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How to Remember What You Read

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Re: How to Remember What You Read

#81

Post by Jtsummers »

b9a2cab5 wrote: post #33

> Fancy apps are not needed Not sure if Anki counts as fancy, but it certainly is orders of magnitude more efficient than taking notes or active reading. See also: Make It Stick [1]. If you're trying to memorize content spaced repetition is unmatched. I've durably memorized entire 300-page programming design books (e.g. Effective Java) in under a month of 30 min/day reading+Anki usage. [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/…

I wouldn't say it's more effective, but rather that it's a great addition to note taking and active reading. Those activities are what drive my Anki use (or flashcards in general, though my use of physical cards has essentially dropped to zero, I sometimes make them but turn them into Anki notes within a week). But Anki itself is "just" a mechanism for automating the review and tracking of those notes and flashcards. You could (and I have) done the same thing with a stack of physical index cards.

Blindly entering data into Anki without a base comprehension is not a terribly effective way to understand it. You could turn an entire encyclopedia into Anki cards and memorize it, but never properly connect the dots between the things you've learned.

Re: How to Remember What You Read

#82

Post by philipswood »

emadabdulrahim wrote: post #44
philipswood wrote: post #43

I really dislike this article: >Quality matters more than quantity. If you read one book a month but fully appreciate and absorb it, you’ll be better off than someone who skims half the library without paying attention. Let's measure outcomes instead. Choose between these two scenarios: 1) I spend one month reading a book closely and I follow some memory enhancing technique to retain the material - book club style. I…

You can use both strategies depending on the book. If you're unsure about the book, then strategy number 2 is better. Skim and find the interesting bits, if any. If you know it's a dense book and you value the subject and think highly of the author. Then strategy number 1 is better.

Yes, agreed.

Personally I tend to go with a just-read-whatever-is-interesting-at-whatever-speed-or-level-of-attention-feels-right-and-what-sticks-sticks strategy.

Re: How to Remember What You Read

#83

Post by philipswood »

spats1990 wrote: post #46
philipswood wrote: post #43

I really dislike this article: >Quality matters more than quantity. If you read one book a month but fully appreciate and absorb it, you’ll be better off than someone who skims half the library without paying attention. Let's measure outcomes instead. Choose between these two scenarios: 1) I spend one month reading a book closely and I follow some memory enhancing technique to retain the material - book club style. I…

Are you talking fiction or non-fiction? Strategy 2 will work pretty well for most non-fiction books, especially trendy ones. It'd be a bit odd for fiction IMO.

Non-fiction. Definitely non-fiction.

Re: How to Remember What You Read

#84

Post by mpalczewski »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #25
mpalczewski wrote: post #11

The best way to remember what you read is to apply it. If you read a book about programming in python and you want to retain that knowledge, write a program in python. Unfortunately writer's writing advice for other writers but pretending like it's for everyone is too common. >> 1. Quality matters more than quantity. If you read one book a month but fully appreciate and absorb it, you’ll be better off than someone wh…

If the book is on surgical techniques... do I need to apply every technique to remember it? Obviously, "applying" book knowledge is one of the least efficient or practicable way of improving retention. Also, it would be more around understanding the topics more thoroughly, especially if the author didn't do a good enough job of explaining the concepts already (it's easier to blame the reader, though).

Yeah I could expand on this some more. If a book is on surgical techniques then yeah you need some practice. Surgeons don’t get trained from books. I certainly wouldn’t want to be operated on by someone that only reads about operations.

I think some of this is around what it means to understand a topic. Is it just about an ability to regurgitate facts or maybe you want a book to really sink in because you don’t know when you will apply it.

Taking notes or doing kindle highlights and then reviewing them can really help. Review after you read and then again after a week. This works better for remembering specific things.

One of the best ways to have a book really stick with you is to read it again. This seems to be super linear and some books really benefit from it. That is re-reading a book will more than double your understanding. Sometimes when doing this you will wonder if it’s even the same book. Though this really is more true for better books.

Re: How to Remember What You Read

#85

Post by d4rkp4ttern »

etherio wrote: post #80
d4rkp4ttern wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind elaborating — What is your exact process to export highlights and notes from RM2 ?

