in order to retain what you read
in order to understand it and absorb the
material into your brain so that you can
recall it later in order to do that you
need a procedure
by which you force yourself to
interact with the semantic
content of what you're reading
semantic content is just a fancy phrase
for meaning the meanings of the words
that you're reading another way to put
this is that you have to have a
procedure that forces you to like think
through the ideas contained in the text
the procedure that i'm going to
recommend in this video is a version of marginalia
marginalia
marginalia is just a word that means
text written in the margins of a printed
work so if you've got some words printed
on a page or even inscribed they're not
printed or whatever right you've got the
page and then you have the edges of the
page where there are no words like right
over here this is the margin well you
can write your own notes in the margin
there you write them in there like that
right that's marginalia now i know what
you're thinking oh that's it
that's not going to work well you're
right that's not it i'm not just saying
oh you should take notes in the margins
what i'm recommending is a very specific
way of taking notes in the margins and
this is a procedure this is the one that
i use i'm a professor of philosophy here
at the university of north carolina at
greensboro throughout my entire
college career uh you know undergraduate
and then getting a master's degree and a
phd this is the method that i use what
i'm going to do in this video is i'm
going to lay out the procedure not just
marginalia but a specific version of it
i'm going to lay it out in this video
and the result will be that if you do
this you will remember what you read you
will retain it you will absorb it into
your brain here we go if you know how to
drive a car then you've maybe had this
experience where you're driving
someplace and you get there and then you
realize oh
i zoned out like
i don't remember
any of the last 10 minutes but
i took a left turn and then i stopped at
a stop sign and then i took a right turn
and i and i got here but i but i just
zoned out while it happened and this
happens because if you drive a lot then
it all sort of becomes muscle memory and
you don't have to do it in like a in
like an engaged focused way it just it
just sort of happens
this is the exact opposite of what you
want to happen when you're reading
anything when you're reading any text if
you want to stand a chance of
remembering that text
what you want to do
is you want to read
with focus and thought like you want to
be thinking through the ideas mulling
them around in your mind right as you're
going through you don't just want to
pass your eyes over the words okay and
so one way to do that is to just try
really darn hard okay
okay
better is if you have some procedure
that you can follow that will force you
to think through the material it will
guarantee that you that you think
through what you're reading and then you
just will remember it what i'm going to
give you is a procedure that will do
that this procedure works 100 percent of
the time here's what you do you read the
first paragraph of the reading
you read that paragraph and in the
margin you summarize that whole
paragraph in one sentence
it's important that you summarize right
so if this paragraph is six sentences
long you can't just write six sentences
in the margin that won't work because
copying over text
you can do that without really thinking
about what it means but summary you can
only summarize something you can only
take six sentences worth of ideas and
and condense them down into one sentence
of ideas you can only do that if you
like understand what those six sentences
mean and figure out what the central
core idea is that all of those six
sentences have in common so it has to be
a summary you write a one sentence
summary in the margin
then you move on to the second paragraph
you read that paragraph and for that
paragraph also you write one sentence of
summary in the margin and by the way
by writing these sentences summarizing
the text you're also going to have those
sentences to look back on right so if
you need to refresh yourself about what
was said in this thing that you read you
don't have to reread the whole thing you
just have to reread one sentence per
paragraph so far okay so that's pretty
good then you get to the third paragraph
and this is where things get interesting
when you read the third paragraph of the
text you're going to write two sentences
in the margin
the first sentence in the margin next to
the third paragraph
is not going to have anything to do with
the third paragraph
this sentence is going to summarize the first
first
and second paragraphs
right there and what that forces you to
do is it forces you to connect these
ideas right just like summarizing this
first paragraph what you have to do is
take all of the ideas in that whole
paragraph six or seven or eight
sentences of it or whatever and mash
them into each other see how those
interact those ideas interact with one
another and come up with a summary now
you have to do that for the whole first
two paragraphs and then you write a
second sentence in the margin of the
third paragraph and the second sentence
summarizes the third paragraph and then
we move on to the fourth paragraph
