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I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

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Re: I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

#121

Post by Mirioron »

csa wrote: post #86
Mirioron wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thinking more about this some more, I’m pretty sure that there is a conceptual and/or visual “sub vocalization” that I have experienced where I clearly knew what something meant, but the words to say it in any language didn’t readily come to my mind. Isn't this a common occurrence when you just can't think of a word, but it's on the tip of your tongue? Another thing that's similar to this would be all the symbols w…

Not really. Tip-of-the-tongue definitely is a part of symbolic knowledge/cognition. That said, what I am speaking of is much more complex. The example I gave for Japanese, while most educated native speakers would have known the pronunciation, the meaning was not obvious. As a non-native speaker, the translation was something like "with the devotion of a Buddhist monk", but that doesn't really convey the intensity of…

We consider it a tip-of-the-tongue moment when the word we want to say actually exists. However, I think the process by which this works is the same or very similar in which your translation problem works. You have a concept in your mind that you are unable to properly translate into words. You know what you want to say, but you just don't know the right words.

Re: I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

#122

Post by Mirioron »

tsimionescu wrote: post #97
Mirioron wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if there's anyone out there who can read a non-alphabetic language (e.g. Chinese) but doesn't even know how to pronounce what they're reading. This is actually how many people learn Japanese. They get an anki deck with kanji and their meanings and learn from that. The decks might have some pronunciations of the kanji, but typically not all of the pronunciations (or people don't learn them). This leads to a…

But that wouldn't help with avoiding subvocalizing. If you know one pronunciation, even if it's not the correct one, you can still subvocalize. One thing I noticed about myself is that I often subvocalize large numbers (say, 64521) in my native language, especially when I'm reading a language I'm not fluent in.

Perhaps we're different then, because when I see a large number I just skip over it unless the specific number is important. I'll essentially leave it as a blank. I think sub vocalization for kanji that you don't know the pronunciation of would be the same.

On the other hand, perhaps this is not the best example, because somebody learning the language would already be slow enough at reading that sub-vocalization wouldn't make a difference.

Re: I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

#123

Post by mewpmewp2 »

Mirioron wrote: post #60
kortex wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. This applies to surprisingly many tasks in life. That said, I've been pushing to hit 100 wpm typing with minimal typos for years just because it's a nice round number and I keep ending up just shy. Character typos aren't even that big of a deal, as I find a good chunk of mistakes are actually "thought-os" where I type in the completely wrong giraffe. So being able to recover dynamicall…

I wonder why some people type faster. If tested, I average around 125 wpm in reasonable tests (625 cpm really). I've never tried to learn to type quickly. I've never had anything beyond a $10 keyboard and I don't even type like it's taught (my hands overlap on some characters). Despite that I type quite fast with few errors - most of my mistakes are also related to typing in something completely different. It was qui…

Did you learn the proper technique at an early age?

As in not looking at the keyboard and using all 10 fingers.

This is what I did and I feel it has been a huge advantage for me.

Re: I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

#124

Post by [deleted] »

Reedx wrote: post #31
quickthrower2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to speed read is if the writer reduces the number of words required to communicate and educate. Of course this takes extra effort, and is also goes against human perception of value. E.g. if you reduced Tim Ferris's book to a single sheet of A4 you could get the point across, but who's going to pay $20 or so for a sheet of A4? Well some execs might pay $2000 - but you won't sell millions of copies like t…

That's something I've been wondering about. How many non-fiction books could be reduced by 90% and still communicate 90% of the ideas? I feel like we're losing a lot of time and potential due to filler pages.

[deleted]

Re: I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

#125

Post by lsc »

baddox wrote: post #37
Reedx wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something I've been wondering about. How many non-fiction books could be reduced by 90% and still communicate 90% of the ideas? I feel like we're losing a lot of time and potential due to filler pages.

It’s interesting that you specify non-fiction, presumably since part of the point of reading fiction is the process of reading itself rather than simply the plot that unfolds. But of course, that’s also true of non-fiction books. Many people probably enjoy the process of reading Tim Ferris’ books.

