Should speed reading be applied while reading Tech Books [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How do people read big technical books?

It's a known fact that, Science and Tech readings requires most attention, to at least make sense of what one reads. In the age of rapid change of platforms, particularly in the Information Technology Industry, we need to read vast and varied amount of text.

How feasible is it to Speed-Read Technology books? I understand, there isn't any objective answer to the question, but interested to know the approaches that can be used to effectively perform Speed-Reading on Software Development/Programming related books.

Answer 1

Yes.

Personally, when I get a tech book (which is rare, because it's a waste of money most of the time considering how quickly they become irrelevant - so it must be really good) I whip through it as fast as I can to get the 'big picture'. Before doing this I used to get lost in the details and miss the whole point that the author was trying to make (usually architectural or design pattern types of things) entirely.

On that first read through, I generally ignore most of the code samples and trust the author's summaries of what they are supposed to do.

I don't stop after I've finished reading it though. Afterward, I generally go through another read-through, looking at the details, reading the code, doing the practice problems and all of the detail things. They make much more sense on this read-through.

One other benefit is that if the book is shit, I don't do the second read-through (unless I really need to know it for work or something) and toss the book out.

Answer 2

I agree that learning speed reading specifically for tech-books is a waste of time.

However, if you already happen to be able to speed read, it is applicable to tech books as well as long as you keep in mind that all it serves is to get an overview of the content.

With speed-reading you get a more detailled overview than someone who only looks at the table of contents.

Hence, I suggest to use speed-reading only as a means to find content which you then want to digest in more detail. So after speed-reading you know, if reading and learning the whole chapter is worth your time or not.

As for actually learning something from a tech book I do not see any point in speed reading. Even without speed-reading, if the book is any good you will spend much more time thinking than reading.

So in summary: Speed reading is good for getting an overview of technical content, but pointless for learning that content.

Answer 3

Yes, but not all the time. Any part you can scan or determine you can skip over/don't need that/already know that. Like Tom Squires answered, you're going to have to absorb and think about the information at some point assuming you're reading books that are challenging enough.

Reading is good, but eventually you need to practice and apply new concepts. This will take much more of your time, so I don't see the reading speed as the sticking point.

Answer 4

When you already know the subject and are just searching a specific point, speed reading through easy chapters is OK.

When you want to master the subject, don't speed read.

In particular, I wouldn't recommend it on man pages, where nothing is written twice.

Answer 5

You cant and shouldn't. If you can effectively speed read the book then it doesn't need much thought to process the concepts. You wont be able to learn much from something you don't need to think in depth about.