My Learning Mind: how to read

This article mainly writes some basic methods of learning (especially reading).

1. While having a passion for something, peremptorily the most difficult phase of everything.

It is difficult to begin with, for never knowing the basic facts is a stage of a new knowledge explosion, and the difficulty at this time is the greatest. Someone can not get through, feel too much difficulty to give up. However, enthusiastic interest can counteract the feeling of difficulty, so it is important to have a good head when you are passionate about something. (Of course, this is not to say that perseverance is not important). Of course, perhaps this is different from each other, for me I will be very interested in a matter of great focus on learning, a lot of groundworks to do off. It's going to be a little smoother back there.

2. Access to information based on subject matter, rather than information on the subject

Before reading a book is a read, the eye is a book, now is a chapter, or even a section of the reading, the eyes see not a book, but a bunch of chapters, a subject of knowledge, according to the subject to read, You will find that reading is no longer an honest book to read the other, but very frequently jump from one book to another, jumping from one data to another to get a lot of different people on the same topic how to explain. For example, I recently found that I looked at the Monte Carlo algorithm for more than ten sources, including three or four paper and six or seven books; This is because even the classic book, you can not expect it to each of the topics of the introduction is perfect, some books on a topic (knowledge point) Introduction is in place, Some books introduce other knowledge points in place. And sometimes a compact paper is better than a book. The books in my hard drive are categorized by topic, and there are piles of books underneath each topic, and when I need to learn a subject's knowledge (such as Bayesian learning or neural networks), I'll turn over the books that cover the subject, index them to the relevant chapters, and pick a good look. So, how to determine whether a data is good or bad information?

3. Good information, bad information

The characteristics of good information: from the point of view, focus on the idea behind the method (rationale), focus on the visual interpretation, rather than the technical details of the method, according to the method was invented by the time flow to introduce (first encountered what problem, then how to analyze, reasoning, and finally found the current method used). Bad information is characterized by the reverse side of good information: come up with the details of the method, as if a method is falling from the sky, they often write "we define ... We call ... Here are a few steps we take ... ”。 Do not say why to use this method, people initially because of what problems to think of this method, in the meantime, how to come up with this method, the method behind the intuitive thinking is what. In fact, a method if the final most concise form of direct expression often lost most of the information, the lost information is the problem of the thinking process behind the solution.

4. Before learning a thing, first accumulate a full "sense of doubt" in the brain

That is, figuring out what the problem is, before looking at the method itself, it's best to ask yourself how you can think. A recognized fact is that the more you doubt about the problem, the more you think about what you have done before, and the more impressed you will be when you see the answer. Remember that the university textbooks are always waterfall-like the entire knowledge structure in front of a glance, read the process is quite cool, repeatedly nodded, read quickly and forget, why? Because there is no question to learn.

5. Read in a selective way

Many people think that I am reading fast, in fact I just have a choice to read. There are two places to choose from, one to select the chapters of interest in a book to read first. Second, a book in the technical weak or low information density of the part of the fast skimming. In general, in addition to highly technical books, most books have very low information density and a lot of nonsense. In general, this is what you should do when reading:

• What's the problem?
• What is the plan?
• What is the example?

If there is a need to explain a phenomenon (such as "Black Swan"), then

• What is the phenomenon?
• What's the explanation?
• What is the reason for supporting this explanation?
• What is the example?

Generally speaking, this 1234 can be finished without a lot of words (assuming only one to two subtlety examples), such a nonsense work is the typical "evolution of cooperation", then why some books, clearly the core point of view that something (at most, plus a few examples of essentials) is very long to write? Because people's thinking has a "Lenovo" characteristics, written written on the easy next to the oblique out, and the author also often feel that extended out quite good, and sometimes a lot of irrelevant to the topic of nonsense on the mix in, then, reading should selectively filter out these irrelevant nonsense In addition, there is a possibility that a large number of redundant examples. In general, well-organized books have a detailed and at-a-glance table of contents and indexes, which you can filter out in the first place (for example, the content of a sub-chapter you've seen before), and sometimes the author will give a lot of redundant examples, If you're already impressed, these examples can be completely out of the picture (some books are very kind to each of the one or two most classic examples, such as "different psychology-how to Face psychology", which I like most).

6. Why can't you read?

If you do not understand a knowledge, there are generally the following possible reasons:

• You don't see hard enough. The Ancients summed up the book-read times its righteousness from the present. Although this law is not always set up, but from the perspective of cognitive science is fully understandable, when we read, attention tends to selectively focus on some of the "points", while ignoring the other "points", and then looked down may be because some neglect leads to the inability to understand the whole. Or simply look at the time without noticing some of the details but the important things. In addition, the brain understands that a thing needs a certain amount of processing time, the human brain processing speed is very slow, the nerve impulse transmission speed of only hundred meters per second, so can not expect to see where to know. Finally, we may look at a word from a certain point of view because of the reason of our thinking and neglect the possibility of understanding from different angles. For this kind of situation, carefully read two times more, try to understand two times, often will "Oh!" It turned out that way. "The ground dawned.
• It involves a concept that you do not understand. This is technically not understood. This situation requires cross Reference. If a word in the use of you do not understand the concept, then go to check, now many books are e-books, direct search, or, for paper books, look at the index on the back of the book on the line. Strange is that many people do not understand or analyze why do not understand, just give up. Just as the problem is solved, the problem can not be solved, the first time to do is to analyze the reason why not solve, rather than direct call for help.
• The author tells the wrong order, you go down, maybe see the back to understand the front.

Miscellaneous

7. How to obtain a rough assessment of the quality of a book before reading

It can save a lot of time to quickly assess the quality of a book before delving into it. There are basically a few clues:

• Look at the author. The books written by the cattle writers are generally good.
• Look at the catalogue and introduction. A good catalogue and profile can reveal a significant part of the quality of the book. Whether the directory structure is clear or straightforward (rather than clerical) is a measurable clue.
• Looking at Amazon's comments, it is important to note that, in addition to the overall score, it depends on what the lowest-rated person says, because the minority opinions tend to come from people who really know the ropes (except to kick the gym), It is quite certain that the book is good if it is not seen in the lowest rated opinion that the real value of the rebuttal is not true.
• Look at the sample chapter. Amazon generally can randomly browse some chapters, whether the expression is clear, the argument is rigorous, the content is profound, basically a few pages can be seen.

8. How to search for a good book

A few clues:

• Works with the author.
• Amazon related recommendations and topics related to the book column (like Watercress bean column).
• A good book (or a good piece of information – whether it's a book or a Web page) highlights other works in reference.
• Sometimes for a topic, you can search for good people to summarize the reference resource Guide, that is the best.

My Learning Mind: how to read