How To Read A Book

HOW TO READ A BOOK
Strategies for Getting the Most out of Non-Fiction Reading
© 2000, revised 2005 Paul N. Edwards School of Information University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1107 pne@umich.edu www.si.umich.edu/~pne/

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How can you learn the most from a book when you are reading for information, rather than for pleasure? It’s very satisfying to start at the beginning and read straight through to the end. Some books, such as novels, haveto be read this way, since a basic principle of fiction is to hold the reader in suspense. Your whole purpose in reading fiction is to follow the writer’s lead, allowing him or her to spin a story bit by bit. But many of the books you’ll read during your undergraduate and graduate years, and possibly during the rest of your professional life, won’t be novels. Instead, they’ll be non-fiction:textbooks, manuals, histories, academic studies, and so on. The purpose of reading books like these is to gain information. Here, finding out what happens — as quickly and easily as possible — is your main goal. So unless you’re stuck in prison with nothing else to do, NEVER read a non-fiction book from beginning to end. Instead, when you’re reading for information, you should ALWAYS jump ahead, skiparound, and use every available strategy to discover, then to understand, and finally to remember what the writer has to say. This is how you’ll get the most out of a book in the smallest amount of time. Using the methods described here, you should be able to read a 300-page book in six to eight hours. Of course, the more time you spend, the more you’ll learn and the better you’ll understand thebook. But your time is limited. Here are some strategies to help you do this effectively. Most of these can be applied not only to books, but also to any other kind of non-fiction reading, from articles to websites.

Paul N. Edwards

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How to Read a Book

1) Read the whole book
In reading to learn, your goal should always be to get all the way through the assignment. It’s much moreimportant to have a general grasp of the arguments or hypotheses, evidence, and conclusions than to understand every detail. In fact, no matter how carefully you read, you won’t remember most of the details anyway. What you can do is remember and record the main points. And if you remember those, you know enough to find the material again if you ever do need to recall the details.

2) Decide how muchtime you will spend
If you know in advance that you have only six hours to read, it’ll be easier to pace yourself. Remember, you’re going to read the whole book (or the whole assignment). In fact, the more directly and realistically you confront your limits, the more effective you will be at practically everything. Setting time limits and keeping to them (while accomplishing your goals) is oneof the most important life skills you can learn. So never start to read without planning when to stop.

3) Have a purpose and a strategy
Before you begin, figure out why you are reading this particular book, and how you are going to read it. If you don’t have reasons and strategies of your own — not just those of your teacher — you won’t learn as much. As soon as you start to read, begin tryingto find out four things: • Who is the author? • What are the book’s arguments? • What is the evidence that supports these? • What are the book’s conclusions? Once you’ve got a grip on these, start trying to determine: • What are the weaknesses of these arguments, evidence, and conclusions? • What do you think about the arguments, evidence, and conclusions? • How does (or how could) the author...