the fourth paragraph also gets two
sentences in the margin the first
sentence in the margin next to the
fourth paragraph summarizes everything
previous paragraphs one two and three
and then the next one just summarizes
paragraph four and then you keep going
this procedure in the same way right so
for the fifth paragraph you have one
sentence that summarizes everything that
came before you condense it all down
into just one sentence you're gonna
leave things out of course
you have to because now you're you're
condensing many paragraphs into just one
sentence so you're gonna have to leave a
lot of stuff out you're gonna have to
make a decision you have to think
through what's the most important thing
that all of these paragraphs have in
common or that connects them or that
they're getting across one sentence for
everything previously and one sentence
for that last new paragraph and then you
keep going that way for the entire text
this is so hard
this is gonna take so long this is just
a waste of time no it's not a waste of
time you know it's a waste of time a
waste of time is
sitting and passing your eyes over the
text and not retaining it not thinking
through it and absorbing it that's a
waste of time that's inefficient if
you're gonna do that you might as well go
go
play dodgeball or go sailing or
whatever whatever you want to do go do
that if you want to use your time
efficiently so that you have time to go
sailing or play dodgeball or whatever
dungeons and dragons or
fortnite is that a thing i don't know
whatever you do want to do if you want
time to actually do that stuff
then you got to do this
this is efficient it will take a little
longer yes
but what it will do is it will mean that
the time that you spend reading is is
better used is more productive that time
produces understanding and retention
there is no way to summarize a text like
this without thinking through the material
material
and understanding it and retaining it i
want to emphasize this point again
taking notes in the margin in this way
where you summarize what's going on this
actually saves time
here let me let me do like a little
let's say that you just pass your eyes
over the reading that's the reading
method that you use you just pass your
eyes over it okay that's two hours times
20 readings over the course of the
semester let's say that generates an
understanding and retention at a d plus
level you're just passing your eyes over
the reading you're going to get a d plus
but you realize things aren't doing
going so well and so at the end of the
semester you spend 25 hours cramming a
lot of hours cramming well
you don't have the benefit of lecture
it's the end of the semester
okay and that bumps you up quite a lot
actually to a c plus by comparison
if you use the summarize in the margins
method of reading then you're going to
spend more time per reading let's say
you spend three hours instead of two
hours three hours times 20 readings but
this method is just massively more
powerful massively more efficient and so
you get out of that an a minus level of
understanding right
and also you go into the lectures with
that understanding and so you get more
out of the lectures it's just better
you're just oh you're just way better
off then at the end of the semester you
don't have to cram so you just spend two
hours reviewing you're reviewing your
margin notes you just read over those
summary sentences
for all of the readings that just takes
you two hours that bumps you up that
activity that took two hours that bumps
you up from an a minus to an a this
this method took you 65 hours over the
course of the semester and it generated
a c plus this method took
took
60 hours
and it generated an a
which is more efficient and let's say
you don't believe my numbers tweak them
however you want right you think that
this method of reading is going to take
twice as long fine bump this up to four
hours for each reading okay well then
this number will be higher than this
number by a little bit but you'll get a
way better grade
right and if you if you keep doing this
through your whole college career then
you're going to get faster at doing it
to the point where you'll be able to do
this not as fast as passing your eyes
over the reading but like you know at a
pretty good clip
and you will end up spending less time
because you won't have to cram at the
end of the semester and getting way
better grades with way less stress
this is how you do it folks this has
basically been my superpower i went to
williams college look it up it's the
best liberal arts college in the country
and i graduated in the top two percent
of my class i went to oxford i went to
cambridge i got a phd from berkeley i'm
medium level smart but i show up to everything
everything having
having
thought through the material right and
retaining it this started for me in high
school i i it was this was in 2002 in
2002 i was in high school and a teacher
told us to start taking margin notes so
here's a book i'm going to try to go
through this quickly because you know
you should never let people read the
notes that you wrote in high school
because that's embarrassing now
at this point in high school i hadn't
yet developed the the method of
summarizing in exactly this way it took
me a few years and i and i sort of
solidified this early in college but
but
