Mind Maps 
How to review information
Using reading strategies to read more quickly and effectively
When we are young we are taught to read to a level of basic competence. Unfortunately teaching stops before moving on to the advanced skills which can significantly increase the speed at which we read.There are two main approaches to improving reading skills: speed reading, which increases the number of words that can read in a minute, and use of reading strategies to extract information from a text in the most effective way possible. Speed reading is covered elsewhere within Mind Tools. This article will concentrate on effective use of reading strategies.
It will cover the following points:
Active Reading
This is an important concept: when you are reading it is often useful to highlight, underline and annotate the text as you go on. This emphasises information in your mind, and helps you to review important points after you have finished studying the text.
Active reading helps to keep your mind focused on the material and stops it wandering.
This is obviously only something to do if you own the document! If you find that active reading helps significantly, then it may be worth photocopying information in more expensive texts. You can then read and mark the photocopies.
Knowing what you want to know
The most important thing to know is the goal of your study - what do you want to know after reading the text? Once you know this you can examine the text to see whether it is going to move you towards the goal.
An easy way of doing this is to look at the introduction and the chapter headings. The introduction should let you know who the book is targeted at and what it seeks to achieve, while the chapter headings will show an overall view of the structure of the subject.
While you are looking at the text, ask yourself if it is targeted at you, or assumes too much or too little knowledge. Would other material meet your needs more closely?
Knowing how deeply to study the material
Where you only need the shallowest knowledge of the subject, you can skim the material. Here you read only chapter headings, introductions and summaries.
If you need a moderate level of information on a subject, then you can scan the text. Here you read the chapter introductions and summaries in detail, and may speed-read the contents of the chapters, picking out and understanding key words and concepts. At this level of looking at the document it is worth paying attention to diagrams and graphs.
Only when you need detailed knowledge of a subject is it worth studying the text. Here it is best to skim the material first to get an overview of the subject. Once you have done this you can read it in detail while seeing how the information presented relates to the overall structure of the subject. An effective method of getting the deepest level of understanding possible of a text is to use a formal method such as SQ3R..
Reading Magazines and Newspapers
These tend to give a very fragmented coverage of a subject, typically concentrating on the most interesting and glamorous parts of a topic while ignoring the less interesting but often essential background. Typically areas of useful information are padded out with large areas of irrelevant data or with advertising.
The most effective way of dealing with magazines is to scan their contents tables or indexes, turning directly to interesting articles. If the articles are useful they can be cut out and filed into a folder specifically covering that sort of information. The magazine can then be binned. In this way you begin to build up sets of related articles which may go some way towards explaining the scope of a subject. Information can be retrieved easily and quickly.
Newspapers tend to be arranged in sections. If you read a paper frequently you can learn which sections have useful information, and which ones can be skipped altogether.
By applying an intelligent way of reading newspapers and magazines you can significantly speed the time it takes to extract the information you need from them.
Article types, and how to read them
Articles within newspapers and magazines tend to be in three main types:
- News Articles:
here the most important information is presented first, with information being less and less significant as the article progresses. News articles are designed to explain the key points first, and then flesh them out with detail. - Opinion Articles:
Opinion articles are designed to advance a viewpoint. Here the most important information is contained in the introduction and the summary, with the middle of the article containing supporting arguments. - Feature Articles:
These are written to provide entertainment or background on a subject. Typically the most important information is in the body of the text.
If you know what you want from an article, and recognising its type, you can extract information from it quickly and efficiently.Dealing with mail effectively
Dealing with junk mail can take up a significant amount of time.
A useful technique to try to apply is to touch each document only once: either act on it, bin it or file it. Effectively written direct mail will convey its purpose immediately, and will assist you in extracting and acting on information rapidly. Badly written direct mail is tedious and can take a lot of time to digest. It is much better to dispose of it immediately.
When you decide to act on direct mail, it is best to do so by phone, fax or email, rather than by writing a formal letter.
Reading Technical Information
Technical information is typically less friendly than other information. It is often complex and assumes a high level of initial knowledge.
Manuals are often badly written - a manual is often supplied with a product purely because it is expected. In many cases it will have been given to a junior member of staff to prepare, and will not have been properly edited or reviewed.
Before wading into technical documentation, assess who it has been written for. Is it too basic to meet your needs, or is it so advanced that you cannot understand it? In the latter case it may be more cost effective to bring in an expert to do the job.
If referring to specific information, it is most effective to use the table of contents and index to find the appropriate section.
If you are reading large amounts of the material, it may be effective to photocopy the glossary, and keep this beside you. It will probably also be useful to note down the key concepts in your own words, and refer to them when necessary. Usually the most effective way of making notes is to use Mind Maps. As with other sorts of material it may be most effective to skim the material before reading it in depth.
Reading 'whole subject' documents
When you are reading a document, such as a company report, which purports to give an overall analysis of a subject, it is easy to accept the writer's structure of thought, and miss the fact that important information has been omitted or that irrelevant detail has been included.
Where you are reviewing this sort of document, an effective technique is to compile your own table of contents headings before you open the document. You can then use this table of contents to read the document in the order that you want.
Using this technique will allow you to spot where important information is missing or has been obscured, and helps you to avoid trivia. If the writer has a better knowledge of the structure of the topic, this helps you to recognise and adjust your initial view of the best structure.
Summary of Reading Skills
This section shows a range of strategies and techniques that you can use to improve the efficiency with which you assimilate information by:- Using active reading techniques to ensure that you keep focused on the material
- Knowing what you need to know, and reading appropriately
- Reading at the appropriate depth: skimming, scanning and studying
- Using a table of contents for reading magazines and newspapers, and clipping interesting articles
- Understanding how to extract information from different article types
- Learning how to read junk mail effectively
- Using indexes, tables of contents, glossaries and Mind Maps to help you assimilate technical information.
- Creating your own table of contents for reviewing subject analyses.
