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1.3.5 |
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| Topic 1.3.5 of
Module 1 |
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| 1.3.5 Read better, always better |
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| Summary of Topic 1.3.5 |
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| In your
business career you learn in two ways: by doing
and by reading. In that context your main purpose
in reading books is to gain increased
understanding of business. Most of the mistakes
that are made in business have been made many
times before and are well recorded. So you don't
have to repeat them. That way of gaining
experience and expertise is slow and can be
ruinously expensive.
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| Read better,
always better, but sometimes slower, sometimes
faster. Develop the ability to read different
things at different - appropriate - speeds, not
everything at the greatest possible speed. When
you read too fast or too slowly, you understand
nothing.
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| It is necessary
but not sufficient to be informed: you need also
to be enlightened. You are informed when you know
simply that something is the case, when you can
remember it. You are enlightened when you know
what it is all about, when you can explain it.
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| Reading well is
a complex, vital, core skill that requires keen
observation, good memory, imagination, analysis,
correlation of ideas and concepts and serious
thought. Reading is learning from an absent
teacher. When you question a book, it answers you
only to the extent that you do the work of
thinking and analysis yourself.
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| Your
continuing, lifetime education depends on books
so you must know how to make good books teach you
well. To learn more, go to How
to Read a Book |
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| Your Competitive Advantages from
this topic |
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| You'll know more. Read less junk.
Conserve time. Be proactive. |
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| 1. Greater Skill.
Few of your competitors will make the effort to
master the art of reading better. When you do,
you will have a scarce, lifelong competitive
advantage over most of them. Quite simply, you'll
know more than they. |
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| 2. Effectiveness.
The simple skill of inspectional reading enables
you to decide quickly if a book, magazine or
article requires a more careful reading. If not,
discard it now. |
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| First look at the
title page, the table of contents, the index and
the publisher's blurb. That in itself may give
you enough information to know that you want to
read it more carefully or that you do not need to
read it at all. |
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| If the book is of
interest to you, now look at the important
chapters. Many will have summary statements in
their opening and closing pages. Read those
carefully. Now dip in here and there,
reading a paragraph or two or a few pages, no
more. Above all, do not fail to read the last two
or three pages. Most authors will summarize what
they think is new or important in their book
there. You now know a great deal about this book,
having spent at most an hour on it, often much
less. In particular you know whether or not it
deserves more of your time or attention. |
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| You now can quickly
and accurately select from the blizzard of
business books and publications those that are of
benefit to you. Consequently you read less junk.
You read only what's worth reading. This is
effective use of your reading time. |
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| 3. Efficiency.
If the book is worthwhile but difficult, and some
that have content that is of real value to you
are, now read the book superficially, that is,
read it through from beginning to end without
stopping to think about things you don't
understand right away. Just read on. You'll soon
come to stuff you do understand. Your aim is to
get the big points that the author makes.
Actively ask - and answer - what is this book
about as a whole? What is being said, and how? Do
not miss the forest for the trees. Or, if you
prefer a digital analogy, see the picture, not
the pixels. This is the essence of inspectional
reading. |
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| By analytical reading
you master an individual book, you get right to
the heart of it, you understand it in depth. You
ask - and answer - is this book true? In whole,
or in part? You have made up your own mind. |
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| By syntopical reading
you ask - and answer - what of it? What is the
significance of this book? What else follows?
What is further implied or suggested? You realize
that more than one book is relevant to your
subject, you identify by selecting from our list
of Your
25 Books or by inspectional reading which
books are relevant, you find the relevant
passages in those books, establish a common
terminology, ask those questions about your
problem to which the authors provide answers and
define and arrange the issues produced by
different answers to the questions. The truth is
to be found in the answers or, if the answers
differ, in the conflict of opposing answers and
in your greater understanding of the problem
which your analysis of those differing answers
generates. |
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| The trained ability
to habitually ask - and precisely and accurately
answer - the four questions above is the art of
reading. It is hard to read well. It's a complex
skill. But it is worthwhile. |
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| This is the most
efficient use of your reading time. |
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| 4. Proactive.
Now that you know so much, do something. Take
action to solve the problem. |
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| Drill Down |
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| Deepen your knowledge
of the topics above. Click the links directly
above or in the left navigation bar to read
further, relevant pages in our Overtake®
website. Click the links in the right navigation
bar for our selected books, URLs, articles,
disks, audio and/or video tapes. |
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Last Reviewed: 28 March 2004
Copyright
©2001 Overtake® All rights
reserved.
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