1. Underline, circle, make margin notes.

Don’t highlight the whole page though! Highlighting, by the way, only helps a little. Use your own markings; they’re superior. Usually you’ll only need to mark two or three items per page, and many pages will have no markings.

2. Dog-ear important pages.

In a 250 page book there will probably be 25 pages worth dog-earing. Turn down the page to return later. The bigger the dog-ear the more important the page. Most books have only four or five half-page-dog ears.

3. Transfer key notes to front of book.

Got a great point here? The central message? The quote which essentially represents the whole book? Write it down in the front of the book.

Why?

Generally speaking when it comes to new information you either “Use it or lose it in 20 minutes.” When you discover it, flip the book open to the front and scribble it down; it will cement the notion into your mind. Better yet, link it to something you already know and write that down too. Linked information can be recalled far better than isolated information.

4. When finished, re-read dog-eared pages.

Just run back through and re-read the gold. Here is the essence of the book (if you made good judgements right going through).

5. Now write an “abstract” in the back or front.

You are almost finished! Take a few more minutes and write an “abstract” up front in your own words. To summarize the book, simply attempt to “reverse engineer” the book back to the author’s abstract or thesis.

6. Consider drawing a “MindMap” of the contents.

Get someone to teach you how to use Tony Buzan’s “Mind Map” to remember the entire book on a single page. I personal mind-map everything I do. Remember, the mind mostly recalls ideas and pictures, not words. A Mind Map will enable you to “picture” the whole book.

7. But if you borrowed the book, and can’t mark it, dog-ear it, or otherwise “use” these techniques — then use 3M stickers instead of dog-ears, and write your comments on half-sheets of paper as you go.

(Source: Keith Drury:www.indwes.edu./tuesday)