How to Keep What You Read
Think about the book you read last year. How much of this do you remember? Could you list ten things that you learned from this? Can you even remember what books you read last year? Back in school, you really had to remember what you read. Quizzes, term papers, and book reports are all just ways to help you preserve this information. Therefore, engineer Robert Heaton invented a three-step system for reading a book as a student . (And if you’re a student, this might be better than your current habits.)
Write down
Heaton offers three types of notes:
- Underline or highlight important or memorable passages
- Add symbols to indicate things like lines that you are skeptical about or things that you want to explore further.
- Write thoughts in the margins in full sentences
These notes serve two purposes. By writing things down, you remember them . But you are also preparing for the second stage: your book report.
Write a report
This step can take a couple of hours, so you don’t need to do it with every book – just the ones you noticed about or really appreciated what they taught.
Your report should summarize and repeat what you learned from the book, and it should include your assessment. You should think critically about how well the book supports its thesis – you shouldn’t internalize a lot of opinions or arguments from the book if you don’t think the author actually supports their assertions.
Again, writing down will help you preserve the information right now. But it also gives you a cheat sheet that you can check in the third (and most optional) step of the Heaton.
Examine your notes
A few weeks or months after reading the book, read your report. Heaton also recommends making flashcards for review, which are more like “sometimes food,” useful for books that you will actually check someday when making decisions in life or in the workplace.
You can also make more effort to discuss what you are reading with others. Even when working with fiction, my wife and I love to tell each other stories of what we have read, or to quote passages to each other. This forms our own appreciation for what we read, plus we get some benefit from the books that another reads. But since you pay more attention to what you read, you can use it as an icebreaker when talking to friends. Memorizing and communicating words from a book is a great way to challenge yourself. So if sitting with flashcards sounds boring, try this “social learning” instead.
You can choose from Heaton’s methods. (And you can apply them to other reading, such as long articles.) Personally, I enjoy taking notes more than writing afterwards when I’m most excited about starting a new book. But putting more effort into reading will help you appreciate each book better – and help you make better decisions about what to read next.
How to read | Robert Heaton