READING INTELLIGENTLY & SELECTIVELY IN DAILY LIFE

I love to read, even though most of my current reading is confined to business non-fictions.

I read specifically for information, and more importantly, for ideas that come about from the reading.

In that way, I can say that I read for entertainment too, as I am entertaining my brain, intellectually of course.

It is important to read purposefully, meaningfully and productively.

Reading must always serve a purpose. For me, I read only what I need, essentially to meet my personal objectives as a knowledge adventurer & technology explorer.

For productivity, I always make concerted efforts to adapt and apply what I read to my work and my life. As a consultant and trainer, this is a very important sharpening process.

Over the years, I have learned, adapted, experimented, fine-tuned and practised many types of reading strategies.

In this post, I like to share with readers what I have gone through: major types of reading, tips on reading fast, and information gathering techniques, etc.

1) General or light reading:

This applies mostly to newspapers, magazines and newsletters, in addition to popular fictions.

For me, it's always a quick browse. A very quick one for newspapers - about the same time when I sit on a toilet bowl as a morning routine.

I reckon the key in general or light reading is to have a broad brush of what's going on.

For newspapers, I will only slow down when I am reading the editorials, political analyses, economic commentaries and technology reviews. Oftentimes, depending on the content and complexity, I may even reserve or tear them out for later bed-time reading.

For magazines, I often apply razor-blade reading: I will tear or cut out the good articles, which I often like to keep for future reference.

Sometimes, I may jot down the key ideas in my scratchpad. I often make use of them in my weblogs.

I may also convert them into maps or diagrams for further exploration, using MindManager, SmartDraw and/or Inspiration.

I have stored magazine articles as well as newspaper clippings in my personal library that go back to even the eighties.

2) Previewing or surveying:

This is a very good technique to prepare for a fuller reading, and also faster navigation, which leads to better comprehension of the material.

The purpose of this technique is to get the big picture or bird's eye view in the first instance. A quick snapshot of the information landscape, so to speak. Excellent for preparing oneself to read new books, especially business non-fictions.

Analogically, it's best to think of it as "reconnaissance", i.e to understand the new or unknown terrain of the book, to use a military jargon.

For me, the best way is to start from the end of the book. That's the end summary or epilogue. The latter will always give me a quick overview of whether the book is worth investing my time in reading it.

If proven worthwhile, I will proceed to preview or survey the table of contents, preface, introduction; and flip through the pages to go into those interesting sections, using headings, sub-headings, bold and/or italic prints, chapter summaries, if any, as guides.

From my experience, a preview or survey offers a broad overview of the structural layout of the book, its pattern of organisation, stylistic devices, and also the various locations of useful information, which help collectively in the way-finding navigation when I start to read.

I may even run through the bibliography and/or the index at the back of the book to get a better feel of the new or interesting stuff, if any.

For academic reading, this is really a good technique, especially when one is starting to read a new textbook, as part of coursework for the first time.

Previewing or surveying can also apply to reading magazine articles or newsletters.

3) Scanning:

This applies when I am looking for something specific in my mind, or a single piece of information, just like an entry in an encyclopedia.

I reckon the key is a quick and targetted approach to locating information or answers in satisfaction of a query or requirement.

This technique is particularly useful, especially when one already has some prior knowledge of a subject, and when one is just looking for something to, say, update or fill-up the knowledge gaps, if any.

For example, I already have a fairly good understanding about "developing strategic foresight".

Whenever I come across new book titles in this genre, either hard or electronic copies, I just scan them quickly as I already know what I need to look out for, e.g. novel approaches.

In other words, I am looking for what else is out there on "developing strategic foresight".

I do scanning very often, whenever I hang out in the bookstores.

To do scanning, I suggest first do a preview or survey as described earlier.

4) Skimming:

Skimming is a bit slower, but more thorough when compared to scanning.

From my perspective, I reckon the purpose of skimming is to have a quick round-up of key ideas. It's also useful to use this technique to check out the relevancy of a given text or book.

Generally, it sets the scene for more concerted efforts on my part to read a book more thoroughly.

In contrast to scanning, and for skimming, I will glance through the key sections, just to pick up the main ideas in the book.

I may do some quick scanning first, particularly of the table of contents, the index, and/or the bibliography, then follow by skimming of the inside pages, whenever I am hanging out in book stores.

