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Comment by rogeryu | Hacker News Reader

In university I learnt about the PQRST method:

1) Preview - browse through the text or chapter quickly. 2) Question - think about what this text is about. 3) Read. 4) Summary - make a summary. 6) Test.

This method actually was promoted in a psychology book about memory and memorizing. So not only did they teach about how memory works, but they gave tips how to memorize that, and on top of that they set up the complete book (which was about more than memory) that way. So the chapters in the book had some kind of "preview", a short intro about what the chapter was about, a summary and some test questions, with many pictures and side notes that kept you going.

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Most textbooks aimed at schoolchildren (from first grade through college) have this kind of format built into them. Personally I found them patronizing and tedious to read, as they take 3x more space than necessary to make their point, and lots of the little called out side notes seemed irrelevant. This format is almost always the product of some kind of committee process rather than a primary author with a strong voice.

Just because it’s more effective for someone to {quickly skim, think a bit, read the chapter, then think a bit more} doesn’t mean that including those features explicitly in the text is helpful; it’s like taking a full meal and blending it into a smoothie, so the eater doesn’t need to chew. Some students will skip the main text and just read the summary bits, assuming (usually correctly) that that will suffice to pass the next quiz. Others will try to read the book but be distracted by the disjointed presentation and lose track of the shape of the arguments. Students who get used to this format will be completely lost once they hit harder material which hasn’t predigested everything up front. Many of the better students who are used to real books will find the format patronizing.

It is easier to skip over extra material than to imagine missing material. Textbooks serve a diverse audience.

Also, it is possibly that the egotistical reader doesn't actually know better than the author.

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