Speed Reading

foozball3000

foozball3000

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If I had to change one thing in my life now, it will be speed reading. I have so many books that I've never read.

There are two options:
1. Doing a course
2. Getting a book about it.

I've done a crash course a few years ago and it was fairly basic. It all boils down to practice.

So, on that note I prefer to just buy the book.
What do you guys think?

How good are the "x for Dummies" range? There is a Speed reading for dummies available.
 
just read a lot and your speed goes up eventually, I still take longer to read through a book then the average person who reads as much as I do, but can't change that.
 
The best u can do is double your current speed.
I think you found that out on the course.

Skimming through a book at "2000+ wpm" isn't that much fun.
 
Hosehead said:
Just buy audio books of all the stuff you missed. No point in reading anymore. More than half the country don't.
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A C++ Audio book will solve quite a few sleeping problems. :D Nah, I have a fairly short attention span, so Audio books will lose me quite fast.
 
Morgoth said:
just read a lot and your speed goes up eventually, I still take longer to read through a book then the average person who reads as much as I do, but can't change that.
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I started reading voraciously as soon as I learned how. I would read books far too advanced for my age. Strangely I now realize that I had no clue what was happening in many of the books, but they improved by vocabulary immensely and I now read at over double the speed of an average person. Not quite speed reading but it shows what practice can do.
 
Soccer balls ... baseballs ... grapefruit, which isn't a ball but is round like a ball ... football, which isn't round but is technically a ball ...
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audiobooks...nah i'll give it a skip ;)
 
Pseudonym said:
I started reading voraciously as soon as I learned how. I would read books far too advanced for my age. Strangely I now realize that I had no clue what was happening in many of the books, but they improved by vocabulary immensely and I now read at over double the speed of an average person. Not quite speed reading but it shows what practice can do.
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So... you're saying you can read like a speed freak, but you haven't got a clue about what you just read. Do you work for Telkom? Neotel?
 
Speed reading is a selectivity technique that works but not as dramatically as you'd hope. It isn't ideal for every kind of reading. It teaches you to group phrases together in bundles and skip articles. It can be helpful but it also can strip the act of reading of its innate sensual pleasure - which is where the appreciation of literature is born. Actually if you want to learn to read well you should firstly learn to read slowly with careful articulation and feeling. Learn to read a poem for its consonance, to pick up on motifs and nuances. Speed reading will actually be a detriment to a serious reader. Can you imagine doing a speed wine tasting for example? It would become a binge drink.
 
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cerebus said:
Can you imagine doing a speed wine tasting for example? .
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Yes. when the mood strikes me: Because I just want to get to the next bottle. and the next. I want to get rat arsed falling down drunk Well, not really, but wine does that. It is alcohol isn't it.
It's not a mouthwash. It's not perfume. It's not colour appreciation. It's a drug. Forget what the wine snobs say. The sensual experience is directly proportional to the alcohol percentage for wine to do the job. That's all you need to know.
 
speed reading is a technique best used in magazines like playboy, hustler.
 
Hosehead said:
Just buy audio books of all the stuff you missed. No point in reading anymore. More than half the country don't.
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Audio Books are great, I did over 50 last year. These are full unabridged versions that I rent, read by professionals. The problem with speed is you have to listen to every word, can't skim a paragraph or fast forward.
 
chutzpah44 said:
Audio Books are great, I did over 50 last year. These are full unabridged versions that I rent, read by professionals. The problem with speed is you have to listen to every word, can't skim a paragraph or fast forward.
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Like listening to a woman - you can block it out though, or just listen for keywords like: sex, booze, <your name>, etc.
 
I think speed reading is a valuable technique to have, especially when you have to study something or read up on something. As far as just reading for fun or relaxation purposes I can't see the huge benefit of speed reading through stuff you actually want to relax and enjoy while reading...
 
Hosehead said:
So... you're saying you can read like a speed freak, but you haven't got a clue about what you just read. Do you work for Telkom? Neotel?
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Haha, I'm afraid you have the bull by the udders there. I was referring to when I was 7 or 8 and I couldn't totally grasp the deeper meaning of a text. For example I read the book "I am David" at age 7, then again at age 9 and I realized that although I had grasp the literal aspects of the journey of a boy from point A to point B at age 7, it was only later that I grasped the full meaning of the book and its portrayal of the bewildered boy's naive and heavily influenced view of the world around him and how that caused him to interact with others. Obviously I now understand what I read, and thanks to my practice at a young age, I read it faster.
 
Get drunk. A lot. Read only when you're hammered. It is enough to make you wanna kill. Then, start reading sober again - it will seem faster.

For many years I did a lot of proof reading. It is meticulous and slow. But, I never missed a thing. If I proof read something, it was faultless when I finished. A side effect is that I simply do not read after hours. No books, very few newspapers. The problem is I often find grammar and spelling and usage errors that drive me nuts.

Speed reading teaches you to actually skip over these and read bad usage patterns as though they were correct, for example:

The African Continent = Africa
The English Language = English
In order to / in order for = to / for
Utilise (or argh utilize) = use

There are thousands of these. Still today, six months after I stopped reading such bile, these phrases kill me. But many of them are the essence of speed reading. Rather read at your normal pace and cringe through the drivel or appreciate the great works.
 
Hosehead said:
Yes. when the mood strikes me: Because I just want to get to the next bottle. and the next. I want to get rat arsed falling down drunk Well, not really, but wine does that. It is alcohol isn't it.
Click to expand...

Yes that would be binge drinking wouldn't it...


It's not a mouthwash. It's not perfume. It's not colour appreciation. It's a drug. Forget what the wine snobs say. The sensual experience is directly proportional to the alcohol percentage for wine to do the job. That's all you need to know.
Click to expand...

That's just total rubbish.
 
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