How to Read Better
  • How to Read
  • The End(s) of Reading
    • Reading Failure Modes
  • We've Got Reading All Wrong: Relearning How to Read
    • How Most People Read
    • Reading Is a Useless Word: The Many Kinds of Reading
    • On Non-Linear Reading
      • Reading As Iteration
      • Non-Linear Reading: Case Studies
    • Speed Reading is Dead
      • 80/20 Scan
    • Books as Networks
      • Networking / Associative Reading
      • Conversation vs Indoctrination
  • Reading Deeply: Going From Passive to Active
    • The Death & Rebirth of Highlighting
    • Feynman Method
    • Brain Dump: Active Reading Techniques
    • Brain Dump #2
  • Remembering What You Read: Beyond the Book
    • Forgetting Curves & Spaced Repetition
  • Choosing Reading Material
  • Applying What You Read
  • Reading More
    • Positive Feedback & The Boredom Filter
      • Establish the Process First
    • What Is Possible?
    • Finding Time to Read
    • Create Positive Affordances
  • On Implementation
  • Resources
  • Untitled
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  1. Reading Deeply: Going From Passive to Active

Brain Dump: Active Reading Techniques

PreviousFeynman MethodNextBrain Dump #2

Last updated 7 years ago

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

  • 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.

The Partially Examined Life