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Tags: learning notetaking

How to absorb a book

When we read we’re “in conversation with the author” except we can slow down, repeat, and skip to wherever is relevant to us.

Consume and Digest

1. Prime the information

• 🩻 Systematic Skim - This is the deliberate skim. Go through the introduction, table of contents, and index to get the key points and ideas. Understand the basic structure and pop into different sections to find relevant paragraphs.

• 🚩 Superficial Read - A plow through, not stopping for any notes or deep thinking. Not looking anything up. This is reading most of it, just getting through quickly and lightly.

2. Mark the Book

📏‘s

1. Classify the book according to its kind and subject matter
2. List its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts
3. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity
4. Define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve

Think of the comprehension Q’s you’d put into a reading lesson. Have those for yourself here.

Reference

FS Summary of How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler How to Mark a Book by Mortimer Adler