作者：Paul  N.  Edwards -School  of  Information University  of  Michigan

How can you learn the most from a book — or any other piece of writing — when you're reading for information, rather than for pleasure?

It’s satisfying to start at the beginning and read straight through to the end. Some books, such as novels, have to 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, articles, and other documents 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, journal articles, histories, academic studies, and so on.

The purpose of reading things like this is to gain, and retain, 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 or article from beginning to end.

Instead, when you’re reading for information, you should ALWAYS jump ahead, skip around, 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 the book. 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. 

Table 1, on the next page, summarizes the techniques, and the following pages explain them in more detail.

乱入Table1.Summaryofreadingstrategiesandtechniques

策略1·Read  the  whole  thing

理由：Major  arguments  and  evidence  matter  more  than  details. Grasping  the  structure  of  the  whole  is  more  important  than reading  every  word.

策略2·Decide  how  much  time  you will  spend

理由：Real-­‐world  time  is  limited.  If  you  know  exactly  how  long  you

can  actually  spend  on  reading,  you  can  plan  how  much  time to  devote  to  each  item.

策略3·Have  a  purpose  and  a strategy

理由：You'll  enjoy  reading  more,  and  remember  it  better,  if  you know  exactly  why  you're  reading.

策略4·Read  actively

理由：Never  rely  on  the  author's  structures  alone.  Move  around  in the  text,  following  your  own  goals.

策略5·Read  it  three  times

理由：First  time  for  overview  and  discovery.  Second  time  for detail  and  understanding. Third  time  for  note-­‐taking  in  your own  words.

策略6·Focus  on  parts  with  high information  content

理由：Tables  of  contents,  pictures,  charts,  headings,  and  other elements  contain  more  information  than  body  text.

策略7·Use  PTML  (personal  text markup  language)

理由：Mark  up  your  reading  with  your  own  notes.  This  helps  you learn  and  also  helps  you  find  important  passages  later.

策略8·Know  the  author(s)  and organizations

理由：Authors  are  people  with  backgrounds  and  biases.  They work  in  organizations  that  give  them  context  and  depth.

策略9·Know  the  intellectual context

理由：Most  academic  writing  is  part  of  an  ongoing  intellectual conversation,  with  debates,  key  figures,  and  paradigmatic concepts.

策略10·Use  your  unconscious  mind

理由：Leave  time  between  reading  sessions  for  your  mind  to process  the  material.

策略11·Rehearse,  and  use  multiple modes

理由：Talking,  visualizing,  or  writing  about  what  you've  read  helps you  remember  it.

1·Read the whole thing!

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?

4·Read  actively

Don’t  wait  for  the  author  to  hammer  you  over  the  head.  Instead,  from  the  very  beginning, constantly  generate  hypotheses  (“the  main  point  of  the  book  is  that...”)  and  questions (“How  does  the  author  know  that...?”)  about  the  book.

Making  brief  notes  about  these  can  help.  As  you  read,  try  to  confirm  your  hypotheses  and answer  your  questions.  Once  you  finish,  review  these.

5·Know  the  author(s)  and  organizations

Knowing  who  wrote  a  book  helps  you  judge  its  quality  and  understand  its  full  significance.

Authors  are  people.  Like  anyone  else,  their  views  are  shaped  by  their  educations,  their  jobs, their  early  lives,  and  the  rest  of  their  experiences.  

Also  like  anyone  else,  they  have prejudices,  blind  spots,  desperate  moments,  failings,  and  desires  —  as  well  as  insights, brilliance,  objectivity,  and  successes.  Notice  all  of  it.

Most  authors  belong  to  organizations:  universities,  corporations,  governments,  newspapers, magazines.  These  organizations  each  have  cultures,  hierarchies  of  power,  and  social  norms.

Organizations  shape  both  how  a  work  is  written  and  the  content  of  what  it  says.  

For example,  university  professors  are  expected  to  write  books  and/or  journal  articles  in  order to  get  tenure.  

