The Art of Deep Reading

I used to be a superficial reader.

I didn’t realize it at the time, of course. Based on all the marketing and copywriting books in my “finished” pile, anyone would have assumed I possessed deep domain knowledge. Me included.

But then something happened that made me realize I was mostly fooling myself, just satisfying my ego by reading the “right” books and not learning much from them.

I happened about a year ago, while having drinks with some colleagues in Los Angeles.

We were talking shop when I mentioned a new book I’d read called Wired for Story. “It’s amazing,” I told my friend. “Like a step-by-step blueprint for how to write stories people can’t peel their eyes away from.”

That kind of quick description was usually enough for conversation’s sake. “Awesome, I’ll have to read it sometime,” people usually respond. But my friend was an avid reader, so he went further. “Sounds cool,” he said. “What are some of the main ideas?”

My mind immediately drew a blank. In a split-second of horror, I realized I couldn’t recall enough to give even a basic overview of what I’d read. I managed to babble out some bullshit answer to save face, but I felt like a fraud exposed to the light. Talk about a wakeup call.

Now, a little background: Wired for Story was important to me. It’s a book that confers a kind of “in the know” status to copywriters who’ve read it.

If this was any other book, I may have been able to rationalize things and continue on my merry superficial-reading way. But I saw Wired for Story as an entrypoint to a skill I seriously wanted to master. If I didn’t take the time to understand it’s lessons, I was doing my career a disservice.

So after my revelation, I decided to read it again. But instead of “just” rereading it, this time I would study it, like a PHD candidate preparing for a dissertation. I wasn’t messing around.

What follows is the framework I developed during that reread, and refined with a handful of other books in the past year.

The Deep Reading Process

When most people read how-to type books, they’re basically skimming. They read, tell themselves they understood what they read, then go into the world armed with the false confidence of shallow learning.

This is bad. For knowledge workers, domain mastery is everything. If you think you know something simply because you read (skimmed) a well-regarded book, you may be setting yourself up for failure.

But when you understand and retain what you’ve read — and the more effectively you can employ that knowledge in your work — the more sought after you’ll be. Deep reading is an excellent way to lock-in knowledge from quality books.

What You’ll Need

• An Amazon Account, so you can access Kindle Cloud Reader
• The book you want to deep read, in Kindle form
• The Bookcision app to make accessing your highlights easy
• Optional, but highly recommended: The Libby App for free library ebooks

Step 1: Read

Pretty simple. When you come across a book that looks interesting, borrow or buy it in Kindle form. This is important — for the Deep Reading method, the book needs to be in electronic form because you’re going to be doing a lot of copying and pasting. You can do this in the Kindle mobile app, but I use the Cloud Reader, which is the Kindle desktop app. It makes the entire process easy.

Also, to save money, I recommend downloading the Libby App from Overdrive — it’s an amazing smartphone app that lets you borrow audiobooks and ebooks from your library with just a couple screen taps.

Once you’ve got your book, simply read through at your normal pace. Don’t worry about taking notes, don’t worry about committing anything to memory.

At this stage, you’re just figuring out if this is a book you want to go deep with. Some books you may want to stop reading a quarter of the way through, and that’s fine. There are too many excellent books out there to waste your time with ones that are subpar, or not what you’re looking for.

The only way to find out which books you like and which you don’t is to constantly be picking up new books. Libby is great for this. I have a long backlog of “holds” in the app, books I’ll sample and either read, toss, or mark for deep reading.

Step 2: Highlight & Copy-Paste

When you find a book that speaks to you, the next step is to go back in for a thorough re-read, one chapter at a time. You’re looking for passages that speak to you, that really stick out as valuable. When you find one, go ahead and highlight it in the app.

Don’t hold back. Anytime you find a passage, thought, concept, or idea that seems useful, highlight it. Your highlights can be long, like entire passages, or they can be short like little slices of text. Do whatever works for you.

Then, when you get to the end of a chapter, open the Bookcision app, copy your highlights, and paste them into a word processor document, like Google docs. Title this document “Highlights.” Simple.

Step 3: Refine the Highlights

This is where we start to go deep. You’ve found the best ideas from the book, now you’re going to begin weaving them into your mind, one thread at a time.

Start by making a copy of the Highlights document, and title it “Refined Notes.” Go through this new document, rereading each piece of text again.

But as you read, start making edits to the highlights. If the author uses unusual grammar or sentence structure, rearrange the words so they’re easier for you to understand. If they use long, run-on sentences, break them up. Break up long paragraphs into smaller chunks with one main idea each. Bulletize long lists. Also, feel free to delete any highlights that maybe aren’t as relevant as you’d thought. You’re in control — this is now your knowledge, your domain.

The goal is to make the author’s ideas as easy to understand as possible. You’re extracting the core meaning — the “universals” — behind the author’s words, and rendering them in your own writing.

At the same time you’re refining, scrutinize the ideas. How does what you’re reading square with your experience? Have you been in a scenario similar to what you’re reading? Have you read anything before with a similar message?

You’re making connections, embedding the new information into the web of knowledge you already have in your mind. As you do this, the ideas will begin to feel less like external facts “out there” and more like your own wisdom. You’re making the knowledge yours.

Step 4: Write Out the High-Level Ideas By Hand

Keeping your refined notes document open, now go through it one item at a time, writing down the core ideas on a pad of paper. Don’t use the same words as your refined notes — keep it high-level. Just try and capture the essence of what you’ve learned.

Also, don’t worry about neatness, you’re not going to save the hand-written notes. You’re simply using the physical act of writing to further embed the new knowledge into your mind.

Step 5: Explain Things in Detail

This final step ties everything together. Open a fresh document in Word or Google Docs and close all other tabs. Keep your hand-written notes open.

Now, working from your hand-written notes, explain each of the key concepts as thoroughly as possible. Leave out no details, pretend like you’re writing a “Dummies” guide for beginners. If you did all the previous steps, you’ll be amazed how easily the concepts spring to mind — they’ll be fully formed, ready to type out.

Congratulations, you now understand your book better than 99.9% of all people who’ve read it. The knowledge it contains is now yours. The next, ongoing step is to actively apply the knowledge day to day in your work.

Note: If anything feels hazy in your “Dummies guide” explanation, just go back to your refined notes and read over the parts that were unclear. Then, repeat Step 5 for that section until you can write it out with confidence.

Now Try It Yourself

Deep Reading takes time. Don’t attempt to deep read every book from the start, save it for the one that truly deserve the investment. If you’re particular about what you read, maybe one in four books will make the cut.

Try the method for yourself, and I guarantee you’ll remember more of what you read and understand it on a more intuitive level. It’s worth the extra work required.

If you have any questions about how to get started or need some book recommendations (particularly around copywriting and marketing) leave a comment below.