Read Non-Fiction Faster and Remember More

In this video, I’ll tell you how I read and take notes on non-fiction books. This method helps me read faster, retain more information, understand the topic better, and gives me notes to come back to later.

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Hi, everyone! This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today’s video, I’ll tell you
how I read and take notes on non-fiction books. This method helps me read faster, retain more information, understand the topic better, and gives me notes to come back to later.

How do you read nonfiction? Do you read one page at a time starting at the beginning — the way you read fiction? If so, you are probably doing it wrong. I wish I could find the article that I read many years ago that changed my thinking on this. Generally speaking, the point of fiction is to entertain and transport — to tell a story. Also generally speaking, the point of non-fiction is to convince you of something, present a perspective, or educate you. Now, in some cases, you WILL be reading non-fiction for enjoyment — like memoirs or history — in which case, use your best judgement and read how you want. But AGAIN generally speaking, the purposes of fiction and non-fiction are different, so the way you approach them should also be different. Here’s what you need to take away from non-fiction: who wrote it, the point the author was trying to make, the way that the author chose to make that point, and his/her best arguments or concepts. When I’m reading fiction, because it’s generally for enjoyment, it doesn’t matter whether I retain the storyline or main characters. But when I’m reading non-fiction, I would like to remember those basic takeaways that I just mentioned. So, I almost always take notes. My notetaking app of choice is Evernote. I have lots of videos on how I use Evernote, but for the purposes of this video, I have a notebook called Books and Reading, which is where I capture notes for the books I read. Okay — there is the ideal way to take notes, which I’ll cover in a moment, and then there are some lazy ways, which I’ll share now.Lazy Notes Method #1Let’s say I’ve read kind of a throwaway book that was okay, but I don’t feel like I need to spend a ton of time summarizing it. In this case, I may just write a 2-3 sentence summary as my notes for the whole book. Or even lazier, I may just copy the summary from Amazon or an online review. No need to spend a ton of time memorializing a book that didn’t have much to say to you. Lazy Notes Method #2The other lazy way that I sometimes take notes is that I highlight passages as I’m reading and then just export those highlights into a note. This works particularly well for books I’ve read on a Kindle. I have a video on doing this if you are interested. Sometimes I’ll go a step farther and structure those passages as bullets under the chapter headings. Or sometimes I’ll just leave them as is. I definitely do this for textbooks where I have a ton of highlights. Or if the book has particularly beautiful writing that I want to capture. Okay — so those are my 2 lazy methods. Now, let me tell you about myIdeal Note Taking MethodThere are a bunch of steps, which I will cover one at a time:
* Read a summary
* Research author
* Read introduction
* Write own summary
* Record book structure
* Skim and take notes/summarize chapters
* Export your highlights
* Review initial summary and revise
* Reread notes

Let’s take these one at a time. First,Read a summaryThis is the quickest task — should take less than 5 minutes. Read a summary of the book online — like on Amazon or the first paragraph of Wikipedia if it has an entry. Make sure this is not a review — you don’t want to bias yourself before reading, nor a detailed summary (which is why you should only read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry). Just a quick paragraph on what this book is about. Next,Research the authorThis is also quick. Don’t research like you are writing a biography. You just want to figure out what their education and credentials are, what they written before, and how their background might influence their argument. For example, I read a book on our society’s relationship to money and found that the author was a philanthropic fundraiser. She also pointed this out in the book, but it was crucial for me to know what her background was to understand how her perspective may be different than if she was -- say -- a financial adviser or a psychologist. Once you’ve done those 2 bits of background research, it’s time to Read the introduction

Sometimes a book doesn’t have an introduction in which case the first chapter generally provides this function. You can read this all the way through, but in my experience, introductions are usually made up of 2 parts — a humanizing personal anecdote and an actual introduction to the book. The introduction part is what you are after. . .

[Frauhammie]

Simply genius! I’ve been looking for something like this for such a long time!

[bcrtve]

Watching this video/tutorial could be a best practice for any book club member. Great tips

[rorshadowz]

You probably just saved my whole master's studies.

[mikequist]

Really like the channel! Q: As you apply your system to your nonfiction reading, how many nonfiction books are you able to finish and catalog in a year? (I try to read one nonfiction book every month, but I rarely take notes on it.)

[taylorbrock]

One thing I dislike about the table of contents is when it's vague. For example, a few history books of mine that use for the headings and subheadings a quote, or phrase. And there may not be an introduction to tell you about what each chapter will be about. What do you suggest for this issue ?