These  pieces  of  writing  must  meet  certain  standards  of  quality,  defined  chiefly by  other  professors;  for  them,  content  usually  matters  more  than  good  writing. 

 Journalists, by  contrast,  are  often  driven  by  deadlines  and  the  need  to  please  large  audiences.  

Because of  this,  their  standards  of  quality  are  often  directed  more  toward  clear  and  engaging  writing than  toward  unimpeachable  content;  their  sources  are  usually  oral  rather  than  written.

The  more  you  know  about  the  author  and  his/her  organization  and/or  discipline,  the  better you  will  be  able  to  evaluate  what  you  read.  

Try  to  answer  questions  like  these:  What  shaped the  author’s  intellectual  perspective?  What  is  his  or  her  profession? 

 Is  the  author  an academic,  a  journalist,  a  professional  (doctor,  lawyer,  industrial  scientist,  etc.)?  Expertise?

Other  books  and  articles?  Intellectual  network(s)?  Gender?  Race?  Class?  Political  affiliation?

Why  did  the  author  decide  to  write  this  book?  When?  For  what  audience(s)?  

Who  paid  for the  research  work  (private  foundations,  government  grant  agencies,  industrial  sponsors, etc.)?  Who  wrote  “jacket  blurbs”  in  support  of  the  book?

You  can  often  (though  not  always)  learn  about  much  of  this  from  the  acknowledgments,  the bibliography,  and  the  author’s  biographical  statement.

6·Know  the  intellectual  context

Knowing  the  author  and  his/her  organization  also  helps  you  understand  the  book’s intellectual  context.  

This  includes  the  academic  discipline(s)  from  which  it  draws,  schools  of thought  within  that  discipline,  and  others  who  agree  with  or  oppose  the  author’s  viewpoint.

A  book  is  almost  always  partly  a  response  to  other  writers,  so  you’ll  understand  a  book much  better  if  you  can  figure  out  what,  and  whom,  it  is  answering.  

Pay  special  attention  to points  where  the  author  tells  you  directly  that  s/he  is  disagreeing  with  others:

“Conventional  wisdom  holds  that  x,  but  I  argue  instead  that  y.”  (Is  x  really  conventional wisdom?  Among  what  group  of  people?)  “Famous  Jane  Scholar  says  that  x,  but  I  will  show that  y.”  (Who’s  Famous  Jane,  and  why  do  other  people  believe  her?  How  plausible  are  x  and y? 

 Is  the  author  straining  to  find  something  original  to  say,  or  has  s/he  genuinely  convinced you  that  Famous  Jane  is  wrong?)  Equally  important  are  the  people  and  writings  the  author cites  in  support  of  his/her  arguments.

7·Read  it  three  times

This  is  the  key  technique. *注1（核心技巧知道这一啪的地位了吧，请配合张五常的阅读方法） You’ll  get  the  most  out  of  the  book  if  you  read  it  three  times  — each  time  for  a  different  purpose.

a)  Overview:  discovery  (5-­‐10  percent  of  total  time)

Here  you  read  very  quickly,  following  the  principle  (described  below)  of reading  for  high  information  content.  Your  goal  is  to  discover  the  book.  

You want  a  quick-­‐and-­‐dirty,  unsophisticated,  general  picture  of  the  writer’s

purpose,  methods,  and  conclusions.

Mark  —  without  reading  carefully  —  headings,  passages,  and  phrases  that seem  important  (you’ll  read  these  more  closely  the  second  time  around.)

Generate  questions  to  answer  on  your  second  reading:  what  does  term  or phrase  X  mean?  Why  doesn’t  the  author  cover  subject  Y?  Who  is  Z?

b)  Detail:  understanding  (70-­‐80  percent  of  total  time)

Within  your  time  constraints,  read  the  book  a  second  time.  This  time,  your goal  is  understanding:  to  get  a  careful,  critical,  thoughtful  grasp  of  the  key points,  and  to  evaluate  the  author’s  evidence  for  his/her  points.

