How to Read in College

It wasn't till after I graduated that I started to realize the enormous volume of books arts majors had to read. And I don't understand why their information is presented in such an inconvenient format.

If the book is making an argument with a lot of discrete points and interconnections. Why isn't it a diagram or some kind of interactive hyperlinking thing? Why don't the individual points at least have a box around them so you can separate them visually from the other stuff without having to actually read it all?

Arts text books and essays just don't make sense to me. I can understand text format if it gives the reader motivation to understand that a soul-less diagram might not, but it sounds like most of this writing doesn't do that either. So I guess my question is, is this information really too complex to structure in an obvious way, or are the authors too lazy to design such a structure, or is it simply an ingrained culture that nobody can break free of?

I don't know if I've internalized its advice myself necessarily, but I used my stopwatch and it took me pretty much exactly 2 minutes to read. I studied subjects at school that required a lot of reading, and so I probably got the practice from that. (Of course, not all texts are suitable for reading this way.)

What you appear to have done is: spend 10 minutes reading the article, then 5 minutes complaining about how it is unreasonable to expect anybody to read 3,000 words. 15 minutes in total. (All times are estimates.)

Perhaps a better course of action would be: spend 10 minutes reading the article, and then wonder perhaps how you could put its advice into practise. 15 minutes in total.

Suppose you take its advice to heart and immediately end up being able to do what I did and read articles such as this one in 2 minutes. Your total time investment for reading n articles (excluding this one) will then be 15+2n. Maybe it takes longer to get the hang of, and it works out as 15+5n?

But suppose you continue as you are - time investment for the same will be more like 15+10n. A steeper graph. (And actually, more like 20+10n, because those 5 minutes you spent complaining are now spent.)

I think this is the guy's point.

(How do I spend the time I save? Why, by writing comments such as this, of course.)

Reading this reminds me how happy I am to be graduated.

I don't really find his initial assertion correct at all:

> Professors assign more than you can possibly read in any normal fashion.

I took a chembio and CS bachelors degree at an expensive private institution and a software development masters at a large public institution and read all assigned reading quite easily. Actually, I'd usually read all the textbooks before the semester even started.

That said, I do find his speed reading methods useful. I'd usually speed read the book a couple times first before reading entirely through, and speed read the relevant chapter before any exam. If you only read the reading material once through, you are doing something wrong, since that isn't the way to memorize it.

> I don't really find his initial assertion correct at all

> any normal fashion

>Actually, I'd usually read all the textbooks before the semester even started.

Check your logic