this method which i started in high
school this has been my trick the whole
time and it worked when i was in college
this happened in 2006
i was in college and i took an economics
course okay it was like an introductory
level economics course and on the first
day of lecture the professor asked
what is economics there was silence in
the room for like a long time there was silence
silence
and then i just like raised my hand
and i was like it's the
study of the allocation of scarce
resources and the professor was like
correct and then just moved on he just
moved on to the rest of the material
that was it then a student another
student came up to me after class and
was like hey how did you know the answer
to that question of like what the
definition of economics was and i was
like oh
uh it was like the first thing that they
said in the first chapter of the book
which was the chapter for today it was
the first thing in the chapter was the
definition of economics it's the study
of the allocation of scarce resources
now here's what i had done right i had
been reading the textbook in preparation
for class and i was like one paragraph
or two paragraphs in and they gave a
definition of economics and this was
like an introductory economics course
and i was like oh you know what that
might be important the study of the
allocation of scarce resources
so i like wrote it down and then i
rephrased it in my own words and then i
just sort of stopped reading
and thought about it for a minute scarce
resources like what's a scarce resource well
well money
money
money is a scarce resource here's my
money i keep a paper clip on my money
now you know money is a scarce resource
scarce just means there's not an
infinite amount of it if there's a
scarce resource a resource that that
that there's not an infinite amount of
it and it has to get distributed or
allocated right in some way um then
economics is the study of how people
you know distribute this thing like
money well money's not the only scarce
resource right there's other things like
like basically everything is scarce like
sand you know sand can i edit in a photo
in the b-roll of sand here's some sand
sand is scarce there's only so many
beaches on the planet and and the
beaches make the sand somehow with the
waves or whatever anyway there's just
only so much sand and people need sand
for things like making glass or other
sand boxes if someone were to study
how the sand gets distributed like who
gets the sand
and how much they have to pay for it and
who doesn't get sand they wanted sand
but they didn't get any today or
whatever right if someone were to study
that well then according to this
definition they would be doing economics
okay economics is the study of the
allocation of scarce resources okay so i
like went through a thought process like
that something like that and then i went
on and kept reading i didn't explain all
of this stuff to the other student that
came up to me after class i just said oh
it was like the first thing in the
reading and then she says to me she's
like oh yeah i read it i read the
chapter i just it didn't stick or
whatever i assume that she just sort of
read it in the passive pass your eyes
over the reading way this is how most of
my students today in my classrooms read
most of the things they read they just
sort of pass their eyes over the words
but if you think through the
ideas the the powers of retention of
memory that you will gain
will be incredible i mean think about
this i took this course as a college
student 15 years ago
i remember
the definition of economics from that
course 15 years later i didn't plan to
tell you this story during this lecture
video i'm just i'm just going off the
cuff i didn't look up the definition of
economics this morning to prepare to say
this to you right now no i decided to
tell you this story about my college
economics course in 2006 i decided to
tell you this story
like four minutes ago but
but
i remember the definition i'm pretty
confident i'm not going to check it
right now i'm going to edit this video
and publish it and everything without
checking the definition of economics you
can check it if you want the textbook
the textbook was written it was
co-written i don't remember one of the
co-authors but one of the co-authors was
ben bernanke
and i remember that because he had just
become i think the chair of the federal
reserve okay so ben bernanke wrote some
intro economics textbook google that
textbook google the definition of
economics in it it might come up or you
might have to get a physical copy of the
textbook i don't know it wasn't digital
at the time there were no we didn't have
digital textbooks it'll say in that
textbook that the definition of
economics is the study of the allocation
of scarce resources and i know that because
because i
i
summarized those things and thought
through them at the time that's how
speed reading is a scam when i was 18
i took a speed reading course it wasn't
a real course it wasn't
in a real university it was like a thing
that met
you know four times
met four times in like um the gym of a
ymca or something like that some space
that they rented out i was 18 and i took
this course and they said things like
the following
if you're looking at a text
i'm not kidding you a real adult with a
straight face said this to me when i was
