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Anonymous
What is your method of remembering what you read while you are reading a book (such as a textbook)? 2017-02-24 03:30:02 Post No. 18076458
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What is your method of remembering what you read while you are reading a book (such as a textbook)? 2017-02-24 03:30:02 Post No. 18076458
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What is your method of remembering what you read while you are reading a book (such as a textbook)?
Anonymous
2017-02-24 03:30:02
Post No. 18076458
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I find I often have no idea what I read about five seconds after reading a paragraph, causing me to re-read and re-read. After re-reading the fourth-ish time, I inevitably space out from exhaustion and make zero progress in the book.
I tried staying "engaged" and took notes while I read. But, I kept ending up writing out every small piece of information out of fear I'd miss something while reading. My compulsive note-taking increased my reading time five times over and totally psyched me out from reading in-general. This pattern was worse than taking no notes at all..
So now, my current strategy is:
1. Keep notes closed while I read.
2. Aggressively form mental pictures of what I'm reading while I'm reading.
3. Never re-read until I've finished a page (re-reading discourages and spaces me out).
4. After each page I restate to myself what it was about.
5. I briefly skim over the page to verify if I'm correct, if wrong: I'll restate what I read until it matches what I see on the page.
6. When the chapter is done, I'll take out notes to write everything important I can recall.
7. Close notes again after fully emptying what I can recall.
8. I'll open my book again, skim the chapter page-by-page in-case I missed anything.
9. If I missed something, I'll close my notes again, re-read each offending paragraph and restate to myself what I read for each page.
10. I'll keep going until I reach the end of the chapter again: I'll then close my book again and open my notes, I'll write out everything I can recall once again.
11. Repeat this process until I am satisfied with what I can recall about the chapter.
The point is that I separate time when I read, the time when I restate the content in my own words, and time when I recall it from memory based on the connections I formed in my head. The main objective is to expediently read through my book without exhausting myself.
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I can still remember my old phone number from like 10 years ago.
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>>18076458
I want to add that I dislike highlighting or underlining in my books since I don't want to put marks on the pages. Maybe the benefit of doing this outweighs the anxiety of defacing my book? Maybe I can use a very light 5H pencil and erase with a kneaded eraser when I am done with the chapter/book.
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Hi Anon. For me, I like to find the audio book version of books. If I can't, then I read it slowly and carefully and at the end of each chapter, I journal about what I think of what I've just read, how it makes me feel. I'll share what I've read with my house mates too and talk about it. Those ways help me cement in my mind what I've just read and learned. It helps me process the data into useful information.
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>>18076482
I'm finding the 5H to be no good since it's very difficult to erase despite being very light. A softer lead like HB works pretty well assuming I am very very light in my pencil strokes. I'm finding this so helpful for me that I'm starting to reconsider my dislike of doing this even if it means I might be defacing my book. The tradeoff of what I gain is completely worth it.
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>>18076458
My memory is pretty good and I read reasonably fast. If I'm reading something to gain specific information, I'll use a sticky (like a post-it flag) to mark things I think are relevant. Otherwise I'll usually read through twice, once to get an overall idea of what's being written, and then a second time to mark or take notes on what I think is important.
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>>18076458
I do it naturally and scored post high school comprehension since I was 10.
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I usually read in short spurts of 10-20 pages, unless I'm really interested in the story. Try not to read if I'm too depressed as I probably won't remember stuff as clearly.
Honestly sometimes if a book is not interesting me much or if it's super complicated (like heavy SF or skipping around, flashback-style) I have trouble remembering characters or names. Usually I just keep trying to push through regardless.
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