy it.