First, I should tell you that I absolutely love reading. The problem is, I don’t always like to take the time to read things I feel like I should read. I could take a speed reading course, I suppose, but haven’t seen one offered that was convenient. So, I’ve begun “ripping” books. It’s nothing fancy but it saves me time and get’s me through books that I might otherwise not want to spend so much time on or simply don’t have the time for (even if I want to). I figure, now that I’ve been doing it for a few years, that I can get through anywhere between 100 and 300 pages an hour depending on the book – sometimes a bit more. If the book uses archaic language, is quite technical, or is a professional book from a different field, the page count per hour drops dramatically.
I don’t know if anyone else would find it helpful, but here’s how I do it:
Clear a spot on a table or desk (important!)
Open a word processor on a computer and wear in the spine of the book a bit (so that it’ll sort-of stay open on the table).
Put the Title, Author, Publisher, Bibliographical info and price at the top of the page (you’ll want this information if you ever come back to it).
Save the document using the title as your file name.
Save frequently during the process.
Plow through the book as quickly as possible.
Skim. Don’t read anything unless you need to (for clarity) or want to.
Slow down only when you run across something that seems interesting or important.
If it seems really important type it into your word processor verbatim. Normally you won’t have more than a few sentences every couple of pages.
Important passages often follow long quotations from other sources and often show up as lists.
Don’t bother paraphrasing; just use quotations. They take far less time and are more usable if you every want to use them as a quotation for writing later. (You can always paraphrase later if appropriate).
If something needs clarification put it in brackets or type it into the document without quotation marks.
Follow each quotation with a reference as to which page it’s from (in parenthesis.)
If you copy something every 5-15 pages, you’re probably doing well.
If you make it through 20 pages without any quotations, stop and take a break (you’re probably checked out… although some books deserve it!)
Sometimes I go over the final document and highlight the most important quotations in yellow or red.
This evening I ripped The Celtic Way of Evangelism. It wasn’t as great of a book as I had hoped, but it did have some good content. If you’re interested, here’s what my final product looked like (.pdf).
I know the process doesn’t have much finesse – it’s more skill than art; but I’ve developed it through use and it works well for me — feel free to steal it if it’s helpful!
You might also consider STRIPping books too (an equally as self-developed method I use for evaluating them) – I’ll post instructions on that later.
Grace and peace,
`tim
August 9th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
[...] think I’ve done any since starting this blog several years ago (although I have posted ripped” results of several over the years), but I finished a book the other day that I’d really [...]