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Speed reading

post #1 of 23
9/17/08 at 5:53pm
Thread Starter 
Soooo...I am in college which obviously requires a lot of intense reading. It seems that I am a slow reader and often have to read things over to comprehend them. Has anyone ever given speed readings a try? Could anyone recommend any websites or programs for me to look at?

Thanks in advance
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post #2 of 23
9/17/08 at 10:20pm
I can speed read, and use to do it routinely, especially in college. I'm not familiar with any websites or other resources about the method.
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post #3 of 23
9/17/08 at 10:24pm
I barely do any of the required readings.
I usually just go over the major points and BS like crazy come the mid-term.

It works fairly well.
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post #4 of 23
9/17/08 at 10:26pm
two words "cliffs notes"
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post #5 of 23
9/17/08 at 10:28pm
This is one of the better summaries of it that I have seen. I have heard of people using it to great effect, e.g., 80 pages with good rentension in 20 minutes: http://pianoer.wordpress.com/2006/02...ng-techniques/
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post #6 of 23
9/17/08 at 10:40pm
They once had a speed reading expert come to school to teach us some pointers. It was more or less useless, my understanding is speed-reading really doesn't do anything as far as retaining details, just incredibly big picture stuff when you can just skim the book and catch anyways.
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post #7 of 23
1/4/10 at 12:37pm
Thought I'd resurrect this thread given the large amount of documents I've had to read lately. Has anyone taken a speed reading class? There is one for 5 hours at 50 or 60 bucks in NY that I got an email about. I would much rather go to a class than pick up a self-help book on how to read more quickly but if it doesn't work to begin with, then there's no point.
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post #8 of 23
1/4/10 at 1:14pm
i downloaded this awhile ago off of demonoid. i dunno. i quit after awhile. my reading speed got a lot faster, but comprehension is pretty difficult. like i get a better gist of what's going on than before, but i wouldn't be able to recall the document in detail. in my experience it's not so much the speed that's the problem, but concentrating. sometimes i can read a whole page or so without losing thought, but other times it's difficult to move from one sentence to another without losing focus.
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post #9 of 23
1/4/10 at 1:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo_Version 7 View Post
I barely do any of the required readings.
I usually just go over the major points and BS like crazy come the mid-term.

It works fairly well.


+1. Got me through college with flying colors!
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post #10 of 23
1/4/10 at 3:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo_Version 7 View Post
I barely do any of the required readings.
I usually just go over the major points and BS like crazy come the mid-term.

It works fairly well.
Works especially well for liberal arts majors. Everything's based on opinion, anyway!
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post #11 of 23
1/4/10 at 3:49pm
I don't understand how speed reading works. I mean, assuming you are reading a textbook of some sort, it takes more time to pause and understand than it does to read. Improving reading speed without improving concept-processing speed in the brain is mostly useless. The only way to improve brain processing speed is pretty much through drugs, such as Ritalin, Adderall, and cocaine. Although these will mostly just increase your ability to focus.
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post #12 of 23
1/4/10 at 5:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by indesertum View Post

in my experience it's not so much the speed that's the problem, but concentrating. sometimes i can read a whole page or so without losing thought, but other times it's difficult to move from one sentence to another without losing focus.

sometimes after reading a page i realize i was thinking about something else the whole time and have no idea what i just read
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post #13 of 23
1/4/10 at 5:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by shellshock View Post
sometimes after reading a page i realize i was thinking about something else the whole time and have no idea what i just read

haha this happens to me sometimes too.
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post #14 of 23
1/4/10 at 8:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroStyles View Post
I don't understand how speed reading works. I mean, assuming you are reading a textbook of some sort, it takes more time to pause and understand than it does to read. Improving reading speed without improving concept-processing speed in the brain is mostly useless. The only way to improve brain processing speed is pretty much through drugs, such as Ritalin, Adderall, and cocaine. Although these will mostly just increase your ability to focus.
This presumes that the written word is the most efficient form of communication when, in many cases, the overhead of reading a block of text requires significantly more time than the cognitive process of simply understanding the concepts contained in that block of text.
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post #15 of 23
1/6/10 at 12:54am
It works best for literature (or essays, or SF posts), and not so good for textbooks or anything technical.

My dad taught me to speed read literature, and it works pretty well.

You shouldn't try to speed read Cliff Notes; because those are already condensed. Missing a little bit of a Cliff Notes is like missing a chapter of a novel.
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