Reading a book

[cipherdecoy]

Do you turn to study guides after reading a book, or do you come up with your own interpretations? Or both?

[Captain_Kuchiki]

I use study guids for post reading if the book is on an English class test! XD But for my own reading, I make my own interpretations. If the plot is too difficult for me to understand, I use Wikipedia.

[jgweed]

Unless the book is extremely difficult I read the criticism after reading the original. It certainly helps understanding a complex structure with manifold themes or references--- such as Mann's Dr. Faustus or Joyce's Ulysses--- though, to have read some general discussions about them before tackling the novels themselves.

[johann cruyff]

I always read the book first,and then check out the various interpretations,just to see if I missed something and maybe put things in a new perspective.

[Erichtho]

Mostly I don't use any study guides. When I feel I haven't grasped it fully I look for interpretations, but only in very rare cases I use study guides while reading.

[sofia82]

First I read the book, and then refer to study guides. There are some points I miss during reading or getting what is the matter. Sometimes if the book is not long, I read it again to find the matters mentions in the study guide. But mostly I refer to different criticism on the book if there is any.

[bree]

I don't use study guides. If it is a book that I have to write on I will read it twice and then use secondary criticism from sources other than study guides.

[Sir Bartholomew]

read the book, then study guides, read again & then end up with my own interpretations

[PeterL]

I have never seen value in so-called study guides. Sometimes I have looked at criticism after reading something.

[sprinks]

I come up with my own interpretations... the only time I used a study guide was when we had to last year in class during Romeo and Juliet, because we never actually read it, just watched the movies and compared them! Oh I loved our class last year :rolleyes:. But I think next year if it gets too hectic in Lit (as I have many hard and time consuming classes) I might use study guides. We'll see what happens.

[JBI]

I don't so much as read study guides as I do criticism. If it is a work that I am reading for a course, I always try to read it at least twice, and to try and get as much out of it as possible, that way I will be better off when evaluation runs along. Luckily it is possible to get booklists in the summer for most courses, so I have the ability to sit with the texts for long hours, pencil in hand, and a copy of criticism, and JSTOR open at my disposal.

In highschool, I got lucky that with the exception of To Kill a Mockingbird, all the novels we studied were quite short, and I managed to read them over several times each, so that I could pluck quotes from Gatsby, and additional plot information that no one else saw. Also, it helped that I could quote the critics on the work, especially essays on motifs and context.

Really though, unless the book is Ulysses, or Finnegans Wake, or some other experimental impossible work (Dante is somewhere in there) then it isn't necessary to have a study guide (or shouldn't be) if you are familiar with the work, or have read it twice. I found with Ulysses and Finnegans though, that the annotations sufficed. Annotated copies are always better than study guides, in my opinion.

As for the use of study guides, I would think the most common use is cheating. Most people I know in highschool, and some in university now, rely on those guides as substitutes for reading. Bad mistake. The quality of the guides (this is for Cliff's, Cole's, and Spark) is 10th rate at best. Some times they do not even accurately portray the plot, and their interpretation is at a grade 9 level at best.

If you use the guides for refreshing one's memory of a work previously read, that is fine, but reading a study guide as a substitute, or an actual guide usually ends in disastrous results. For anything shorter than a 200 page book, you probably are better off just reading the book over and over again. For a 100 page book, you could probably read the book over by the time you got the study guides.

[grace86]

I don't use study guides. When I read a book, I always make it something so personal, granted the author does have a point when writing a book I think, but somehow I manage to take things out of it that apply to me more than perhaps was the greater point of the novel.

If a book is difficult I will try to re-read it and look up some study guides online.

[blazeofglory]

I rarely refer to guides. Yet I nonetheless read book commentaries.