The psychology of reading a textbook

[Obis]

In my opinion, understanding is not discrete, that is, it isn't like you either understand or not understand, it's a continuous scale, so however well you understand something, you can still do it better. This idealistic view causes me some problems while reading textbooks. Even if I feel that I understood the general idea, I still feel pressure to read it again, rethink again, reconnect information once again.. It is actually useful, however, eventually I end up with a frustrated mind without any desire to read further, I start to lose concentration and I simply get tired. I am pretty sure this is because of my perfectionism in general, however, since basically everything I learn comes from reading a textbook (I don't even go to theory lectures), it is of crucial importance to me, since because of this, I can't read for 3 or more hours continuously (sometimes even 30 minutes is enough).

So, maybe someone else has or had a similar problem? How did you cope with it?

 

[physics girl phd]

oooo... I'll make a very bad confession here (since nobody has yet responded to this post). Did I ever "read" a textbook? ("read" as opposed to scanning it whenever I needed some slight help on an assignment). Before before entering higher levels of learning where I was doing research, needed to read some advanced specialized material, and there where no classes offered on the material?

Ouch... That's tough. Most classes I ever had were lecture, and you learned everything you knew in the lecture (and I was okay with the lecture style). "Reading" took more time than doing extra problems, so I spent my time solving problems... and using the text to look up little bits here and there when the problems were on the particularly difficult side.

Does this mean I missed things? yes. But, as you note, reading things the first time, the second time, and even the third time... you often miss subtle (or even large) points, and you need to return to them. When I started teaching, I DID read my texts, and reading them, I'm surely noticing subtle points that my students WILL probably miss, but that are sometimes so elegantly stated... though I also often notice the text missing points too.

I'm thinking that problem-solving along the way might, however, enhance your reading. Try to fill in missing steps, or try to work the example on your own before you read through the text's solution. Of course, now, when I "read" the text (particularly when the text changes editions or the text changes for the course), I'm thinking up my own test problems for my students, and I find that enhances my reading/understanding.

So I guess to finish that up: I agree, learning about a topic is on some continuum. But I think that's true in science/math (which I assume you're discussing here) along with any other topic (say like a hobby of some sort). How do I "cope" with that? I think that's one of the best things about being a "thinking" human. Isn't it rather nice to return to things anew, and add fresh understanding and skills?

So take breaks, relax, and enjoy being a student (it's a great time of life, where you can devote yourself to betterment of yourself), and DO recognize that your understanding will only improve as you enter your career path further.

 

[Obis]

Well, I am sorry, I have just read my post and I saw that it isn't very clear. What I was trying to say, that when you read about some mathematics or physics topic (or anything else, actually), you can understand it infinitely well, that is, you can analyse the details forever. Let me give you an example:

An ellipse is a curve that is the locus of all points in the plane the sum of whose distances r1 and r2 from two fixed points F1 and F2 (the foci) separated by a distance of 2c is a given positive constant 2a.

[PLAIN]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9b/Ellipse.png

You read the definition of ellipse. You think about it. Then you see the graph of the ellipse and you start asking questions : why does it look like that? (that is, how to relate the definition of the ellipse with the graph of it?), more specifically, why point B is exactly a distance a from the center of the ellipse? Why the part BC of the ellipse is bent exactly like that? Why, for example, it is not a straight line, or concave instead of convex? What happens when F1 and F2 are getting closer each other?

All of these questions could be answered easily, however, as I said before, there are infinitely many of them, and you could find much more subtle and deeper ones than those I have mentioned, so my question is : when do you stop asking them and say "OK, it's enough, I understand the ellipse well enough, let's move further". Those questions are extremely important, in my opinion, only by reading this way learning from textbooks is effective, however, when you ask them too much you simply get stuck, waste time on unimportant details, and you somehow get frustrated. I think this is all quite specific and subtle, but please, try to understand it.

 

[oyolasigmaz]

not really related to reading textbooks, but you might want to check some stuff about epistemology/philosophy of science. I can't really give you a book advice or something since I am trying to study them also, but these might be the ignition questions to get along with epistemology. what are the limits of the knowledge you can gain from that limited amount of prepositions? how do you 'acquire' that knowledge from 'that' thing in the textbook? what about their semantic compositions?

this is not going to help you decide where to stop anyway.

 

[aspiring_one]

I used to be like that. Asking questions is a good thing but be careful because some of the questions you ask yourself might just as well be easily answered by the text or some logical flow. Understand that what you are reading is just an explanation that the author is trying to communicate to you.

The case with the ellipse is simple. The author is telling you what we have defined as an ellipse by illustrating the components. Once you understand the definition, the material starts to reach a border and the infinitely many questions you have about that subject become enclosed. This happens when you have thoroughly read and understood the concept being communicated.

Try to understand first, ask questions later. Then if you still have questions, save them for a professor or teacher who can answer them.

I agree that it takes a good thorough read of any text to really try to understand what is being presented. Reading a second time can even make seemingly unimportant details important, everyone sees things differently a second time even though it was obvious the first time.

Approach it with a clear mind, take good notes, understand the concepts, fortify that understanding by doing the end-of-chapter problems. It takes a lot of time and planning but once those neurons start pumping--satisfaction.