Effective Reading Tips

Hari ni hujan all day, so x pegi Nursery Rhymetime Aisyah. Dan jg telah sengaja missed the Xmas Light On for the same reasons. Temperature dah drop dah skang, so malas la plak nak keluar waktu sejuk malam2. It's bad enough that dlm rumah tu asyik la ada yg sick. Bersambung2. Kalo x Hubs, Aku. Kalo x aku, Aisyah. Manjang je selsema la, batuk la, demam la, rotate x abes2. Dah la bkn bole pegi klinik amik ubat. Mmg fixed cost dah jadi nya beli ubat utk household. Menyampah! Boring betul bila winter nih.

Tukar topik sket, topik yg agak menceriakan -- my prototype sudah bole dikatakan siap! Alhamdulillah... tggal nak fine tune here and there je dlm coding, biar kemas sket. Spt biasa, wat coding ni x kan ada kesudahannya until we say Stop! and abandon it. Kalo x, ada je nak godek sana, godek sini, kasi lg best. Hehe.. So skrg bole fokus on reading back my materials and trying to get my report written up.

Sekali lg aku bersyukur sbb berpeluang to attend the 'Effective Reading' course yesterday. Timing mmg kena, sbb nya mmg tgh nak skim and re-read balik materials yg dah set aside hari tu sbb nak focus on coding. Patutnya bole je multi-task, but I really find it hard kalo nak buat dua2 in parallel. So, the quicker I can do it, the better! And hopefully, mmg effective la reading aku lps ni... Anyway, sbg tanda kesyukuran, aku nak share di sini dgn readers yg lain. Sudi la kiranya baca, and sama2 la kita ambil manfaat dari coretan ini.

Ok here goes. Ni teknik yg lebih relevan utk mereka yg buat research, but can be applied utk baca novel jg. In reading, first of all kita kena tahu kita punya purpose. Sama ada utk rapid reading, or deep reading.

Rapid Reading
Ni adalah kategori reading yg kita slalunya skim2 thro shj and x brp kisah sgt psl pemahaman, cth nya bila kita dah pernah baca satu paper tu, tp ingt2 lupa content dia, or teringat that we have read something somewhere, tp x ingt paper mana. So bila kita guna teknik dlm rapid reading ni, insya Allah the reading / searching time can be cut down.

Ada byk ways yg dia bgtau, but one of it is probably what most of us know already, tp jarang buat, which is using a pointer. Ye, semasa membaca tu, sila la tunjuk dgn jari atau pen atau lidi mcm kita mengaji masa budak2 dulu.

Sbbnya, bila kita drag kan jari kita across the page, kadar pembacaan kita akan terikut speed up. Plus, bila begini, kita x kan wander off sbb fokus. Kalo x pakai jari, sometimes akan lost x ingt kat mana, maka kena la baca balik semula. Kan buang masa.

We did an experiment where we were put in pairs. Kita tgk mata pasangan kita tu. Suruh psgn kita trace wajah bulat kita dgn mata. Mula2 trace tanpa guna jari sbg penunjuk. Ok masa ni, nmpk la mata psgn kita bergerak secara jerky2 gituh, as if the eyes were taking snapshots of the outline of the face. Pergerakan yg jerky ni merugikan masa, sbb after every snapshot tu, sbnarnya mata kita ambik bbrp milisecond utk rehat then move to next snapshot. Rugi...

2ndly, suruh psgn kita trace muka kita, tp guna jari dia and biar mata dia ikut jari dia. This time, adalah smooth pergerakan mata dia membentuk satu bulatan. Bkn itu sahaja, malah lebih cpt dia buat bulatan tu. It's all got to do with the anatomy of the eyes, tp malas la nak ternagkan pjg2. Kesimpulannya, biar la nmpk mcm org slow bila baca jurnal sambil tunjuk, tp sebenarnya kita adalah membaca dgn laju! Dgn syarat, jari kita pon move laju la sket, kalo move slow mmg x de pekdah nya la kan.

Lagi satu pantang utama ialah going back to re-read the words. Yup, your English teacher was right, Jgn sibuk2 nak bukak dictionary or bukak reference lain. Baca dulu laju2, if it's berkenaan, masukkan dalam 'Yes' pile, then when you are up for some deep reading, baru la go through it slowly. Manfaat bila baca laju2, we can sort out the 'No', 'Yes, or 'Maybe' piles quickly, and attack the 'Yes' piles later, whilst buang aje la 'No' piles tu, jgn jadi hoardie plak. Menyemak aje...

Deep Reading
Ok, ni ramai ada masalah. Kalo masalah teknikal spt x paham formula etc, x dpt la nak nolong, tp kalo nak tahu mcm mana nak increase retainability and focus semasa membaca, bole la teruskan membaca entry ni (btw, are you pointing with your finger on the screen yet? Jgn tipu, I can see, hehe).

Reading is a very passive form of learning (paling pasif copying, then reading, then listening,... paling aktif, Teaching --- ye, kalo kita ajar org, kita jd pandai, sgt benar). But sadly, PhD students rata2 learn through reading. And with reading, we usually start of at 70% concentration, pastu reach a peak of 85% concentration after 10 minutes, then pathetically, x sampai 20 minit lps kita start baca mula la decrease continually. So kita kena make learning PhD material more active. How? Kena la cari a way to tarik our concentration back up di kala dah start jatuh after 10 minutes itu. Mcm mana nak buat?

Well, we have to make learning interactive. Give ourselves short breaks after membaca every 10 minute. For instance do some of these activities:

- buat mind map
- paraphrase what you read on to a piece of paper (no cheating -jgn tgk paper balik!)
- use sticky labels
- put annotations on the paper
- write questions on what you're reading and test yourself again
- draw flow chart
- use index cards
- highlighting

Highlighting is an art. Bkn maksud aku sila la guna pelbagai color, or sila la kaler 3/4 muka surat tu (xde guna la pakai highlighter kalo semua pon penting mcm tu). But aku baru tahu, rupanya, guna highlighter tu bkn utk highlight benda yg penting, tp highlight summary of that page. Contoh:

"To study rhythm is to study all of music. Rhythm both organizes, and is itself organized by, all the elements which create and shape musical processes."

Which part would you have highlighted if your text is as such?

It should be:
"To study rhythm is to study all of music. Rhythm both organizes, and is itself organized by, all the elements which create and shape musical processes."

So that when you read the highlighted bits, it summarizes it to:

Rhythm is music organizes musical processes.

So whenever you come back to read that paper later2, just baca highlighted bits and it will jog your mind terus. Clever kan?

Ok byk lg tips tp lain2 kali la. Ni aku letak bbrp pointers yg selama ni aku x tahu, but I find it interesting now dah:

- You read justified text slower than kalo margin ke left. But you read centralized text the slowest.

- before you start searching the Net about something, write down the words you have in your mind first, bcoz undoubtly, your choice of words after this will be affected by the words returned to you on screen, so easy utk you tersesat.

-When you are scanning a paper utk cari keywords, etc, scan from bottom up, jgn start dari atas ke bawah kerana it will take u longer. Reason? Bcoz u will be tempted to read the article, instead of scanning it

- You read capital letters slower than lower case, bcoz your brain recognizes the shape of words, e.g. STING vs sting -- in caps, there is no shape, semuanya sekata tinggi dan lebar, but with lower case, you have kepala t, ekor g, etc. So this shape otak u akan ingt masa search, bukan each individual letter.

Ok sekian. Yg baik dtg dari Allah, yg buruk dari diri saya sendiri. Kalo dah tahu, x pe. Re-heat skali sekala bagus jg, jgn kasi basi :)