Hi all,

I have just started my PhD and I was just assigned a 400-page book. How many pages should I read daily?
I just don't want to get depressed of so much reading, and I want to grasp new info and remember everything clearly when I do my reviews for my supervisor.
Pls any ideas ?

my suggestion is not to count about the pages, just read whatever u can digest and dont worry about the rest.

my experience: my supervisor also piled me with lots of reading material, I read and read and I also forgot and forgot.

now I just keep track of what I can remember and understand, and work from there. I think its less stressful.

just my 2 cents
satchi

Hi Romana, I would say the same as Satchi. You could set yourself a daily target, but I would just go with the flow personally. Some days you might breeze through it, other days you just might not be taking it in so well and would be better off doing something else, so I would be flexible about it. Do some reading each day and see how it's going for that day. Might also be worth making notes at the end of each chapter- this is always handy so you don't have to keep re-reading everything when you come to need the information again. Have fun with it! KB

I'm not sure you can say ' i will read so many pages a day', and it does depend upon what sort of book it is, and how important it is to your studies. What I have done, and have advised others to do is read the back first, then have a look at the contents, foreword, and any other bits that may give you an idea of what the book is about. For each chapter have a quick skim through to get an idea of what it is about, if you have any knowledge of speed reading, now is the time to put it to good use - and if you have no knowledge of this technique I suggest you get to know it - we have sessions for post grads that cover this, you may too. Whilst you are doing this you need to make quick notes about areas that interest you in the text, just quick notes, such as 'page 4 paragraph 3'  Once you have done these things you will have a good idea about what the main ideas are, and where it can be of use to you. Then you need to go through it in more detail. Use your notes to help you pick out bits you need to read carefully, and take proper notes. Then when you meet your supervisor you will be able to say 'I found chapters x,y,z really useful when a,b,c is mentioned. this leads me to think that the books 1,2,3 may be worth reading too' etc. One more thing, make sure you record the reference, in your reference file, not on a scrappy bit of paper which you will lose. Do this for every single thing you read, as soon as you use it, put it in your references. If you don't use it in the end you can delete it from your list as the final stage, but if you forget, it will be the one vital ref you really want to include, but you can't because you can't find it again.