Thank you very much for the ideas.
From the comments I can see that there is not much to do to change the way books are done, but only to change the way we read books.
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Hello, all. This is a very useful thread. Thanks, everybody.
Iâve read that some students study by underlining or highlighting swaths of text in their books. As the exam approaches, they feel confident because they have read all the material, and underlined key passages. But the exam reveals they didnât actually know the material.
In such cases, having the physical book actually deceives the students into a false confidence. Perhaps Liam said it best â we need to focus on the way we read books rather than on the form books take.
Elitely sets a wonderful example. Thank you, elitely.
I find, for myself, time spent thinking about what Iâve read is always well spent. I think too many readers focus on reading large quantities of text which they think little about. As soon as theyâve âfinishedâ one book, they are off on the next, without thinking about the book theyâve just read. Maybe this is related to that phenomenon of underlining text. People think because they reach the end of a book that they know the book. Itâs a misconception. Elitely obviously doesnât have this problem.
I prefer physical books but learning to work with ebooks would have many benefits for me. I would be able to get books I want to read more quickly, I could more easily make use of my libraryâs ebook offerings, I could save time otherwise spent going to get books or waiting for them to be delivered to me. My apartment would be neater. I may find I can live comfortably in a smaller apartment. It would be better for the environment too.
How to transition to reading ebooks? Maybe as a compromise, initially, for each ebook, I would have just a page or two of actual printed matter that I can handle and look at. Maybe this would help me transition. It could be blank pages on which I write notes, or a print out of the table of contents, which I can write on and manipulate, or a summary or overview of the book. It could be a map. Or a picture or set of pictures or drawings that I associate with the book.
Iâve had the experience while reading on Kindle of forgetting the name of the author of the book Iâm reading. It sounds crazy. I would never do that with a printed book, but with a printed book I see the authorâs name so many times, just in obtaining and interacting with the book, that I couldnât forget it. I could write the authorâs name on the first of my two pages, along with the bookâs title.
What do people think? Are there other strategies youâve found helpful for transitioning to ebooks after being used to physical books?
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@Carollyn you could use the Kindle âExport Highlightsâ feature. You can have it email you a nicely formatted PDF. You could print those out and keep them in an organized binder perhaps.
Woz, the creator of SuperMemo, points out that there are experiments done - where if you read a sentence of text, even 20 times, and then see that text in 40 days, mixed in with other texts, you can not recall whether you or not you ever encountered the text to begin with.
With traditional reading⌠you only rent books for 6 weeks.
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I said that after reading the post by @elitely. My original direction was the opposite.
I put to scenarios in which we can consider the need to make digital content memorable.
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Writer or editor who knows his books will be read in digital format and wants the ideas to stick to the mind of the reader. I think ordinarily people see illustrations in books as way to attract the reader, to catch his attention, this is, short term; but not in the long term, this is, to make it âmemorableâ.
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Professor or teacher who creates content for the students (often they just read it in the phone, and they are not getting much), and is trying to find ways to make those texts more memorable (my case.) Should he just add images?
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Hi, Liam. Thatâs a very interesting question. How can you make text more memorable?
Studies show harder to read (i.e., decipher) fonts improve studentsâ retention of material.
Counterintuitive, right? You can google it. Hereâs one link I found today with a google search:
I think what comes with more struggle is retained longer. I remember studying piano being frustrated by how my left hand took longer to learn seemingly simpler parts than my right. But later I was surprised - it also remembered better. It was as if the quicker absorption my right hand was capable of was paid for in quicker forgetting.
What do you think of that?
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Perhaps stop them from scanning. Put a gate between each section. Some questions to answer correctly before they can read the next section. Once youâve successfully completed a question you are allowed back into that section without checks. Randomly choose the questions from a longer list so they canât easily collect answers and share.
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This is very much my experience too. I take notes in the most meticulous fashion, carefully written and drawn. This is not my nature. It does not come easy. I force myself to do it this way because when Iâm done, I own it. I could almost just as well throw the notes away.
