How To Read A Book (1984)

[Music] oh [Music] in spite of all the advances in communication that have taken place in the last few decades most of the information you will absorb while you're in school will come from [Music] books [Music] from textbooks and supplementary readings you'll get most of the knowledge that will help you carry on class discussions write your papers and pass your tests and how well you can read those books will determine how efficiently and effectively you can make use of the information they contain how do you read a book for me reading a book starts with just getting acquainted with it how does that help well it's sort of like dealing with an unknown territory a quick survey can help you find your way around it better what I do is get a feeling for the way the book is going to deal with its subject a title like writing power gives me a little information about what the book's going to cover but sometimes a title can tell you an awful lot like biological science a molecular approach the whole approach the book's going to take is right there in the title you get a feeling for how the information in the book is going to be organized it's not a whole lot of information but at this stage I'm just trying to get [Music] acquainted and then even if a title doesn't tell me too much about a book I always read the preface the preface is really a very special part of the book it's the only place where the author really talks to the reader oneon-one and when the author talks I listen in this physics book for instance you get an idea of how the author has organized his book physics its methods and meanings aims to give the student an understanding of the Contemporary view of the physical world it notes that all physical phenomena are described in terms of two fundamental concepts matter and energy it therefore selects the development of these Concepts as its central theme so I know reading this preface that this book is based on two big ideas just like I know by reading this preface that there's just one big idea holding it all together and what that idea is this book is is built around a simple idea men change their ways mainly because some kind of stranger has brought a new thing to their attention what the prefaces of most books usually do is give me a sort of introduction into the table of contents here's where I can get the big picture of the important subjects the author decided to include in the book that gives me a feeling for patterns maybe how one idea is going to lead to another in this book for instance they start by just getting you ready for working in a chem lab then they get into the subject of matter how it can be mixed how it can be changed I get a feeling of the way things are going since a lot of what I get from any class is going to come from reading the text I want to make reading that book as easy and effective as I can and that's why I get acquainted with my book first of course most of the reading you'll do will not be introducing yourself to a textbook but following a reading assignment that usually means reading a chapter or two how do you read a chapter in a book what's the best way to get the most out of it maybe I don't know the best way to read a chapter but I know a good way and it usually gets me the results I want suppose I get a reading assignment like this one in my world geography class well first of all I spend a couple of minutes just looking through what I'm going to be reading reading it rapidly and slowing down once in a while at certain places there might be a list for instance like there is here that shows the different sections in the chapter and what does this sort of thing give me right off a quick idea of what the whole chapter is going to cover this one starts with with the whole universe then focuses down to our solar system and then to Earth but I can guess it's probably going to look at the Earth like it was just a planet in space at least it seems like that from the way the sections are organized that'll give me a kind of focus too while I'm reading carefully later now I'm just skimming okay so I keep on with this previewing now I notice the special headings this time time through I'll use them to help me get an overall feeling for the section I'm going to read later I'll use them in a different way here's one heading a universe filled with Mysteries okay got the picture now the Big Bang Theory Big Bang well that's a new one on me and one more the birth of our solar system so I'm going to find out how the planets and the sun formed and I also look at the pictures too and any other kinds of graphs or charts it's kind of like warming up my reading engine I'm thinking about what I already know about the subject and what I don't know if there are review questions at the end of the section I always read them even if I can't answer them but I keep the questions in mind and that helps me to focus on what I'm supposed to be getting while I'm reading so now I'm finally ready to read the first section actually the preview doesn't take me too much time and it pays off in what I understand and remember so I start to read but something I've learned is that when you read a textbook you're getting reading help all along the way it's like there's a built-in tutor I'll show you what I mean say I'm reading I start the section on the universe and get down to The Heading a universe filled with Mysteries okay that's where the built-in tutor goes to work my tutor Turns The Heading around into a question what are the Mysteries that fill the universe and that's what I make sure I can answer by the time I finish that section and knowing that's what I want to answer I pay special attention when I read about neutron stars and radio galaxies and quazars what are the Mysteries that fill the universe neutron stars radio galaxies and quazars I changed the headings into questions try to answer them while I'm reading and then use the questions to check on what I remember and understand a textbook has lots of tutoring places a word in italics and my tutor says pay attention to this a word in a different color or darker type than the rest of the print this is important I might want to make a note or look up a word in a dictionary or a glossery if the text has one you can't make sense out of what you're reading if you don't know what the important words mean while I'm reading I don't pass over charts or graphs or pictures because the these are things that can really help me understand what I'm reading while I'm reading in this book about the movement of the Earth in space this particular picture helps me visualize how the Earth rotates on its axis and the direction it follows while it revolves around the Sun I get a clearer idea of what the words are describing and that's the way I do it I use all the built-in helps I can find in the book and there are a lot of them and finally I'm back at those questions at the end of the section the first time I read them it was to get an overall picture of what I was going to read but this time my personal tutor is giving me a mini quiz to see if I got the important ideas did I what is a lightyear it's uh better check it that's important so I do I go over all the question questions at the end of each section like that and once I'm sure I remember the big ideas and understand them too then I read another section just the same way I did before and in textbooks where there aren't questions at the end to help me review I just go over the material myself asking the questions I made from the section headings and then at the end of a chapter most of my books do have summaries they don't all call them summaries but a summary by any name is just as useful and then even if most textbooks don't have questions after each section just about all of them have a quiz at the end of a chapter whatever they're called they help me make sure whatever the subject I've been reading about that I remember what I read and understand what I read it seems to me that's what reading's all about otherwise I'm just wasting my time sometimes your purpose for reading a book is not just to get acquainted with it or to read a chapter but to deal with it in quite a different way one of the important things I had to learn was how to read a book for specific information it's something that requires a few special skills if you want to do the job well what makes this sort of reading special and different is that you have to make a choice in what going to read say I want to get some information on a specific subject more than my textbook will give me or May for a report I'm writing the reason's not important what is is that I need the information I've got a list of books that might have what I want I got it from the card file I know they're on the right subject but I don't know if they'll have the specific information I want and I don't want to waste a lot of time suppose I'm after since specific information on Ancient Greek architecture first I skimm the table of contents of the book okay chapter five is the Greek style of civilization to 500 BC well that's the period I want but is there anything about architecture in that chapter I don't want to have to read the whole chapter to find out what I do read is the index of the book if it has one and just about all textbooks and a lot of non-fiction books do the best thing about an index is that it lists in alphabetical order just about all the topics covered in a book the worst part is not knowing just what word to look up for instance I want to look up some particular bit of information relating to ancient Greek architecture I look up ancient in the index nothing so I think okay the bigger idea where I probably should have looked in the first place place is under Greek well no Greek only Greece lots of entries under that but not ancient architecture so what do I do you see what I mean it's a different kind of reading skill about all this left to look up is architecture there are a lot of listings under that but sure enough there's my topic Greek and I assume it's ancient Greek they're talking about because it's combined with Roman but at least I've got a page number and I can check it out pretty fast now this book was published in 1973 the copyright date's usually in the front well it's not a very new book but neither is my subject if my subject were the architecture of space colonies then 1973 would be too old a book unless I was interested in the history of the concept so what I'm saying is when you read for special information the important parts of a book are the copyright date the table of contents and the index even though the index May sometimes start you on a guessing game but that's the way to go to save yourself time and get yourself the information you want so how do you read a book you read it in different ways depending on your purpose whether it's just to get acquainted with the book or to read a chapter or to use it for supplementary reading books bring you a wealth of information but unlocking that information and making it your own depends on what you bring to the book and knowing how to read a [Music] book