How to retain more of what you read | Hacker News Reader

How to retain more of what you read

farnamstreetblog.com

40 pointsxtraclass13 comments

Summarization is one of the least effective methods of retaining what you have learnt. According to an extensive study [1], the two most effective methods of retaining what you have learnt are

Practice testing --- Self-testing or taking practice tests over to-be-learned material

Distributed practice --- Implementing a schedule of practice that spreads out study activities over time

http://psi.sagepub.com/content/14/1/4.full.pdf

Here (first comment) is a hybrid strategy: write your own comprehensive exam for your course/field of study.

http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/08/10/you-know-what-you-writ...

(the Cal Newport blog has 2 posts about summarization but nothing conclusive AFAICT

http://calnewport.com/blog/2012/08/16/experiments-with-the-t...

Also please take a look at the research of John Hattie whose meta study Visible Learning analyzes what actually works in a school setting: http://visible-learning.org/

His Hattie Ranking might change the way you view education: http://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect...

Thanks for the link to that review article, I'm definitely going to be reading it. However, I disagree that summarization isn't a valid form of practice testing.

I've seen the sort of summarization described in the original post used as a form of practice testing. For example, a similar method (5 minutes reading, 10 minutes writing a summary, followed by 5 minutes re-reading, and another 10 minutes of summarization) showed very good results in this article.

http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/journal/karpicke-sci11a....

From the paper:

3.5 Summarization: Overall assessment. On the basis of the available evidence, we rate summarization as low utility. It can be an effective learning strategy for learners who are already skilled at summarizing; however, many learners (including children, high school students, and even some undergraduates) will require extensive training, which makes this strategy less feasible. Our enthusiasm is further dampened by mixed find-ings regarding which tasks summarization actually helps. Although summarization has been examined with a wide range of text materials, many researchers have pointed to fac-tors of these texts that seem likely to moderate the effects of summarization (e.g., length), and future research should be aimed at investigating such factors. Finally, although many studies have examined summarization training in the class-room, what are lacking are classroom studies examining the effectiveness of summarization as a technique that boosts stu-dents’ learning, comprehension, and retention of course content.

I read through a good portion of it and they are mainly focused on k-12. The research they cite consists of remembering facts, not understanding technical content such as physics and math.

Getting through an advanced math textbook is nearly impossible without taking notes and summarizing the main ideas.

What practice testing would you suggest for the War and Peace?

It's still sitting in a vacuum by taking notes. I think a very effective way of remembering is by constantly linking what you're reading to what you know, trying to fit it in your current web of knowledge. The more you read, the bigger web you get, the more places you have where what you're currently reading can fit.

The point of reading something isn't to memorize what you read, it's to enhance your life. After every chapter, put the book down, and see where that chapter fits in your mind, and go on tangents for how it would affect what you're thinking.

Gwern wrote a lengthy blog post on improving recall[0] that is worth at least a cursory read. As usual, it is deeply researched and well referenced. The two main takeaways seem to be

1. Spaced repetition works, and

2. Intermittent testing works.

I don't think he says anything about summarization, but I'd be interested to read a study.

[0] http://www.gwern.net/Spaced%20repetition

I try to do this with any technical book I read, and summarize things in an org-mode outline in Emacs while I read. It helps to have a bookstand (the BookGem is nice). Combine this with advice from "How to Read a Book" and follow the guidelines from "Pragmatic Programmer" of at least one technical book every three months, and it makes for a wealth of handy notes and better retention.

Another big helper (which works well when you're already in Emacs), is to type in and test code examples, and force yourself to solve/work all the exercises/problems given.

A couple of last things to look up: the PQ4R strategy and SQ3R strategy. I've heard these are taught in England; I really wish they would teach it here in the states early in public school.

I wrestle with this problem constantly. I love to read books, but I forget what I read. I keep lists in google docs of what I've read, and a thought on each book.

I've always wanted to have nested summaries of the books I've read, for review after reading - a way to let me quickly review what I've read, or preview books before I read them. And, there's no reason these shouldn't be sharable among other readers.

This is my first cut at a tool to do this: www.thebooknotes.com

Some key changes and updates coming but wanted to share it with you guys now. Thoughts and feedback always welcome

I found that when reading my textbooks for class, it helped a lot to take notes and try to apply when I was learning. It helped me get a deeper meaning and retain the material much better.

For books that have an appropriate stucture [1], I like making a mind map that I can quickly refer to later on.

[1] A lot of business books work well for this

I've never thought to do this but the methodology does make sense. I've been studying Japanese for about a month and while reading through various textbooks I'll run into so many examples of miscellaneous grammar notes which I never thought to write down. Partially because of apathy while also convincing myself that I'll remember it all and don't need to bother taking notes.

But I wonder if results would differ between taking notes digitally vs physically hand-writing with pen and paper.

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