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 more important 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 much time 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 one of 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 trying to 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 respond to these weaknesses, and to your own criticisms?
Keep coming back to these questions as you read. By the time you finish, you should be able to answer them all.
Three good ways to think about this are:
a) Imagine that you’re going to review the book for a magazine.
b) Imagine that you’re having a conversation, or a formal debate, with the author.
c) Imagine an examination on the book. What would the questions be, and how would you answer them?