18 years old if you're looking at a text
like a page of text like this
instead of reading it you know from the
left and going to the right and then
starting back at the left of the next
line and going all the way to the right
instead of reading it that way like a
chump instead what you should do is you
should read the first line going this way
way
and then read the second line going that
way and alternate the direction with
which you read each line
this way you don't waste time you know
with your eyes zooming back to the
beginning of the line and not reading
anything a real a person said this to me
is this a joke and then then they said
this this really happened i promise you
in the mid 2000s in the gymnasium of
ymca somewhere an adult not as a joke
said and even better than that even
better than that instead of reading each
line all the whole every line when you
get to a page of text instead of going
through each line horizontally just pass
your eyes over the page in the shape of
a v
and they drew a v
like this
that's how you're supposed to pass your
eyes over each page of the book and then
you move on to the next page i didn't
know how skeptical to be at the time i
was just sort of like huh okay maybe yeah
yeah
but like
is this a prank
are you kidding me the order of the
words in sentences
matters to the meaning of those words
you need to read all the words in order
or else you're not going to understand
what those words mean now you might be
saying professor kaplan you're not being
fair that's just one thing that one
person said but but you should test
speed reading by its most sophisticated methods
methods
such as the well-known technique of
rapid serial visual presentation first
of all just because you give something
some fancy label doesn't mean it's a
real thing i mean some things are real
and they get fancy labels like you know
the body parts or medicines that doctors
real doctors prescribe yeah they have
fancy names and they're fancy things and
they're totally real okay medicine is
real it works right but
this might just be some fancy words and
scientists have tested whether these are
just some fancy words and they are
scientists have tested every method of
speed reading all of the different scam
methods they're all scams they've tested
them it's not hard to do these tests
they've tested all of them and in every
case it doesn't work here's how all of
these studies are structured it makes
sense when you think about it what they
do is they go through all of the major
popular notable speed reading techniques and
and
they take a group of people
and they give them the instruction in
those techniques you bring in the real
gurus right and have the real gurus give
you their lessons okay so you have a
group of people who've gotten those
lessons and then all you do
is you give those people a text to read
with a little quiz that they have to
take afterward and the quiz tests
whether they understood and retained
what they just read
and then you do the same thing for other
groups of people but those groups of
people you don't give them the speed
reading uh you know lessons or whatever
you just tell them please read the text
carefully and slowly or or another one
you just say look skim this text and
then we'll give you the quiz and then
you compare their test results for these
groups and the results every single time
show that speed reading
works like skimming which is to say
it doesn't work one of the famous
original studies was
funded and published by nasa in 1999 and
then there was another well-known study
a comprehensive review of all the other
research from 2016 and it was published
in the journal psychological science in
the public interest the research funded
by nasa from 1999 this was some of the
first you know really rigorous major
research on speed reading it tested a
method called photo reading the study
concluded that quote the results for all
measures yielded no benefits of using
the photo reading technique the
comprehensive review from 2016
is a study where they studied a whole
bunch of other studies and they found
the same thing that nasa found but for
all of these other methods real quick at
the very end of this video lecture pop quiz
quiz
this pop quiz has one and only one
question here's the question i'm going
to pause after i say the question you
try to answer it what is economics economics
economics
is the study of the allocation of scarce
resources at least according to some
college textbook from 2006. if you
remembered that
how how did you remember it from a few
minutes ago or whatever how did you
remember it i didn't write that
definition of economics
up on the board i never wrote it up i
just said it a few times how did you
remember it if you did i suggest that
the reason you remembered that if you
did is because i
made you think through it like when i
told that story a few minutes ago i like
walked through a thought process
involving this definition of economics
remember the whole thing about sand and
i got the b-roll photo of sand and sand
as a scarce resource that's thinking
through the definition of economics if
you have to think through what something means
means
then you absorb it and you remember it
that's how this works the next lecture
in this series will focus on how to take notes
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