10-second review: Two interesting methods for becoming involved in reading an information book you don’t necessarily want to read: Gibbon’s way (author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire), and Daniel Webster’s way.
Source: How to Study in College. Walter Pauk. Boston
Summary: Gibbon’s way; “Before starting to read a new book, or before starting to write on any subject, Gibbon would spend hours alone in his study, or take a long walk alone to recall everything that he knew about the subject. As he pondered some major ideas, he was continually surprised how many other ideas and fragments of ideas he would dredge up.”
Comment: The more you know about a topic the more you will understand what you read about it. Now you can’t spend hours preparing yourself, as Gibbon did, to read a book, but you can take some brief time to think about what you know already about the topic. That will help you to raise questions about what you want to know and give yourself a purpose for reading. You will be involved. RayS.
Summary: Daniel Webster’s way was somewhat similar to Gibbon’s method for preparing to read a book: “Before reading a book, he would look at the table of contents, read the preface, and turn some of the pages. Then he would make lists of 1) questions that he expected would be answered in the book; 2) the knowledge he expected to gain from his reading; and 3) where it would take him.
Comment: If you know very little about the topic of the book, start by reading the first and last paragraphs of the information book. The opening paragraph will introduce the topic of the chapter and the final paragraph will summarize the chapter. That technique will build up your background knowledge on the topic and enable you to formulate questions which you will want to answer. RayS.
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