Generally, skimming is great to use, especially when one has a huge pile of books of more or less the same genre to go through. I often do skimming when I am doing a syntopic read.

For me, I like to consider scanning and skimming as reading on the run, so to speak.

5) Rapid reading:

Rapid reading is slower than scanning and skimming, but more thorough. In a way, one is going for relatively depth in the entire book, in the shortest possible time.

From my experience, it always follows previewing and surveying, especially when the book is found to be worth reading in greater depth.

I reckon the key is to have an adequate understanding of what's in the book within a relatively short time-frame.

The best way to accomplish rapid reading is to use a visual pacer, in more or less a deliberate zig-zag manner to encompass a broad terrain of the book. For me, I definitely like to use a marker pen - mine is a four colour type + a pencil.

A finger can also be used as a visual pacer, but not so useful, from my point of view.

In rapid reading, our eyes play a vital role as one needs to use them efficiently to glance at large chunks of text at one go. In other words, using the power of our peripheral vision.

Also, one also need to possess a confident mindset to go with it. Also, one need to trust own sense of closure since reading speed is of the essence.

During the rapid reading process, one also needs to zero in quickly on transition or signal words as way-finding guides to important passages in the text.

Since one has done previewing or surveying as a prelude, then rapid reading usually moves very fast.

I must add, though, it takes practise.

It is pertinent for me to point out that rapid reading is more suitable for business non-fictions as well as the self-improvement genre.

Incidentally, rapid reading is one of the principal components of PhotoReading.

6) Study Reading:

As the name implies, this is the most common approach to any serious form of studying.

Hence, it is more applicable to academic materials, either as part of educational coursework or preparing for a certification examination.

Naturally, MBA coursework also falls under this category.

I reckon the key is a thorough understanding of the contents of the book, as dictated by the syllabus, be it coursework or examination.

Prior to such reading, one must have access to the course and/or examination syllabus to make sure that you have all the right stuff with you.

Next, with the help of the syllabus, one must also know how to identify & segregate the 'core material' (e.g. principal concepts or theories, definitions, etc.) from the 'elaborative material' (e.g. illustrations, examples, anecdotes, etc.). Invariably, most examination questions come from the core material.

From my experience, the best tool to use is SQ5R, which I have already described in my earlier posts.

Additional tool to use with SQ5R: marginal annotations.

It is pertinent to point out that study-reading often entails sustained concentration of the mind as well as re-reading to grasp understanding of those difficult passages in the book, if any.

7) Critical or analytical reading:

To me, this is serious reading with a fine tooth comb, so to speak. So, deep appreciation of the subject is the end result.

In reality, this is a vital component of the study-reading process as described earlier, especially when one is needed to analyse, critique, react to, & understand more deeply the given material.

Again, just like study-reading, re-reading is quite a common feature in critical reading, as every phrase or sentence in the book may be studied in close detail.

I would say the key in critical or analytical reading is a systematic approach to really appreciating a piece of intellectual work, in written form.

Hence, this type of reading is more applicable to literary works, critical essays, legal papers, as well as applied science & technological subjects, include major articles in all fields.

Again, I must say that, in addition to a pacer to guide eye movement, SQ5R is very helpful here, especially the formulation of questions prior to the reading.

The previewing or surveying part of SQ5R will enable one to get a good sense of the structural layout, pattern of organisation, stylistic devices, typographical aids, etc.

A good understanding of common text organisational patterns & transition or signal words used by authors of such works is definitely useful.

Marginal annotations to flesh out key ideas &/or difficult passages as you read are helpful, too.

In the end analysis, I have realised that, even with PhotoReading & other accelerated reading technologies, it is humanly impossible to read all the stuff I am interested in.

Henceforth, I can only choose to read intelligently & selectively.

This is how I see the whole picture of reading intelligently and selectively.

For me, the focus of general or light reading reading, i.e. reading newspapers, magazines and newsletters is "knowing what's really going on out there" and not so much of truly "understanding" everything. Maybe, "keeping abreast of developments" is a better choice of words.

Study-reading as well as critical reading requires not only "knowing what's important", but also a deep understanding of the subject. Maybe, a "working understanding" is a better choice of words.

Comparatively, just for the sake of jogging the mind, I would reckon rapid reading falls somewhere between "knowing" and "understanding".

Previewing or surveying, scanning and skimming are just some of the intellectual means, at least on the selectivity basis, to go about the reading journey.