Reading, Methods

Reading methods for print

By Kevin Isenberg

June 8, 2020

Who looks at my reading backlog will notice that it is quite long and is constantly growing larger. I’d like to show you how I extract the hypothesis of the books and how I try to assure that I remember most of the knowledge that is in the book. For this, I am currently using multiple labeling methods with colour codes and if I would like to find the knowledge that I am looking for I can easily identify it with the colour.

The first approach during my study…

During a study the amount of literature that you need to read constantly increases and you will be shown some approaches on how to effectivly read it. The approach is graphically by marking the statement or highlighting it with a border:

• Definition

• Sentence

• Example

• Principles

This approach is for casual literature quite restricted and in the example above very application-oriented.

My current approach

While reading I highlight the statement by using the following colour scheme:

• Thesis or statements are yellow

  These could be unproven statements or a controverse which has to be analysed and validated.

• Definitions are green

  These are determinations of a term or a model which are a assumption for the following logical conclusions.
  Through the combination of multiple definitions conclusions can be made.

• Key messages are orange

  Key messages are the few but relevant messages of a book. They characterize it. A summary could be generated of them and they have a higher priority than theses.

• Unique contributions are violet

  Contribitions are unique accomplishments in form of logical conclusions of an author. They are key messages of the book that generate value to the existing literature and they are timeless.
  They make the book in its meaning to something unique, because these contributions are a step forward in comparisson to the current science. In the priority hierarchy they have the highest priority.

What is the use of all that?

It reduces to the time to find revelant information in a book drastically and a summary can be generated of the marked statements. Especially if the books has been packed away for a long time the knowledge in it cannot be accessed and it is lost in the working memory. If you are facing a challenge in which the knowledge can be useful you are able to identify the marked statements quickly and the visual perception of the brain is triggered.

Of course, the locical conclusions that the author makes will be lost during the process.
This is the advantage of every summary.

I still view this approach as a modell that can be used by the reader to create his own approach.
This is necessary since every human is a victim of psychological Biases. My assumption is that a bias is a psychological and neurological prejudice that influence the decision making process. Since patterns of biases exist and can be identified by studying them they occur in a diverse combination. This makes it necessary to adjust the reading approach to your personal biases to reduce the effect of the negative biases.

How can the approach be improved?

There a several ways to improve the approach:

1. Add text elements like comments or notes

It can be helpful remember your own thought process by adding comments or notes on a page. If the user has problems understanding the statements after a long time they can be a helpful instrument.

2. Mark the top corner of a page with the colour that you can find the most on the page

I do this by marking the top left or right corner of a page with the correct colour. If for e.g. multiple definitions can be found on the page, I will mark the page with the appropiate color and in this case green.

How can this help me?

You can extract the previosly defined categories of the book (thesis, definitons, key messages and unique contributions) and import them to a knowledge database which can be accessed if required. Additionally, it is required to conduct a categorization since clarity of the knowledge database reaches its limit.
The disadvantage of the method on physical books is that the transfer of the highlighted statements to a digital document require a high manual effort. Thus, I recommend to use this method on that have a large impact on your mental framework and the effort is economically.