
What to write down when you’re reading to learn - luu
https://acesounderglass.com/2020/06/10/what-to-write-down-when-youre-reading-to-learn/
======
rablackburn
>The single most helpful thing in figuring out what to write down was noticing
when my reading was slowing down (...)

> If I have one piece of advice, it’s “learn to recognize the subtle drag of
> something requiring your attention.”

This really resonated with me, but perhaps not in the exact same way as the
author. I've recently become more consciously aware of how I react when
reading more complex text or parsing more complex points.

I read along at a fairly constant speed, not having much trouble following the
author's mental model. But at some point the complexity seems to grow beyond
what I can comfortably hold in my head without stopping and really trying to
parse what's on the page in front of me.

I can react to this difficulty in two ways:

1\. I let the inertia carry me past the sentence, not really grokking it,
instead it becomes a sort of buzz in my mental model (or a 'drag' in the
author's words), something like step 2 in south park's famous step 1: do
something - step 2: ??? - step 3: profit. I continue on with the text, but now
my understanding of it is compromised.

2\. I recognize what I'm doing, stop reading, and start re-reading the
sentence much more slowly. Look at the surrounding text for illuminating
context (sometimes this snag isn't because it's an overly complex point, it's
just a poorly structured sentence and the next line clears it up). I may need
to start taking notes to parse it.

My problem is I'm quite lazy (and I'm usually reading in bed to relax) and
tend to default to strategy 1. But I'm trying to change that bad habit and
react with strategy 2.

~~~
cle
Maybe we're using different words for the same thing. But I've found that when
I get "stuck" like that, it's because I'm trying to fit too much into my
working memory, and I start losing track of it and am unable to recall parts
of it, leading to confusion.

So I do what you say, except it's much more deliberate than just "slow down"
and "re-read". I try to break the concepts down into chunks, and focus on
being able to recall specific things about each chunk. First I convince myself
that each chunk makes sense in isolation, and then what its "contract" is (how
it interacts with related concepts and fits into the bigger picture). When I
can easily recall both of those in a coherent way, I'm ready to move on. I use
a variety of ways to practice recall, depending on whatever's most ergonomic
(Anki, study sheet, deliberate practice, etc.). Sometimes I find that I lack
enough understanding of other concepts to really understand a chunk, so I have
to go recursively do the same thing for other concepts.

So I see it as more of a memory problem and not "understanding". I don't
really know what "understanding" means, to me it's all just memory--memorizing
_why_ something is true/makes sense (by relating it to stuff I already
know/memorized), and then memorizing _how_ that thing fits into other
contexts. If I can't load that stuff quickly into my working memory, then I
don't "understand" it.

~~~
rablackburn
It's a different phenomena.

I experience the running out of RAM problem that you describe as well and take
basically the same approach to you. That's much closer to how I read code.

My issue really is just a tendency to keep reading even if I didn't actually
parse the sentence properly. It seems to be a complexity threshold rather than
a volume one.

I think it's just what happens when I try to read a text at the top of, or
beyond, my reading level. I imagine that anyone who struggled in school with
reading comprehension may have a similar experience, or perhaps its like that
feeling when you read a garden path sentence[1].

I struggled to even recognize that I was facing this issue because I found
reading very easy during school. Facing a text that was too difficult to
instantly parse and understand was rare enough that I never had to develop the
mental tools to deal with it.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-
path_sentence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence)

------
requin246
The best information on this topic I’ve come across is contained in Mortimer
Adler’s “How to read a book”.

