"My method for efficient reading is TICCN. I’m referring here to reading a book, but I use the same basic method for an article.
T = Title and structure.
I = Introduction.
C = Conclusion.
C = Chapters.
N = Notes.
Title and structure may be self-evident, but I’m surprised how often or how quickly, as critical readers, we pass over a book’s title. And just as telling, sometimes more so, are the chapter (and section) titles and structure. Reading an Introduction for the articulation of the thesis is pretty basic, but it’s worth noting that you need to do that intentionally. This is where the author wants you to know where her argument relates to other scholarship, how it contributes to and challenges work in the field. Which field or fields does she think her work is best speaking to or with? How is she positioning her work vis a vis established scholarship? Emerging scholarship? Particular methods and theoretical positions? The conclusion is next for me because I want to know whether the author in fact ends where she meant to end up.
Reading the introduction and conclusion of each chapter, then, is the next step in assessing the argument’s development. It’s also a way to assess which chapters carry which burden of the argument. Sometimes it’s clear that particular chapters are more consequential than others in moving the argument ahead, and then it’s important to pay particular attention to the evidence that’s marshaled there. I try to skim the notes for each chapter to understand when the type or volume of evidence changes. This is not to suggest that more traditional, textual evidence is reflective of a chapter’s significance (either for the book, or more generally speaking). It might be that the most important argument of the book comes from a particularly revealing analysis of a single source– or interpretation of previous scholarship’s reliance on same. It is to note that attention to how an author marshals evidence can be, along with primary argument and scholarly positioning, the most important thing you take from an efficient reading."
