Comments (1)

By Tai, June 2, 2010 10:17 pm

null

Comments (0)

By Tai, October 8, 2009 6:25 pm

1. Most books and academic articles follow this structure:

• Introduction including roadmap
• In a paragraph
  • Topic sentence
  • Evidences / supporting ideas
  • Concluding sentence
• Conclusion, summarizing main ideas

Paragraphs and ideas are connected with transition words.

So a skimming strategy can simply be formed:

1. Read the introduction
2. Read topic sentences which are usually the first sentences in paragraphs
3. Read concluding sentences
4. Optionally, pay attention to transition words

I’ve been subconsciously using this strategy for literature of social sciences, management, leadership, marketing, strategy.

Following this strategy can be help for around 100 points in the GMAT verbal test.

2. For non text-books I am more attracted to examples and case studies for the following reason

Many business and social science literature can be traced back to certain credible sources. For example, many theories on negotiation originate from Fisher and Ury’s work in Harvard Negotiation Project. The result is that different books in the same field end up discussing similar theory. What differentiates a book is how the author sees the issue and comes up with solutions. How Max DePree solves an issue is very different from how Peter Drucker does it. I learn more from the case studies.

The skill of thinking how an author would deal with an issue would give light to 0 - 20 points in the GMAT verbal test.

3. Eventually,  how I learned from a programming book was to think of a toy project and plug new coding techniques in. Getting my hand dirty was the best way for me.

How do you usually read books?

Comments (0)

By Tai, February 8, 2009 2:06 am

I came across an article on some young people on the edge of building a career.

The article highlights students’ fear of entering corporate environment without an education at at least bachelor level, with a theme of criticizing this way of thinking.

What intrigues me about these students is that, as reported, they were aware of corporate environment challenges while still at school.

With cautious nature, these persons might be effective in identifying risks, thus make them suitable for jobs related to Risk Advisory or Personal Financial Advisory dealing with clients who don’t expect to take big risks in their investments.

Look, I’m no counselor and I might be wrong, but here I am giving examples of how different individuals can fit themselves in positions that brings the best out of them, instead of criticizing them.

With the rising worries of the economic recession, it is not necessary to put more pressure on these students. I believe career orientation should be done in a more empathic way. Showing them the skills they need to train themselves on, for example.

And is it high time we started embracing more diversity?

Cheers

Comments (0)

By Tai, November 12, 2008 2:37 pm

When we read an article, what do we look at?

Creativity and sharp words are like skin. They beautify the article.

The knowledge the author presents is like flesh. Arguments, hypotheses, conclusions, opinions etc. are what we learn from the author.

The methodology is bone. If we look past the knowledge presented, we might be able to see the method/approach with which the author employs to reach what s/he presents. What we learn from methodology can be re-used to establish our own reasoning.

We want to get the most out of an article by examining each and every layer of it.

***

Image courtesy: ThinkQuest

Comments (1)

By Tai, October 2, 2008 7:10 pm

VNExpress replicated a Reuters’ survey on “The time when people find themselves most happy” here.

On both Reuters’ and VNExpress’ surveys, men are found most happy going online.

They are actually happy online when they response to the survey more than 2.5 times than women do.