Thanks, Rain, for commenting on TNL’s last post on questions. Here is one more.

TNL had a perculiar week of students at different times asking questions that allude to one specific request:

What information do you retrieve when you read?

So basically, the conversations went on something like this:

What parts do I use for my assignment or thesis? Can I ignore the methodology? Do I have to read the introduction? Can I just read the results and then, the conclusion? Is reading the abstract enough? How do I correlate what the author is saying with my assignment?

It seems with much information, comes much vexing. 

What can the old girl say? Read the whole article, lah!

No, it isn’t as simple as that. You can tell the kid to eat her veggies but bottom line is spinach still tastes green, bitter, slimy, squishy, raw and downright-unMac-like.

Everybody has a certain way of gleaning bits of information that is relevant to them at that point in time for that specific purpose.

Remember when you were a kid fully absorbed in a Nancy Drew (ok, lah, way back then)? Skipping those fiddly words meant getting to the exciting parts a whole lot faster.

TNL has lots to read. Some she enjoys, some she would rather wait until the cows come home. But you know, some sifting, gleaning, filtering process just kicks in when she has a mountain to read. Come to think of it, maybe she should bottle this process and make a bundle.

So what should TNL have suggested to our students?