Hints on Textbook Reading
Some of you may be experienced in reading math
or other technical material by now. Others of you may not be. If you're
not, the key is to go slowly and think. Read for the details
as well as the big picture. "Study" may be a better way to say it than
"read". You may need to fill in details with paper and pencil as you go.
Sometimes you may need to read a sentence two or three times to understand
it even if you are paying attention. That is normal for technical reading.
Don't give up prematurely.
Reading the examples carefully is especially important.
You may not understand the body of the text until you do the examples.
Cycling back and forth between text and examples is simply part of what
you have to do.
Be sure to do the exercises assigned with the reading
as you come to them, to help reinforce what you have just read.
You may still have unresolved questions after spending
a suitable amount of time studying the text. If so, bring them to class.
But make your questions as specific as possible when you ask them.
That will prepare you to understand better.
Learning vocabulary is an important part of learning
any subject. In our textbook, new vocabulary usually appears in italics.
As you are probably already aware from your previous experience with mathematics,
common words are often used to denote technical concepts, so be sure not
to confuse the common meaning with the technical meaning. In fact, you
may encounter some words that have one mathematical meaning that you are
familiar with, but are used in a different mathematical meaning in probability.
Some examples you will encounter in this course: "normal", "distribution",
"geometric", "moment, "discrete", "independent", "marginal", "random",
"variable".
You may ask why I am making you go to all this trouble
when I could just explain things to you in class. The reason is threefold.
First, you will understand better if you make the effort yourself than
if you passively listen. Related to this is the increased understanding
that comes from class discussion, which you can't participate in if you're
not prepared and which we wouldn't have time for if I lectured rather than
giving reading assignments. Finally, and perhaps most important, learning
to learn on your own is far more valuable than any specific subject matter
you will learn in college.
For more tips on textbook reading, see the handouts
from the Learning Skills Center, which you can obtain on the Web at
http://www.utexas.edu/student/lsc/rwssl/rdgho.html