Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Writing summaries is more important than reading more books

andreasfragner.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 167 posts

Re: Writing summaries is more important than reading more books

#121

Post by loughnane »

the_af wrote: post #87

Such a proccess- and goal-oriented approach to books doesn't resonate with me at all. Such a mechanical, soulless way of thinking about reading! Is this for technical, self-help or startup/entreprenurship books? Sure, maybe this works. I read a lot for fun though. Most of my reading is like this. The books I read are not about "answering questions" and I don't need to "optimize" my reading in any way, either to summa…

This nuance gets missed in most conversations about reading. I see there are motivations to read a book:

1. For fun 2. For information 3. For understanding

If reading for fun, do what suits you… there’s really no wrong way. Like food, whatever suits your tastes is best.

If reading for information (eg on tactics in some battle or HR practices in some form when you are already broadly acquainted with tactics and HR) then there are tips for extracting essential points that apply to most everyone.

Likewise when reading for understanding (eg having no conception about how war works and trying to grok it).

Some books can be read in each way, other books only in one or two. In any case, making broad claims about “how to read better” without appealing to one of these modes usually sparks disagreement.

Re: Writing summaries is more important than reading more books

#122

Post by enos_feedler »

kashunstva wrote: post #114
jrm4 wrote: post #104

I can't speak for others, but for me this headline and idea is exactly and perfectly wrong, so I suppose I just want to reach those for whom this generates unnecessary "guilt" or something like that. As a voracious reader, I've personally found that I got the most out of books when I stopped trying to summarize and highlight. I very rarely do either anymore. I realize that what happens is sort of a Darwinian "surviva…

> I've personally found that I got the most out of books when I stopped trying to summarize and highlight. The good thing is that it’s not an either/or proposition. I often read a book straight-through then decide it will be useful enough to me in the future that there are elements I want to retain, in which case I’ll engage in a second cursory extraction process. Often I just don’t know in advance whether I will fee…

I now find myself googling for other peoples notes on a book if I want to extract more. I read through those notes and rewrite with a pen in a journal and start to pull apart the dense notes further and connect to my own experience and life

Re: Writing summaries is more important than reading more books

#123

Post by esafak »

ubj wrote: post #106

I realize there are different opinions about this article, but I personally agree with the overall idea. Learning is about recalling information. The more you practice recalling a fact, the more the memory "sticks".[1] Writing summaries is an effective way to both 1) identify the most important information, and 2) practice recalling it. [1]: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html

I prefer to say it is about understanding, which is closer to summarization, or having a model. A parrot or even a computer can recall blindly.

Re: Writing summaries is more important than reading more books

#124

Post by tester457 »

dmotz wrote: post #27

I built a tool for myself for the purpose of grokking ideas from books called Emdash [1]. Over the years I've collected reams of highlights from books and articles but until recently, rarely reviewed or absorbed them. The core of this app uses on-device ML to show related passages with similar ideas from other books you've read, and I find that going broad and exploring concepts from different angles really helps in…

The design is beautiful! I'm shocked this isn't more popular on github.

Re: Writing summaries is more important than reading more books

#125

Post by emrah »

> read fewer books but take the time to write summaries for the good ones

The odds of finding good books goes down if one reads fewer books. Taking suggestions from others is not a good substitute for finding one's own "good ones".

If I find that a book I'm reading is not good for me, I start skipping, first a few parapgraphs, then a few pages, then a whole chapter and so on, to see if it gets better. And I'm even prepared to stop reading it altogether if it doesn't get any better. That gives me more time to find and read better books.

Re: Writing summaries is more important than reading more books

#126

Post by causality0 »

jrm4 wrote: post #104

I can't speak for others, but for me this headline and idea is exactly and perfectly wrong, so I suppose I just want to reach those for whom this generates unnecessary "guilt" or something like that. As a voracious reader, I've personally found that I got the most out of books when I stopped trying to summarize and highlight. I very rarely do either anymore. I realize that what happens is sort of a Darwinian "surviva…

In my opinion it's just another symptom of the trend in tech circles for ever-increasing self-documentation. Thing is, it doesn't matter how hard you try to shove your life up its own ass, you're going to be just as dead as me at the end of it. And I'll have read more cool stuff.

Re: Writing summaries is more important than reading more books

#127

Post by Taywee »

njarboe wrote: post #54
travisporter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be cultural but I just cannot bring myself write in a book even in pencil. post-its notes for me this is a great idea if I have the discipline

Scholars from the middle ages wrote on the edges of their scrolls and codexes. Some of these notes are very interesting and useful to scholars. In elementary and primary school most are taught not to write in books because they have to be used for decades, but there is a long tradition of taking notes in books. They are very inexpensive now compared to the past and when you write in the you leave a little extra somet…

The era is not the same. Our scribing in the margins is significantly less valuable than that of medieval scholars, because our mediums for recording, storing, archiving, and sharing information are significantly less restricted.

The levels of waste produced in the modern era are unimaginably higher than then, as well, so our responsibilities are completely different.

Re: Writing summaries is more important than reading more books

#128

Post by jrm4 »

grugagag wrote: post #111
jrm4 wrote: post #104

I can't speak for others, but for me this headline and idea is exactly and perfectly wrong, so I suppose I just want to reach those for whom this generates unnecessary "guilt" or something like that. As a voracious reader, I've personally found that I got the most out of books when I stopped trying to summarize and highlight. I very rarely do either anymore. I realize that what happens is sort of a Darwinian "surviva…

I generally disagree with any assertion on what’s more important on such a wide array of variation, for who and when. Sure, it could be important for some things and irrelevant for others things at the same time.

Yup. Thats another thing I've noticed. When I think of the phrase "a man never steps into the same river twice," I feel that way A LOT when it comes to reading good books. That was maybe the biggest reason I stopped highlighting in them, I want to come to it fresh.

Re: Writing summaries is more important than reading more books

#129

Post by jrm4 »

enos_feedler wrote: post #122
kashunstva wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've personally found that I got the most out of books when I stopped trying to summarize and highlight. The good thing is that it’s not an either/or proposition. I often read a book straight-through then decide it will be useful enough to me in the future that there are elements I want to retain, in which case I’ll engage in a second cursory extraction process. Often I just don’t know in advance whether I will fee…

I now find myself googling for other peoples notes on a book if I want to extract more. I read through those notes and rewrite with a pen in a journal and start to pull apart the dense notes further and connect to my own experience and life

Yup, but conversely, I try to avoid reviews and comments on books (and movies etc) as much as reasonably possible beforehand.

Re: Writing summaries is more important than reading more books

#130

Post by jrm4 »

mdp2021 wrote: post #105
jrm4 wrote: post #104

I can't speak for others, but for me this headline and idea is exactly and perfectly wrong, so I suppose I just want to reach those for whom this generates unnecessary "guilt" or something like that. As a voracious reader, I've personally found that I got the most out of books when I stopped trying to summarize and highlight. I very rarely do either anymore. I realize that what happens is sort of a Darwinian "surviva…

It strictly depends on the category of the book: Insightful → process subconsciously; Informative → summarize. -- Update: yes, it is not just a matter of texts. The annoying snipers that infest these boards should summarize as a general practice: this will help them with an exercise in thinking, expression, so that maybe one day they will also be able to formulate and present an argument. And stop abusing the freedom…

Not gonna lie, it strongly feels like the latter is a job for them newfangled AI thingies :)
Post reply on HN