9 ms·

I normally read around 600 to 1000 wpm (depending on how dense or vapid it is). This speeds up my reading wayyyyy past that. 1500 wpm? And I was barely trying.

I normally read around 600 to 1000 wpm (depending on how dense or vapid it is). This speeds up my reading wayyyyy past that. 1500 wpm? And I was barely trying. It does look super fucking ugly, but it totally works for me. They need to bring in an army of designers and make software geared towards legal assistants / lawyers because they need this desperately.

bvi 13y ago
What techniques do you use? I read at around 600wpm, and increasing it by 50-100% seems pretty daunting.
- jol 13y ago
  I trained a bit speed reading when I was in higschool from some book that was translated from Russian (sorry, no idea what was the book) the main idea there was to: 1) not saying words with inner voice 2) not reading letter by letter (seeing whole word at once) 3) reading by connected words not only word by word 4) there was eye training exercise, the idea was that you had to train vision a bit to be able to read more text with less eye movement, i.e. to read word by word you have to be able to see whole word at once (so your brain recognizes word with 1 lookup, not letter-by-letter lookup) whether this helped - I don’t now but that spreeder says that I can read more than 1500 wpm on casual texts (when there is a lot of material I want to realy comprehend, ofcourse it is slower even by factor of 3)
  - anentropic 13y ago
    I have no idea what speed I read at but it's weird seeing this stated... I never imagined anyone but a 4 year old would do 1 and 2 and would have thought that 3 and 4 were basically just normal adult reading. I did read a lot when I was a kid
    - 3pt14159 13y ago
      It is a normal transition for childhoods filled with reading. I read about 10k pages a year until I graduated university. For a hacker, it is normal to not subvocalize. I think it is also one of the reasons that we hate meetings so much. An email can be written at about 40 wpm, and read much, much, much faster. So past 2 or 3 people, the dominant strategy should be text, unless sidechannel meaning is needed (where emotions are involved or whatever).
  - innguest 13y ago
    "1) not saying words with inner voice" That's been debunked a while ago. There's no such thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization
gnicholas 13y ago
We are going to be integrating with Casetext (YC S13), which is an upstart competitor to Lexis/Westlaw. They're looking to revolutionize legal case research, and we're glad to be a part of it!
zobzu 13y ago
when i read that fast i dont have time to think about what i read. thus the colors just disturb me as well.
rokhayakebe 13y ago
I read at 146 words per minute, and that is average text. I probably read slower when the material is hard. Over the past year or so I went through roughly 90% of Plato's work (like, really), The Quran (partially), On the Nature of Things, Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Discourses by Epictetus, How to Read by M. Adler, Alchemy of Happiness by Ghazalli, etc.... I also read several short text including James Allen, Xenophon, etc... Currently I am reading Jacques Rousseau, and getting back soon to Adam Smith Wealth of Nations... I also started but did not finish yet the Communist Manifesto, How we think (slightly), Prior Analytics (slightly) and perhaps my hardest read ever, Suma Theologica. I am 100% sure I forgot a couple of books I read. Many of these writings I re-read a few times because they are hard to grasp for me. AT 146 words/minute. I am an inefficient reader, and I never knew it. I am going to thoroughly research ways to improve this.
- smalltalk 13y ago
  What does this post have to do with the topic? Why do we care what you've read over the past year? No one cares and you're not that special. Other people read too.
- graeme 13y ago
  I like spreeder: http://www.spreeder.com/ http://www.spreeder.com/ Set the chunk size to three for best effect. Just gradually increase it each time, and also try using it occasionally with the speed far too fast. You'll get used to subvocalizing less, and reading multiple words at once. Of course, for complex texts like the ones you read, it's natural to read much slower. I read 600 WPM for most internet articles, but I'm sure I wouldn't read plato that fast, nor as continuously.
  - WalterGR 13y ago
    Since I don't find RSVP mentioned in the comments here: That technique is called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentatio... (The Wikipedia article should mention saccades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade) but strangely it doesn't.) I wrote an RSVP reader in the mid-to-late 90s in QuickBasic. I'll have to see if I can dig up that code. :)
loceng 13y ago
I wasn't skeptical at you saying the increase was this big, and then I went to try it for myself. Wow. This definitely allows my eyes to track better. I'm a bit dizzy now, too ... Reading felt as fluent as my own thoughts.

