Do You Really Read Blog Posts?

We visit various blogs everyday and subscribe to few of them. This subscription decision depends on two factors. First, we like the blog or the way it’s been posted and second, we don’t know much about it. The wieghtage of the latter is generally more. This facilitates improvement of our knowledge and skills, if we read the article sincerely and with concentration.

It may sound weird because it is. I am going to explain you how to read an article effectively without missing out important information. And it may also feel idiotic to go through something that teaches you to read, but it’s important. Each person who reads blog must go through this article at least once. Most of the time, I just go through the headings and sub-headings of the blog post and very often I miss out the essence of the blog post.

Don’t read just because you came across the article. If you read it, don’t give up before ensuring that you some new knowledge from the post.

Don’t read. Interpret.

Most of the blog posts are opinionated. The blogger might support or be against an idea. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to agree with him and go against the idea just because the blogger has put it agreeably or rhythmically or intelligently. What worked for him may not work for you. What is right for him may be wrong for you.

There are some exceptions to this. Some posts offer tutorials which needs to be followed as mentioned in the article.

Okay. Now let us consider an example.

Mr. A writes a blog post about how he made money. He explains in depth the steps he took to generate his income. It also involves a product. It turned out to be a great article because he also mentioned what kind of personality you need to adopt in order to sell a product in ‘today’s market.’ He later informs his reader about the type of market he worked in and how much time did he take to get the targeted money.

Mr. B reads the article carefully. However, unlike us, he reads the article carefully and lists down the facts:

• About the product he used to generate income
• The steps
• The type of personality required to sell the product
• Lot of research needs to be done before jumping on to a conclusion and start selling.

With this information, he can make money in his own way instead of following it blindly. He knows he cannot directly relate to the article, despite the fact that this article has been on the best one and topped Digg for many weeks, mainly because there is a difference in personality. Mr. A and Mr. B are very different from each other. However, there were a couple of things Mr. B liked and were in common, which he directly applied.

This may sound weird but this is what many bloggers asks their readers to do. For instance, relationship blogs. If you are going through a break-up or post break-up depression, they straight away ask you to do this or do that or follow 5 steps to lead a happy life again. How? The blogger and the reader are so different. I hope you got the point.

Okay. What’s more?

If you are really reading something to extract information from the article, you need to analyze it. And by doing this, you will definitely learn something new. That’s a guarantee from my side. Here are few ways that can help you to analyze any piece of information.

1. Read it again:
   This is quite boring and I am sure most of skip this. Even I skip it. But not when I really need the information. Do this once and you will be astonished to know how it benefits you.You got a general idea when you read it once. However, after reading it for the second time, you understand much better.Generally, when we read an article, we come across many sentences, the meaning of which is not quite clear to us. However, we proceed and never come back to the un-comprehended sentence.
2. Does the current paragraph relate to the next or the previous one?
   Paragraphs are made to differentiate sub topics under a topic. If you can relate the interlinking meaning, you will get a bigger and better picture of the whole. Try this, it’s fun and useful.
3. Your title test
   To know whether you will learn something from the article or not, try this. Read the title, and before reading any part of the content, just reflect everything you know about the topic.If you don’t know much, you must definitely read it, may be twice. Even if you know about it, read the article and check what did you miss or sometimes, what did the blogger miss.

I know it may sound quite tedious to many and quite impractical to some. However, I found this to be of great use. You read (or just glance through) the article once and I am sure you don’t remember anything. But read it twice with focus, you will not forget it anytime soon.