Quote Originally Posted by RedRaven View Post
@selil

Due to my school work at the moment I am really focused on the substantive side of my reading. However, I will add the other books and see if I can get through them at some point (probably not till next winter break, but I like having a long range plan).

Also can you elaborate on your comments about reading?
Let me put it to you this way. In my Masters and Doctoral program I had to read everything from computer science theory books, to fictional historical accounts of alien species (computer science is nothing if not esoteric). A semester trip to the book store has you walking out with 14 or 15 books. For each class. On average you had to read 4 to 5 books a week. With high cognitive understanding and ability to discuss in detail page by page what was going on. Instantly.

How do you do that? In general if you read a book serially pretty poorly.

So you don't read a "book" front to back. You read the first and last paragraph of the chapter. With text books you read the first and maybe second sentence of every paragraph. You read the sentence before, during, and after bolded words. You read the chapter summary (if there is one) and you finally read all the sidebars (as they usually draw context). You have at that point gutted the book and should be able to pass most any exam or inquisition.

Journal articles are structured abstract-introduction-methods-results-conclusions-bibliography in general.

You read them abstract-conclusions-results-methods and rarely read the introduction unless you are a neophyte to the field. This is easier to do in the sciences than in the "soft" side of the university. Your read the abstract to se if you are going to continue reading, and conclusions to see if you care. You read the results to compare against their methods. You should never cite papers from the introduction and only from the conclusions or results unless you are borrowing methods. Everything else is chaff.

Always read the bibliography of any paper. It can lend weight to the credibility of a paper. After awhile you will know where the disciplines figures or leaders are and know what silos exist. The bibliography will define that sooner rather than later.

Yes there are lots more "tricks" than these, but I consider them scholarly craftsmanship and part of the process of skill building.