Brain Dump: Active Reading Techniques

This is a quick "brain dump" off all the strategies / techniques I can think off for better active reading. Sorting will be done later... maybe.

Active reading:

• Take a walk and think / talk through the text. I find this helps me to the "big picture" thinking I need to do to situate and idea, connect it to abstractions, etc.

• Iterative reading - Going from TOC / headings, etc. -> first casual read -> deep dive read

• Seminars / discussion groups - In the style of The Partially Examined Life

• Summarizing the ideas

• Connecting / abstracting in-book ideas to other thinkers

• Asking questions (helps you detect holes in your knowledge)

• Drawing diagrams (I've never been very good at this... Perhaps a dispositional thing?)

Other things that people recommend (but I don't like):

• Copy a passage word-for-word. I dislike this for the same reason that I disliked copying Chinese characters hundreds of times as a child—it does not turn things into an active process.