Highly recommended if you’re doing any non-fiction reading.

~~~
cinntaile
Here [0] you can find a decent summary of the book. For me the single most
important point that the book taught me was that it's ok to write in books,
they don't have to be in pristine condition without any text in them. The
white pages in books are meant specifically to write on. They explain this
point of the book in a separate blog post [1] for some reason. Anyway... I
never used to write in books, now this has become a central part of my
learning process. The physical act of scribbling a question mark next to
unclear parts, rephrasing what is meant and so on has helped me understand
complex material faster as well as made it easier to refer to at a later point
(as there is no need to worry about any notes getting lost).

[0] [https://fs.blog/how-to-read-a-book/](https://fs.blog/how-to-read-a-book/)
[1] [https://fs.blog/2015/01/marginalia/](https://fs.blog/2015/01/marginalia/)

~~~
thirtythree
Do you know of any android app that I can take notes of what is on the screen?

~~~
gofreddygo
Email

Take a screenshot/copy text. Paste in any email client. Hit send.

I have a preconfigured default bcc address so never have to (mis)type email
address.

------
hliyan
I always used to tell myself "You can never be sure you've really understood
something until you try to recreate it". It started from my university days
when I noticed that stuff I read and thought "yeah I got this" later turned
out to be anything but, when I had to do it without the textbook at hand.
Since then, I've always kept the habit. There's literally a pen and notepad
two inches to the right of my keyboard. There is also a terminal open always,
where I can do this:

    
    
      $ learned
        > about Walder's law: the bulk of discussion on programming language 
        > design centers on syntax (which, for purposes of the argument, is 
        > considered a solved problem), as opposed to semantics.
    

That's an actual example from two days ago. "learned" is just a shell script:

    
    
      #!/bin/bash
      read text
      echo -e "\n$text" >> ~/Dropbox/writing/notes/learned.txt
    

As you can see it auto syncs to dropbox.

~~~
j0hnml
That’s a really simple but great idea. Thank you for that. I can’t tell you
how many times I’ve learned something while working but have been too lazy to
find my notes and figure out which note to put it in. And so I never end up
making a note of it in the first place.

------
Deviate
The answer depends on what you're trying to learn and for what purpose, as it
will dictate what learning strategies you utilize.

For example, if you're studying to retain information for educational purposes
(and reproduce in an exam environment) then research has indicated that
reading and rereading have the lowest utility (return on time invested) in the
10 common strategies used by students. The strategy offering the highest
utility was practice testing under exam conditions.

If you are reading to learn about a topic that requires you to retain
information in a sequential manner, then using learning techniques such as a
memory palace can be helpful. This is a technique that allows you to picture a
room you know very well and associate blocks of information with objects in
that room while you are learning. It's a very common way to deal with
performance anxiety which manifests as blank memory.

I'm happy to share some thoughts on potential approaches if you offer some
clarity on what your desired outcome is.

~~~
harblcat
Is there a list of those 10 common strategies? Just out of curiosity.

~~~
Deviate
Yes, there is. This is an informal article discussing the strategies:
[https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/dunlosky...](https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/dunlosky.pdf)

And this is the more formal research:
[https://pcl.sitehost.iu.edu/rgoldsto/courses/dunloskyimprovi...](https://pcl.sitehost.iu.edu/rgoldsto/courses/dunloskyimprovinglearning.pdf)

------
raxxorrax
First round of reading about a topic I don't write down anything because of
flow-problems the author mentioned. It also helps with getting a view beyond
the horizon. Then I try to write a good summary. Writing something really
helps with memorizing. Curiously, I think the effect is much weaker when
typing something on a machine.

Rereading my summary gives me an impression of how well I understood a topic.
If it is just incoherent rumblings, I probably should revisit the topics in
question. So it can also be a good self test.

Such an iterative approach takes time though...

~~~
ianai
I’m wondering how people find the time for that during college courses. Mine
always moved at a pace where read throughs were in direct competition with the
homework.

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awinter-py
> I mentioned “losing flow” as a cost of note taking in my opening, but I’m
> not actually convinced that’s a cost. Breaking flow also means breaking the
> author’s hold on you and thinking for yourself

this is the best writing about reading I've read recently

------
artsyca
"Write down anything taking up mental RAM" is the sagest advice

~~~
_emacsomancer_
And this seems like a place where (at least at some point) getting the notes
into a place like org-mode where they could be assigned appropriate labels
could be useful: something taking up mental RAM might not be fully tied to the
thing you're reading.

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arnejenssen
My principle: "Instead of taking notes from ideas contained in a book, take
notes of the ideas _you_ get when reading a book"

------
jldugger
> Writing down a thing you’ve read (/heard/etc) improves your memory and
> understanding, at the cost of disrupting the flow of reading.

