Remembering What You Read: Beyond the Book

Note: There's not much here yet. What follows is an outline of some things I plan to add.

Notes / thoughts:

• Improving understanding & integrating knowledge—addressed in previous sections—goes a long way towards improving retention, so you can't really separate this stuff out.

• I should mention spaced repetition & forgetting curves

• Thoughts on just-in-time reading? (Sometimes BS?)

Other fringe thoughts:

• When is it better to forget what you read? In what cases does forgetting improve the quality of your thinking?

A Short Tour of Memory

Unfortunately, when it comes to retention, the report is pretty abysmal.

• Study 1: Student Retention Rates

Luckily, most people read in a terrible manner.

We can look at this in two parts.

• Understanding

• Retention

Improving Understanding

Notes:

• Why highlighting doesn't work

• Using marginalia & connecting ideas (improving the mental web)

Improving Retention

It helps a lot to make sure you test you

• Spaced repetition

• Using your knowledge frequently

• Putting things on maintenance