bvi 13y ago

What techniques do you use? I read at around 600wpm, and increasing it by 50-100% seems pretty daunting.

jol 13y ago
I trained a bit speed reading when I was in higschool from some book that was translated from Russian (sorry, no idea what was the book) the main idea there was to: 1) not saying words with inner voice 2) not reading letter by letter (seeing whole word at once) 3) reading by connected words not only word by word 4) there was eye training exercise, the idea was that you had to train vision a bit to be able to read more text with less eye movement, i.e. to read word by word you have to be able to see whole word at once (so your brain recognizes word with 1 lookup, not letter-by-letter lookup) whether this helped - I don’t now but that spreeder says that I can read more than 1500 wpm on casual texts (when there is a lot of material I want to realy comprehend, ofcourse it is slower even by factor of 3)
- anentropic 13y ago
  I have no idea what speed I read at but it's weird seeing this stated... I never imagined anyone but a 4 year old would do 1 and 2 and would have thought that 3 and 4 were basically just normal adult reading. I did read a lot when I was a kid
  - 3pt14159 13y ago
    It is a normal transition for childhoods filled with reading. I read about 10k pages a year until I graduated university. For a hacker, it is normal to not subvocalize. I think it is also one of the reasons that we hate meetings so much. An email can be written at about 40 wpm, and read much, much, much faster. So past 2 or 3 people, the dominant strategy should be text, unless sidechannel meaning is needed (where emotions are involved or whatever).
- innguest 13y ago
  "1) not saying words with inner voice" That's been debunked a while ago. There's no such thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization

gnicholas 13y ago

We are going to be integrating with Casetext (YC S13), which is an upstart competitor to Lexis/Westlaw. They're looking to revolutionize legal case research, and we're glad to be a part of it!

zobzu 13y ago

when i read that fast i dont have time to think about what i read. thus the colors just disturb me as well.

rokhayakebe 13y ago

I read at 146 words per minute, and that is average text. I probably read slower when the material is hard. Over the past year or so I went through roughly 90% of Plato's work (like, really), The Quran (partially), On the Nature of Things, Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Discourses by Epictetus, How to Read by M. Adler, Alchemy of Happiness by Ghazalli, etc.... I also read several short text including James Allen, Xenophon, etc... Currently I am reading Jacques Rousseau, and getting back soon to Adam Smith Wealth of Nations... I also started but did not finish yet the Communist Manifesto, How we think (slightly), Prior Analytics (slightly) and perhaps my hardest read ever, Suma Theologica. I am 100% sure I forgot a couple of books I read. Many of these writings I re-read a few times because they are hard to grasp for me. AT 146 words/minute. I am an inefficient reader, and I never knew it. I am going to thoroughly research ways to improve this.

smalltalk 13y ago
What does this post have to do with the topic? Why do we care what you've read over the past year? No one cares and you're not that special. Other people read too.
graeme 13y ago
I like spreeder: http://www.spreeder.com/ http://www.spreeder.com/ Set the chunk size to three for best effect. Just gradually increase it each time, and also try using it occasionally with the speed far too fast. You'll get used to subvocalizing less, and reading multiple words at once. Of course, for complex texts like the ones you read, it's natural to read much slower. I read 600 WPM for most internet articles, but I'm sure I wouldn't read plato that fast, nor as continuously.
- WalterGR 13y ago
  Since I don't find RSVP mentioned in the comments here: That technique is called Rapid Serial Visual Presentation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Serial_Visual_Presentatio... (The Wikipedia article should mention saccades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade) but strangely it doesn't.) I wrote an RSVP reader in the mid-to-late 90s in QuickBasic. I'll have to see if I can dig up that code. :)

loceng 13y ago

I wasn't skeptical at you saying the increase was this big, and then I went to try it for myself. Wow. This definitely allows my eyes to track better. I'm a bit dizzy now, too ... Reading felt as fluent as my own thoughts.