HOW TO READ A BOOK
Guidelines for Getting the Most
out of Non-Fiction Reading
How can you get the most out of a book when you are reading for information, rather than for pleasure?
It's always very satisfying to start at the beginning
and read straight through to the end. If you don't read a novel this way,
it's not very satisfying, since a basic
principle of fiction is to hold the reader in
suspense. In fact, your whole purpose in reading fiction is to follow the
writer's lead, allowing him or her to spin a story bit
by bit.
But many of the books you'll read during your
college career -- and possibly in the rest of your life -- probably won't
be novels. Instead, they'll be non-fiction:
textbooks, manuals, histories, academic studies,
and so on. The purpose of reading books like these is to gain information.
Here, finding out what happens -- as quickly and easily as possible --
is your main goal. So unless you're stuck in prison with nothing else to
do, NEVER read a non-fiction book from beginning to
end.
Instead, when you're reading for information,
you should ALWAYS jump ahead, skip around, and use every available strategy
to anticipate, and then to discover,
what the writer has to say. This is how you'll
get the most out of a book in the least amount of time.
Here are some guidelines to help you do this effectively.