Focus  especially  on  the  beginnings  and  ends  of  chapters  and  major  sections. Pay  special  attention  to  the  passages  you  marked  on  the  first  round.  Try  to answer  any  questions  you  generated  on  the  first  round.

c)  Notes:  recall  and  note-­‐taking  (10-­‐20  percent  of  total  time)

The  purpose  of  your  third  and  final  reading  is  to  commit  to  memory  the most  important  elements  of  the  book.  

This  time,  make  brief  notes  about  the arguments,  evidence,  and  conclusions.  This  is  not  at  all  the  same  thing  as text  markup; 

 your  goal  here  is  to  process  the  material  by  translating  into your  own  mental  framework,  which  means  using  your  own  words  as  much as  possible.  

Cutting  and  pasting  segments  of  text  from  the  book  will  not  do as  much  for  you  as  summarizing  very  briefly  in  your  own  words. 

 Include  the bare  minimum  of  detail  to  let  you  remember  and  re-­‐locate  the  most important  things.  

1-­‐3  pages  of  notes  per  100  pages  of  text  is  a  good  goal  to shoot  for;  more  than  that  is  often  too  much.  

Use  some  system  that  lets  you easily  find  places  in  the  book  (e.g.,  start  each  note  with  a  page  number.)

Notebooks,  typed  pages,  or  handwritten  sheets  tucked  into  the  book  can  all work.  

However,  notes  will  be  useless  unless  you  can  easily  find  them  again.

 A  very  good  system  —  the  one  I  use  —  is  to  type  notes  directly  into bilbiography  entries  using  citation  manager  software  such  as  Endnote, Zotero,  or  Bookends.  See  below  for  more  on  citation  managers.

8·On  time  and  timing

First,  because  human  attention  fades  after  about  an  hour,  you’ll  get  more  out  of  three  one-­‐ hour  readings  than  you  could  ever  get  out  of  one  three-­‐hour  reading.  But  be  careful:  to  get one  full  hour  of  effective  reading,  you  need  to  set  aside  at  least  one  hour  and  fifteen minutes,  since  distraction  is  inevitable  at  the  beginning  (settling  in)  and  end  (re-­‐arousal  for your  next  task)  of  any  reading  period.

Second,  make  a  realistic  plan  that  includes  how  much  time  you  will  devote  to  each  of  the three  stages.  

For  a  250-­‐page  book,  I  might  spend  15  minutes  on  overview,  4  hours  on detailed  reading,  and  20-­‐30  minutes  making  notes  —  but  I'd  adjust  these  periods  up  or down  depending  on  how  difficult  the  text  is,  how  important  it  is  to  me,  and  how  much  time  I have.

9·Focus  on  the  parts  with  high  information  content

Non-­‐fiction  books  very  often  have  an  “hourglass”  structure  that  is  repeated  at  several  levels of  organization.  

More  general  (broader)  information  is  typically  presented  at  the  beginnings and  ends  of:

•  the  book  or  article  as  a  whole  (abstract,  introduction,  conclusion)

•  each  chapter

•  each  section  within  a  chapter

•  each  paragraph

More  specific  (narrower)  information  (supporting  evidence,  details,  etc.)  then  appears  in  the middle  of  the  hourglass.

You  can  make  the  hourglass  structure  of  writing  do  a  lot  of  work  for  you.  Focus  on  the following  elements,  in  more  or  less  the  following  order:

•  Front  and  back  covers,  inner  jacket  flaps

•  Table  of  contents

•  Index:  scan  this  to  see  which  are  the  most  important  terms

•  Bibliography:  tells  you  about  the  book’s  sources  and  intellectual  context

•  Preface  and/or  Introduction  and/or  Abstract

•  Conclusion

•  Pictures,  graphs,  tables,  figures:  images  contain  more  information  than  text

•  Chapter  introductions  and  conclusions

•  Section  headings

•  Special  type  or  formatting:  boldface,  italics,  numbered  items,  lists

10·Use  PTML  (personal  text  markup  language)

Always,  always,  always  mark  up  your  reading.  This  is  a  critical  part  of  active  reading.  

