I’m in graduate school and am trying to boost my reading speed. There’s piles of literature to get through and I basically need to reteach myself how to read. A friend told me about QS and I thought this might be a great approach to rationalizing my reading speed project.
My question here is how would a more experienced QSer go about logging reading productivity (time input/pages read output)? I want to turn this into data that is easily analyzable.
The main recommendation I would give is to not let the measurement interfere with the actual task. Try using a speed reading browser extension like Spread for chrome (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/spread-speed-reading-exte/hpnjoanfahcolkdgnfecmncnlfklnllk?hl=en ) or Reasy ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/reasy/ ) for firefox. They will measure your speed in wpm for you and then you can save this however you like.
You might first want to focus your intervention.
Wikipedia’s page on Speed Reading compiles research showing that it essentially doesn’t work. Others, on Quora especially, suggest that it might, using techniques like reciting numbers out loud as you read, to eliminate subvocalization.
Have you found some evidence that speed reading in your case (specialized literature) actually works? If not, you might be better off trying to save time in other ways.