Iâve mentioned before that one of the top Ivy Leagues did a study which showed that students who took written notes had much better retention than those who simply transcribed the lecture into their laptops. I type well enough that I could take dictation without really paying attention to the content.
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Thank you, zvuv. This is interesting.
I wonder if this phenomenon - of difficult things being more memorable - also translates to creating memory palaces. Do you find that if you have to struggle more to identify loci or to link loci to images to be remembered or to invent images, that, in each case, those are better remembered?
So many writers tell us that outrageous or disturbing images are more memorable. Could part of their memorability be they are more difficult to invent? The creator has to think harder to come up with strange or even surreal images.
I often just make simple logical connections between things. Sometimes I have to use more imagination to find a connection. In those cases, perhaps ultimately I do remember better than at times when the connections seem simple and obvious. Iâll have to think more about this and notice what actually happens.
Should we start a new thread for this subject? It seems like itâs of more general interest â itâs a broader concept than this digital books threadâŚ
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I like to go to eBay and purchase a book in PDF I can copy and paste into Word
From here, I can make my own personal copy containing at the time what I want to remember
If I go back later, then I can update my personal copy
Kindle is locked down too solid for me
Frankly, I find most non-fiction too padded for my tastes
I want to get to the guts of the subject, so I use Word with its many features
Will bad guys abuse this? Well, yea. Nothing attracts the bad guys like announcing you have locked down somethingâand they are good
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It is a broader subject. Iâve been having this discussion on and off here for the past couple of months. I was surprised to realize how much people depended on purely visual images. For me thatâs not enough support. I have to add depth in terms of other qualities especially a context to explain how it got there. The other was the use of shock value or stress images which I find I simply get bored. Iâve been in a combat zone. Eventually you get bored there too.
Apparently it was a surprise to the âother sideâ too that people werenât just using visual images. Somebody stepped up and mentioned that he had no capacity to visualize images.
If youâre doing fine with the standard approach then why change things - but some people do complain that their images are not persisting well and IMO might benefit by enrichment form other dimensions.
I think, Iâve said this many times here, that one has to spend some time finding out whatâs going on in oneâs own head and tailor your technique to that. There isnât a one size fits all recipe. But that takes some work and time.
I do think itâs a very important matter. In fact itâs a core issue and should be explored again and deeper but right now, having just discussed this in a number of recent threads, I think a new thread wonât get much interest. I think there is more to find out and more to talk about but perhaps down the road
You could do a search on my name, RMBittner participated so did Lynne Kelly
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Hi
To convert Kindle to pdf I download an older version of Kindle. That allows me to convert to pdf.
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Hi, zyzzyva57.
That makes sense to me.
I find the more âactivelyâ I read, the more I remember. So, for example, reading with a highlighter is better than reading without one. Reading with a notepad to write, in my own words, what matters to me, is even better. Stopping to ask questions and pushing myself to see the text from different points or view or âlensesâ is an even deeper level.
I think by putting the text in Word and manipulating it, you are becoming actively involved and that makes it more memorable.
You also identify what you want to remember and take on the task of memorizing it.
You remind me of a general rule about memory palaces - they say what people create for themselves is more memorable for them than what is created by others and handed down. The process itself is an experience.
Thank you for contributing!
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- Under View, you have Learning Tools to do even more things
- With words, you can select, then right click, to go to Smart Lookup for âinstant helpâ
- At times, when I am on a reading binge, I will put something in the text to remind me to go back to lookup something or cut and paste
- I am old, so it is nice being able to adjust font size and so on
- I let my edible PDF file stay rawâonly changing my Word Doc
I also like to select and then cut & paste particular things into my own Note Page, e.g., I particular like analogies and metaphors with difficult topics
With a work, I will re-read for a life-time, my Notes, etc. will change with my age, e.g., a religious work
It is nice being able to âgrab my library and go-o!â
Waiting rooms, etc., no problem with having to read crummy magazines
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Thanks for the tip!
