It happens often that we start reading a book and midway, we contradict if we are reading it properly. Is this the right way to remember the story? Am I deciphering the analysis right? Am I focusing on the themes or just reading it like a story? Too many questions and no proper answer! Well, there isn’t any. Yes, you heard me right. There is no correct way to read a book. It depends on what is convenient for the reader. As a reader or a student, we have different study timing, study motivation, and study rewards. In this article, we are going to read about a few correct ways to read a book although their is no right way of reading a book as we have said before. Here are ways that are convenient for every reader and ways that are useful.
Correct Ways to Read a Book | Right Way Of Reading A Book:
Have a Conversation with the Book
The best way to remember a conversation or discussion with anyone is to participate in it. Likewise, when you are reading a book, participate in it. Suppose you are reading a play or a novel, and two characters are having a conversation, write down what you would have said if you were there. I remember when I was reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde I merged dialogues of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth with dialogues of Dorian. It turned out to be more interesting because both of them are included in my list of favourite plays.
Remember the Scenario
One of the ways that help me to remember Stories, especially the plays of the modern era is drawing the scenes. I am into sketching and drawing. So, when I started reading Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett I drew some of the scenes. And, later on, while I re-read the play because I had to prepare the notes, I realized that I can not only remember the play, but I could also recall some of the main dialogues and it helped me a lot in preparing the notes.
It is not necessary that you have to draw sections of a story or play to remember it but it was convenient for me, especially because Waiting for Godot is a theatrical play with only two acts and it depicts the strong sense of ‘nothingness’ in existentialism. So, the sketching-out aspect helped me understand which portions of the play I should focus on more.
Annotation
Yes, this is the most useful and convenient way for readers and students to read a book – annotation. Annotation is when you add a comment or explanation in the book with a pencil, post it or anything that helps you recall the section, understand the section, any new vocabulary, and more. This not only helps you to write your notes but it also helps you to have a summary and the re-reading of the book gets very easy.
Keep a Journal or Diary
This is another way that has helped me to read and remember a novel or play. Whenever I start a new book, or even if I am going through a PDF or Word file, I make sure that I have a pen and a diary with me. A student and learner need to focus on whatever we are doing. As human beings, we are always learning. So even if you are reading a book just for fun keeping a diary or journal beside you will not help you understand the plot more – but you can also note down some specific sentence that you like, a new word that you don’t the meaning of, or you can write you own comment on a specific dialogue.
We remember things when we enjoy doing it – so, the only way to read a book carefully is to read it and enjoy it. Don’t read it as a task, read it as if you need to understand each character as if you need to know why the writer chose to write about this, what made the writer write this story, the background of the writer, what other writers had to say about the book, what are the reviews of other readers and more.
Also Read: 10 Ways To Enhance Academic Writing
