Learning & thinking · a life skill
Simple Book Summaries
close the book, then write the card
Most book notes are written with the book open, copying the lines that looked good. A month later they read like someone else's. A summary written after you shut the book is shorter and rougher, but it's what you actually took away, and checking it against the book shows you what slipped.
- Easy to start
- Medium impact
- Learn it in 1 week
- One card, fifteen minutes
The black lines are what stayed with you. The red line is what the book had and you'd lost, which is the part most worth reading again.
Tonight, with a pen
Try it now.
The book you finished last, or the one you're halfway through. One index card, or the back page of the book itself.
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Close the book
Turn it face down or put it in another room. Writing with it open turns into copying, and copying skips the part that makes it stick.
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Say what it's about in one sentence
The sentence you'd use if a friend asked at dinner. If it won't fit in one, you've found what you're unsure of.
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Write the three ideas you remember
In your own words, one line each. Three is enough. You're writing what you kept, not making a table of contents.
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Write one thing you'll do
Something small enough to start this week, with a when or a where. A book that changes nothing you do was entertainment, which is fine too.
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Open it for five minutes and fix it in red
Skim the chapter titles and your underlines. Tick what you had right, fix what you had wrong, and add the idea you missed.
If you remember almost nothing, that's useful too: write the one sentence anyway, then reread the chapter that it points to.
It works for more than books. A long article, a podcast on a walk, a talk at work. Close it, write the sentence, the three ideas and the one thing, then check.
Your card tonight
Shut the book, write the card, then open it again to check.
Write the card from memory first. When it's done, press "Now open the book" and mark each idea against the pages: right, or wrong. Anything you missed goes in red. The notes under the card will tell you if a line looks copied or the sentence has grown into a paragraph.
Close it before you write. Press this once it's face down.
Checking against the book
Five minutes: skim the contents page and anything you underlined. Mark each idea, then add what you missed.
- About
- Ideas
- Do
Write the card first, then check it.
Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere. It's gone when you leave the page, so copy the card, or write it on the inside cover where you'll find it again.
Why close it first
Students who wrote about a passage after handing it back did better two days later than students who took notes or highlighted with it in front of them.
Kathleen Arnold and colleagues gave one hundred university students two science passages of about nine hundred words each. Some highlighted the text as they would a textbook. Some took notes with the passage in front of them. The rest read it, handed it back, and then either wrote down everything they could remember or wrote a short essay about it.
Two days later everyone took the same test. The two groups who had written from memory scored higher on the multiple-choice questions than the two who'd had the text in hand, and higher on questions that asked them to apply the ideas to a new problem. Writing an essay instead of a plain recall didn't add a reliable amount on top.
Time doesn't explain it away. Writing from memory took about fourteen minutes, against thirteen for notes, and still came out ahead. Students who were better at building a mental picture of what they read gained the most.
The honest limits: one lab study, short science passages rather than whole books, and a test two days later rather than months. What carries over is the order of things: read, put it away, then write. That's why the card above is written before you look back.
The idea
Why it works.
Pulling an idea back out of memory is itself practice at remembering it, and it's the only honest way to find out what you kept. With the book open, every line looks familiar, so everything feels learned.
The limits on the card do the rest. One sentence makes you decide what the book is for. Three ideas make you choose. And the red line from the check is a short list of exactly what to reread, instead of the whole book again.
When it goes wrong
Habits that help.
- Write it the night you finish. A week later the card is mostly blank, and you'll be tempted to open the book first.
- Use your words, not the author's. If a line could be pasted from the back cover, say it the way you'd tell a friend.
- Keep the cards in one place. A box, the inside cover, or one note per book in the same folder. A card you can't find was still worth writing, but it's worth more on the shelf.
- Read the card again in a month. Cover it, try to say the three ideas, then look. It takes a minute, and it's the second check that makes it last.
Practise this in HourLife.
In Media: Takeaways. Keep one queue of films, series, podcasts, albums, audiobooks, and books, track what you're partway through, and rate what you finish.