Do  this from  the  very  beginning  —  even  on  your  first,  overview  reading.  Why?  Because  when  you come  back  to  the  book  later,  your  marks  reduce  the  amount  you  have  to  look  at  and  help you  see  what’s  most  significant.

Don’t  mark  too  much.  This  defeats  the  purpose  of  markup;  when  you  consult  your  markup later,  heavy  markup  will  force  you  to  re-­‐read  unimportant  information. 

 As  a  rule,  you  should average  no  more  than  two  or  three  short  marks  per  page.  Rather  than  underline  whole sentences,  underline  words  or  short  phrases  that  capture  what  you  most  need  to remember.  

The  point  of  this  is  to  distill,  reduce,  eliminate  the  unnecessary.  Write  words  and phrases  in  the  margins  that  tell  you  what  paragraphs  or  sections  are  about.  Use  your  own words.

11·Page  vs.  screen

Printed  material  has  far  higher  resolution  (~600  dpi)  than  even  the  best  computer  screens (~100  dpi);  see  the  illustration  of  300  vs.  600  dpi,  below. 

 For  this  reason  you  will  read  more accurately,  and  with  less  fatigue,  if  you  stick  with  the  paper  version. 

 Still,  we  inevitably  read much  more  screen-­‐based  material  now.

Markup  on  the  screen:  It  remains  difficult  to  mark  up  screen-­‐based  materials  effectively.

The  extra  steps  involved  are  distracting,  as  is  the  temptation  to  check  email  or  websurf.

Also,  with  screen-­‐based  markup  you  often  have  to  click  on  a  note  in  order  to  read  it,  which means  you’re  less  likely  to  do  it  later.  It  remains  far  easier  to  mark  up  a  printed  copy!

However,  if  you’re  disciplined,  recent  versions  of  Acrobat,  Apple  Preview,  and  third-­‐party PDF  viewers  such  as  PDFpen,  iAnnotate,  and  Goodreader  allow  you  to  add  comments, highlighting,  and  so  on  to  PDFs.  Voice  recognition  can  make  this  a  lot  easier.  

Today,  I routinely  read  and  annotate  PDFs  on  an  iPad,  using  voice  recognition  when  I  want  to  make  a note.  

Some  of  these  readers,  as  well  as  ebook  readers  such  as  Kindle,  allow  you  to  export only  your  highlights  and  notes.  

This  is  a  great  way  to  make  yourself  a  condensed  version  of  a document.  

Paste  it  into  the  notes  field  of  your  citation  manager  and  it’ll  always  be  at  your fingertips.  

Hunt  around  on  the  web  for  ways  to  do  this  kind  of  thing  on  an  industrial  scale (especially  with  Kindle  books).

When  taking  notes  about  something  you're  reading  (as  opposed  to  marking  up  the  text), you'll  be  tempted  to  cut  and  paste  the  original  text  in  lieu  of  making  your  own  notes  in  your own  words.  

Cut-­‐and-­‐paste  can  sometimes  work  well,  especially  for  things  you  might  want  to quote  later.  

However:  in  general  it  defeats  the  two  main  purposes  of  note-­‐taking:  (a) learning  and  remembering  (by  rephrasing  in  your  own  terms),  and  (b)  condensing  into  a  very short  form.  

The  same  is  true  of  links:  though  useful  for  keeping  track  of  sources,  keeping  a URL  will  not  by  itself  help  you  remember  or  understand  what's  there,  even  though  it  may feel  that  way.

12·Use  a  citation  manager

It’s  hard  to  overemphasize  the  huge  advantages  of  citation  manager  software  such  as Endnote,  Bookends,  Zotero,  Mendeley,  CiteULike,  etc.  