Flow disruption, in the case of self-paced learning, is likely a good thing,
even though it feels like it's slowing you down. Even though it _is_ slowing
you down. The act of getting back into the flow requires some level of
retrieval from long term memory, and retrieval is practice at remembering. So
anything that helps you practice remembering what you just read is useful, and
anything that helps you read more pages per hour but does nothing to change
how much you remember per hour is wasteful.

------
lmilcin
References.

Seriously. I read a lot and I would completely drown if I was taking notes of
anything that I am interested with. The only thing I really want to note is my
own index system where I have a document with keywords and list of links,
books, documents, other resources where I have seen this thing. Rarely a small
note -- once I find the reference I am usually able to recall what the
reference was about.

I have two types of reference stores.

1\. My global index. This is one bag of huge amount of keywords and links. The
storage works like this: I enter the reference (which is basically any free
text, usually a link). I enter a number of words, terms I might be trying to
look it up in the future, name of context I am researching this reference for
(for example name of project I am working on atm). Later when I don't remember
the reference I may be able to recall I have worked on some particular project
and use the name of the project to help me find the reference.

2\. My project index. This is typically a document listing design/decision
details I made for a particular project with references to materials. For
example, I might have decided to use a particular board component and then
have a reference to digikey/mouser part, reference to specs, reference to any
number of designs I found on the internet that include the part, etc.

------
mannykannot
Write down anything that seemed surprising or otherwise non-obvious on first
reading. Even better: rewrite the surprising parts in your own words, once you
have understood them, in a way that clearly explains to you that which you
originally found puzzling, with enough context that you will get the point
when you re-read your notes (note that this helps even if you never re-read
these notes, because the act of paraphrasing is helpful on its own.)

------
metrokoi
Does anyone use LCD drawing tablets for taking notes? I don't like using paper
that much, and for anything important I prefer to have it digitized so that
information can be sorted, copied, and recalled. I wonder how important it is
to be able to come back to those notes, or if simply writing them down and
never coming back to them would be enough.

In that case, a "dumb" LCD writing pad such as the Boogie Board would be
enough. I'm not sure if I want to hassle with a more expensive and complex
system such as a drawing tablet, which would be an alternative.

~~~
O_H_E
Check out the amazing [https://remarkable.com](https://remarkable.com) It is a
bit on the expensive side of things, but seems great. (I don't have one yet)

------
chiefalchemist
Notes on reading are like writing: embrace brevity. There is a difference
between intesting and essential. Too much noise will only dilute the important
bits.

------
UnpossibleJim
To be totally honest, I have two separate note taking forms. One when I'm
reading the first time through, which I could almost certainly not refer to in
any form, as they are scribbled down and unintelligible. The second (and often
on my second reading), I have much less comprehension from the reading, I'm
taking notes to refer to.

~~~
tartoran
So you immerse and get the idea while skipping on the details and then you
address the details. I will try this. I find that I usually go full force, get
the idea then rarely come back to notes if I take any. It’s a bad habit that
makes me a very poor communicator because I missing the labels. If I
undwrstand something thoroughly that can form a metaphor, I can play with it
in my head which kindof helps cement the idea.

Similarly, for programming I understand comcepts better by playing with some
code rather than dryly following line by line on the text. I think it depends
on the book, I found myself reading form SICP without much interruption. It’s
a certain pace that I enjoy

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eddieoz
> Write down anything that’s taking up mental RAM, whether it seems related or
> interesting or not. If you find you’re doing this a lot, consider you might
> have a secret goal you don’t know about.

Basically I do the same using Kindle, with the plus of getting everything on
my email after, for reviewing.

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gofreddygo
> it’s much better if my sense of “this is important, record it” corresponds
> with what is actually important. The real question here is “Important to
> what?”

This is my Aha! moment.

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n_t
There was mention of an online book/site which was about writing every thing
that is going on in your head. Does anyone has reference to it?

------
mraza007
I think its the best way to learn

