AND Share

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?