10 Days to Faster Reading, Day 6

This is part six of my time with 10 Days to Faster Reading, a book on the Personal MBA Quick Start reading list. To read all posts related to this book, see 10 Days to Faster Reading on JustAJot.

Day 6, Hanging Out the Caution Flag

“Hanging Out the Caution Flag” teaches a number of things: criticism, quick preparation, challenging the author/content/yourself, and how to read certain material (newspapers, op-ed pieces, jargon-filled content). Let’s start with criticism.

Criticism, a word often thought of in a negative connotation, actually means “to consider the merits and demerits of and judge accordingly.” You must not accept everything in a nonfiction book as fact. Earth might still be thought of as flat (hint: it’s ROUND) if we accepted everything said to be factual. You must consciously criticize what you read, considering merits and demerits, and judge accordingly.

Three aspects should be challenged: the author, content, and yourself. The act of challenging the three aspects can be done with questions to answer for each. If you want the specifics, you can find them in chapter six of 10 Days to Faster Reading.

Don’t be a lemming. Challenge everything. Be a conscious critic. If the author is attempting to sway you into a belief or stating something as a fact you don’t believe to be true, do your own research and prove them wrong. And if you prove yourself to be wrong, accept it and move on.

By this point in the book it’s becoming clear that reading faster (and understanding better) has much to do with multiple passes over the material. Abby Marks Beale has re-iterated the notion of previewing everything you read several times now, so it must be important. From personal experience, previewing is definitely important.

Previewing your reading allows for several things to happen. One, you become familiar with the material prior to reading it in detail. Two, this level of background knowledge aids in faster reading and deeper understanding. Three, it allows you to skip the reading altogether if it’s not important to you. Reading faster with a deeper understanding is the point of this book, so previewing everything you read is extremely important.

Not discussed much in the book so far, but I believe equally important is reviewing. After you preview, and read in detail, reviewing the material. This is exactly the same as previewing, only it can’t be called previewing after you’ve read in detail. If you really want the material to sink in, preview, read, and review (and take notes, and discuss, and so on).

The reading tool introduced in chapter six is referred to as the pen-push. With your reading material on a flat surface, place your pen vertically on the page, pen tip a few lines above the material you are about to read. As you read, push the pen down the page. You should be focusing on key words and phrases, and attempting to push the pen faster and faster down the page.