1. Try to get a mentor. During my time as a PhD student in philosophy, I had the luck of having a mathematician and physicist turned philosopher as my supervis

1. Try to get a mentor. During my time as a PhD student in philosophy, I had the luck of having a mathematician and physicist turned philosopher as my supervisor. He helped me a lot in understanding notation and improving my own mathematical writing style (~ getting silly notation ideas playing around with LaTeX out of my head). Notation heavily relied on conventions and these differ from field to field. Mathematicians are usually very clear and define everything. They have to be easy to understand, because what they are talking about gets very complicated very fast. Unfortunately, in other areas like logic-oriented theoretical CS there is an unhealthy focus on 'notational precision' (plus shortcuts, making things worse) rather than being understood that can make papers rather incomprehensible at first. 2. Look for textbooks with good mathematical prose. Get some recommendations. Some good introductory books are relatively short, self-contained, define everything, and avoid symbols in favor of English in many places. Try to get one of those in the area you're interested in. 3. Check your reading style. (kind of obvious advice that is often given, but maybe still helpful) You may be reading the texts in the wrong way. I did that very often and occasionally still do. Reading a mathematical text takes way more time than any other text and requires active participation. Do the exercises and stop every so often to check your understanding. Constantly use pen and paper and check everything. Draw diagrams.