>It’s interesting that you specify non-fiction, presumably since part of the point of reading fiction is the process of reading itself rather than simply the plot that unfolds

there's all sorts of "reduced Shakespeare" - most of it more parody than summary, but there is a tradition of summarizing literature and fiction, and the results are not always devoid of literary merit on their own.

Re: I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

#126

Post by roel_v »

pmoriarty wrote: post #84
emodendroket wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the skill many of us need to cultivate is the opposite one -- slowing down and carefully reading a challenging text. It took me a while to get out of "the final is tomorrow so I've got to blow through the rest of this book today" mode.

Beyond slowing down, a real challenge for many of us in this age of distraction is to keep one's attention focused on a single text for extended periods of time. I know I struggle with this myself despite being a life-long reader from the pre-Internet days who used to have no trouble staying focused through a full book.

Is it possible to reverse this without giving up phones completely? I can't even sit through a 1.5h movie any more :/

Re: I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

#127

Post by heisenbit »

Reedx wrote: post #11

Reading speed strikes me similarly to typing speed when it comes to programming. It's fun to read/type fast, but it's not really the bottleneck.

And like programming the biggest speedup comes from the letters never typed/read. Quality matters so much more.

Re: I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

#128

Post by kaybe »

godelski wrote: post #68
StavrosK wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a book that could literally be summed up in a sentence (it was called "the asshole rule" or something similar, and the gist was "don't hire assholes"). There was nothing at all in addition to that, except for a bunch of feel-good anecdotes and specious data that misrepresented correlation for causation. I hated it so much that I made a (now defunct) website where I would post summaries of these books so people…

Sounds like the book was doing something different though. Why should you believe that one sentence? The author has to sell you on the idea and demonstrate why it is a bad idea to hire assholes. A singular sentence isn't going to be enough to convince you, and it shouldn't be.

I'd want a definition of 'asshole' as well, and a ranking of asshole characteristics to weigh against positive traits, and how to correct them where possible. The topic does warrant more than just a sentence.

Re: I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

#129

Post by gwd »

WalterBright wrote: post #79
Buttons840 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with some programmers who were so slow at typing I would find myself reluctant to help them with their "hands on" work, like directing them to try something in the REPL for example, or even just asking them to run a shell command. It was a struggle for me not to excuse myself as soon as possible once they started typing. They seemingly couldn't get a single word out without a typo, and would frequently hu…

One of the best courses I ever took was a 2 week summer school class in typing in the 8th grade. We were taught to touch type on a heavy mechanical typewriter where you really had to hammer the keys. Those few hours have paid off enormously for me. Not having to look at the keys while typing about doubles the speed. The letters painted on my keys have long since worn off anyway :-)

> One of the best courses I ever took was a 2 week summer school class in typing in the 8th grade. We were taught to touch type on a heavy mechanical typewriter where you really had to hammer the keys.

In my school, we had a full semester of touch-typing on mechanical keyboard in both the 7th and 8th grades. Everyone had to take it.

I had a couple of friends who, like me, were very interested in computers and programming. But instead of taking the opportunity to hone a skill that they knew they'd be using several hours a day for the next 60 years of their life, they screwed around, and left the class hunt-and-pecking as much as they ever had; and as far as I know they do that to this day. It never made any sense to me -- like, you have to be here anyway, why not just get something out of it instead of being bored?

(I meanwhile practiced with Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing on my home computer until my speed drills were consistently between 90 and 100 WPM.)

Re: I Was Wrong About Speed Reading (2015)

#130

Post by emodendroket »

roel_v wrote: post #126
pmoriarty wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond slowing down, a real challenge for many of us in this age of distraction is to keep one's attention focused on a single text for extended periods of time. I know I struggle with this myself despite being a life-long reader from the pre-Internet days who used to have no trouble staying focused through a full book.

Is it possible to reverse this without giving up phones completely? I can't even sit through a 1.5h movie any more :/

Buying a Kindle made me read way more.
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