They  let  you  keep  track  of  your growing  library,  easily  enter  and  format  citations  in  your  word  processor  (saving  you  the incredible  irritation  of  doing  it  yourself). 

 Most  of  them  can  pull  in  citations  directly  from  the web,  record  web  links,  find  DOI’s,  and  so  on.  Some  have  their  own  web  search  tools  built  in.

Some,  such  as  Bookends  (Mac  only),  will  automatically  rename  documents  with  Author-­‐ Date-­‐Title,  a  huge  help  with  the  extremely  annoying  problem  of  uninformative  filenames.

None  of  these  packages  are  perfect.  All  have  both  advantages  and  disadvantages,  and  the more  sophisticated  ones  have  steep  learning  curves.

  Look  for  one  that  can  handle  all  major document  formats,  including  books,  journal  articles,  newspaper  articles,  online  sources, interviews,  and  so  on.  

Be  wary  of  managers  that  only  handle  PDFs,  since  so  many  other formats  are  still  important.

If  you  use  the  notes  field  of  your  citation  manager  in  a  disciplined  way,  your  notes  will always  be  easy  to  find.  When  your  library  starts  reaching  into  the  thousands  of  items,  this  is a  godsend.

13·Use  your  unconscious  mind

An  awful  lot  of  thinking  and  mental  processing  goes  on  when  you’re  not  aware  of  it.  

Just  as with  writing  or  any  other  creative  thought  process,  full  understanding  of  a  book  takes  time to  develop.

Like  the  body,  the  mind  suffers  from  fatigure  when  doing  just  one  thing  for  many  hours.

Your  ability  to  comprehend  and  retain  what  you  read  drops  off  dramatically  after  an  hour  or so.  

Therefore,  you  should  read  a  book  in  several  short  sessions  of  one  to  two  hours  apiece, rather  than  one  long  marathon.

In  between,  your  unconscious  mind  will  process  some  of  what  you’ve  read.  When  you  come back  for  the  next  session,  start  by  asking  yourself  what  you  remember  from  your  previous reading,  what  you  think  of  it  so  far,  and  what  you  still  need  to  learn.

14·Rehearse,  and  use  multiple  modes

Reading  is  exactly  like  martial  arts,  baseball,  or  cooking  in  the  sense  that  learning  and memory  depend  crucially  on  rehearsal.

So  —  after  you’ve  read  the  book,  rehearse  what  you’ve  learned.  Quiz  yourself  on  its contents.  Argue  with  the  author.  Imagine  how  you  would  defend  the  author’s  position  in your  own  writing.

Reading,  writing,  speaking,  listening,  and  visualizing  all  engage  different  parts  of  the  brain.

For  this  reason,  the  best  forms  of  rehearsal  use  multiple  modes  of  thinking  and  action.

Don’t  just  contemplate  privately.  Instead,  talk  about  the  book  with  others.  Bring  it  up  in classes.  Write  about  it.  Visualize  anything  that  can  be  visualized  about  its  contents. 

 All  of  this helps  fix  your  memory  and  integrate  your  new  learning  into  the  rest  of  your  knowledge.

15·Hang  in  there!

When  I  give  presentations  on  these  ideas,  students  often  tell  me  a  few  weeks  later  that  they “tried  it  a  few  times  and  just  couldn’t  do  it,”  so  they  stopped.

You  will  have  to  practice  these  techniques  for  a  considerable  length  of  time  —  at  least  a  few months  —  before  they  come  to  seem  natural,  and  they  will  never  be  easier  than  the comfortable,  passive  way  we’ve  all  been  reading  for  many  years.

Hang  in  there.  The  rewards  of  these  techniques  are  great,  or  so  say  the  hundreds  of students  who’ve  told  me  so  years  later.  

Learning  to  read  like  this  can  be  a  critical  key  to  a successful  career  as  a  student,  scholar,  or  professional  in  almost  any  field.

注1：读书的思考与方法