I use https://github.com/lucasrla/remarks , which OCRs (text recognition) your highlights to extract what exactly was highlighted, and also outputs screenshots of all pages on which I wrote notes. This way I can go through my annotations sequentially, save highlights / their main ideas, and reformulate my notes into plaintext a bit more clearly.

this looks very useful, thanks!

Re: How to Remember What You Read

#86

Post by _yoqn »

jimbob45 wrote: post #54
_yoqn wrote: post #28

The way to remember what you read is to make sure you understand all the words in the text, the way they apply in context. It's the micro-misunderstandings that lead up to the macro-misunderstanding which manifests as "forgetting". Other commenters also mention applying what's in the book. That is 100% true, when you're reading about how to do something. If you're reading a fact-based book (non-fiction) but not about…

>I just get the definitions of words that I don't understand and I do just fine. This is what turned the tide for me but it took much more discipline than I was willing to admit at first. When I stopped lying to myself about how much context clues were helping me understand the words I didn’t know, it started to take me 10 minutes to get through a page of a difficult book. However, it started to pay off when I achiev…

Exactly! Somewhere along the line we started being taught things like context clues and other study traps. No amount of technique can possibly replace proper vocabulary building. I spent a lot of time in the dictionary in my younger years but it’s paid off massively in my ability to study and assimilate new things.

Re: How to Remember What You Read

#87

Post by _yoqn »

kiba wrote: post #74
_yoqn wrote: post #28

The way to remember what you read is to make sure you understand all the words in the text, the way they apply in context. It's the micro-misunderstandings that lead up to the macro-misunderstanding which manifests as "forgetting". Other commenters also mention applying what's in the book. That is 100% true, when you're reading about how to do something. If you're reading a fact-based book (non-fiction) but not about…

It's easier to remember something if you understand it, which is why rote memorization is inferior, because it takes so many more repetition to get something to stick in your mind.

People need to realize that human memory != computer memory. It’s not even similar. Human intelligence is all about identification and differentiation. Intelligence comes from being able to work with raw data and seeing how it can apply to given circumstances, predicting outcomes and selecting correct actions.

Memorization is the lowest form of intelligence, although it does have uses. I think it would be very beneficial for standardized testing to move away from testing ones ability to remember dates and lists of things and more toward problem solving and ability for the student to come up with solutions to problems of the field being studied.

Re: How to Remember What You Read

#88

Post by pps »

testcase_delta wrote: post #79
laserlight wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recognition and retrieval are different mental processes. When one re-reads a material, they recognize it. Recognition gives a false impression of “knowing” the material, whereas retrieval is a better measure of knowing. In order to get better at retrieval, one should practice retrieval, for example, by answering questions about the topic.

Well said. A great book that covers this (and suggests ways to practice retrieval) is called Make It Stick. I highly recommend it.

There is also good website on this topic, with free guides https://www.retrievalpractice.org/

Re: How to Remember What You Read

#89

Post by ttesttom »

jimbob45 wrote: post #54
_yoqn wrote: post #28

The way to remember what you read is to make sure you understand all the words in the text, the way they apply in context. It's the micro-misunderstandings that lead up to the macro-misunderstanding which manifests as "forgetting". Other commenters also mention applying what's in the book. That is 100% true, when you're reading about how to do something. If you're reading a fact-based book (non-fiction) but not about…

>I just get the definitions of words that I don't understand and I do just fine. This is what turned the tide for me but it took much more discipline than I was willing to admit at first. When I stopped lying to myself about how much context clues were helping me understand the words I didn’t know, it started to take me 10 minutes to get through a page of a difficult book. However, it started to pay off when I achiev…

Out of curiosity, do you mean words that are technical or specific to a field? Or more general words such as 'didactic'?

Re: How to Remember What You Read

#90

Post by mromanuk »

tomxor wrote: post #66

> Quality matters more than quantity. > Finishing the book is optional. I find this amusing because I remember (I don't know why I remember), reading an article posted on HN essentially suggesting the opposite. Something along the lines of: not trying to absorb the whole book if it's stopping you from making progress, better to finish something than read nothing, it was argued better and felt convincing at the time..…

All these types of heuristics, secretly push you, in a good way, both of them make you read more. It’s like hitting the gym and looking for the perfect routine, doesn’t matter which one is the optimal, working out is enough. That’s the hack
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