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I have tried to replace my books with a Kindle. LukeAvedons comment âI despise physical booksâ made me smile because it describes my two year crusade against papers and books. Sometimes I still use physical books, for example reference literature for programming.
Anyway, I would like to know if you use the same approach when taking notes? Onyx has a new electronic notebook, called Onyx Note Pro. You can use it for reading books. taking notes with a pen, highlighting and even make notes inside the Pdf:s, like a physical book. Unfortunately still a bit expensive. Has anyone of you tried it?
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Hi, TucoSalamanca. I havenât tried the Onyx Note Pro.
I have an iPad and imagine one day that I will try to use it as an ebook reader and try to make notes on it, as you describe. I think it should enable that same kind of note-taking.
Based on Liamâs suggestion above, Iâve been reading The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr. An important issue Carr identifies in our use of computers and other screens is the fragmented attention we give them. We visit one page and read only a little bit, then weâre off on a hyperlink. Jumping around seems to undermine learning.
I think the urge to find a device that is dedicated only to reading books is motivated by this issue of jumping around. I donât want to decide to shop for something or check emails and interrupt my ebook reading for that.
Please let us know how youâre doing with the Kindle. Do you highlight key passages and export them? Do you ever print parts of the book or take physical notes as you read?
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The funniest part of a physical book is that it has hundreds of âscreensâ in which ALL the content of the books is displayed at the same time, even if you can read only a small part at a given time. It is primitive. In digital books you display what you will read in that moment.
And in a library, you have hundreds of thousands of pages showing all the information, and paragraphs and words and pictures, even if nobody is reading most of it most of the time. It is primitive. But it is beautiful.
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The Shallows, by Carr is on my to do list. Iâm looking forward to read it.
I often use the highlight function on my Kindle. When I read again for repetition I only read the highlighted text but I havenât exported it. Perhaps I will try that. Also when I read the highlighted text I try to find the most important stuff and use it for Ankiquestions. I never print anything from the books but I do take physical notes that looks very similar to Cornell-notes. I am not 100 % sure that physical notes is relevant since I have the Anki-cards. But it seems to help me learn faster if I use a paper and pen and force myself to write down a few words and perhaps a few thoughts on each chapter.
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Hi, zvuv.
I want to return to your observation that âelectronic material is evanescent.â
Recently I went for a walk in the park with a friend. Without any special effort, as we walked I was easily able to point to exactly where I discovered a downy woodpeckerâs nest this past spring, then a cardinalâs nest last year and finally a Baltimore orioleâs sock-like nest.
If you asked me where I spotted this or that bird, I may be able to tell you or I may not, and definitely not with as much specificity.
I wonder if on some subconscious, instinctive level or memories cling to what we perceive as permanent (or relatively permanent), static rather than evanescent.
The evanescent says - forget about me, you wonât find me here tomorrow anyway. Thereâs no use remembering to look for me.
The permanent says - Iâm not going anywhere. You can look for me again. Iâm a landmark, Iâm a station.
The loci method takes advantage of our memory for locations - the seats around the table at Simonides banquet. Could it be that this memory for locations is based in part on an unconscious bias toward what we perceive as permanent?
If so, the ever-changing screen would be an enemy to memory. And we would have to make special effort to remember what we see on it.
Of course, like you, Iâm grateful for the wealth of information and ideas brought to us by the new technologies. Iâm not saying I donât want access to them. But thinking about how they are different may help us develop strategies for using them in the best wayâŚ
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There is a book called S, by J. J. Abrams. It is a very peculiar novel. It comes in a box that contains a book and some other objects. The margins of the pages contain annotations from various persons outside of the novel. The books presents itself as a translation of a book from a mysterious author, and many footnotes talk about the author and the translator.
So, it has plot at various levels, the novel itself, the author and the translator, the people annotating the book that belongs to a library, including the objects they forgot within the pages of the book, and also the relationship between these plots.
Not only the novel is a story, but the physical book has a story. Worth experiencing.
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