How to Study

Find Other Textbooks if Necessary
Few textbooks are written by what most of us would even remotely
call professional writers. While the authors might well be experts,
even legends, in their particular fields, writing in jargon-free, easy-to-
grasp prose is probably not their strong suit. You will occasionally be
assigned a textbook that is so obtuse you aren’t sure whether to read
it front to back, upside down, or inside out.
If you find a particular chapter, section, or entire textbook as tough
to read as getting your baby brother to do you a favor, get to the
library or a bookstore and find another book covering the same sub-
ject area that you can understand. You might even consider asking
your teacher or professor for recommendations. She will probably
make your job of finding a readable text a lot easier. You may even
score some brownie points for your seeming initiative (as long as you
don’t wonder aloud what caused her to select that torturous text in
the first place!).
“Ron,” I hear you grumbling, “what happened to the ‘study smarter,
not harder’ bit? This can’t possibly be a timesaver. Heck, I’ll bet the
books don’t even cover the subject in the same way, let alone follow
the same sequence! I’ll be stuck slogging through two books.”
How to Study
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Possibly. But if you just don’t get it, maybe it’s because the author just
doesn’t know how to explain it. Maybe it’s not your fault! Too many
students have sweated, moaned, dropped classes, even changed
majors because they thought they were dumb, when it’s possible it’s
the darned textbook that’s dense, not you. So instead of continuing
to slog though the mire, find an expert who can actually write—
they’re out there—and learn what you need to. If the other text finally
helps you understand the subject, you’ll find the original textbook
much easier to fathom…presuming you need it at all.