At Larvatus Prodeo, and at Catallaxy, they’re debating the question of whether you can dismiss an author based on ‘a brief skimming’, which I’ll take, along with some participants in the discussion, to mean five minutes of reading.
My answer to this question, which arises pretty regularly in blog debates is “Absolutely”. At skimming or fast reading speed, five minutes gives you 5000 words, which is more than enough to conclude that a writer is guilty of gross logical or factual errors, pretentious or illiterate prose, repetition of tired and long-refuted arguments, or simple inanity. The idea, commonly put forward in defence of various indefensible types, that you can’t criticise someone unless you have read every word they have ever written is simple nonsense. It’s true that there are people who produce the odd pearl among an output more generally fit for swine. But in such cases, it’s up to their defenders to point out the gems: the volume of words is so great, and the average quality so low, that a demand to read everything is simply impossible.
I should concede that, on one or two occasions, I’ve got into trouble through misreading someone in the first five minutes (or even less), after which pride and prejudice has done the rest. But in general, five minutes is enough to form a well-founded negative judgement.
{ 17 comments }
ogged 04.16.05 at 12:14 am
Depends quite a bit on the subject matter, no? On a blog, five minutes is all people who like the site spend, so sure. Five minutes with most novels is plenty. Same for a journal article. But for longer works, I’m not so sure. I think you’d sound pretty silly if you dismissed the First Critique, or Philosophical Investigations, after five minutes (though you’d be tempted!).
bi 04.16.05 at 12:28 am
Blatant factual errors or inconsistencies are game, if the author decides to actually build upon them to reach a bogus conclusion. Just dismiss straight away. Shoot, don’t ask. That’s what I did with one essay.
Other kinds of supposed “errors” are more difficult.
Keith M Ellis 04.16.05 at 2:32 am
Well, if most people used those five minutes to honestly evaulate the factual claims and reasoning they encounter, I’d go along with your argument. But I am doubtful that this is the case. Rather, people use those five minutes to determine if the writer is sympathetic to their views. If not, they don’t read it.
So, John, are you defending ideal or practical skimming? I would argue that in practice skimming is so often and so badly misused that its theoretical utility is completely nullified. Maybe you’re the exception. Maybe I am. If so, we could defend our skimming. But skimming in general? I don’t think so.
Oh, and of course it’s the case that this skimming can reveal if someone’s arguments and conclusions are probably unreliable. It’s far less likely to reveal that their arguments are invalid and their conclusions wrong. But a person is more likely to skim, and stop, reading a hostile viewpoint and then using that skim as a claim against the hostile argument.
C.S.Strowbridge 04.16.05 at 4:05 am
“But a person is more likely to skim, and stop, reading a hostile viewpoint and then using that skim as a claim against the hostile argument.” – Keith
You couldn’t be more right. Confirmation Bias is a horrible thing when it comes to finding the truth and everybody falls for it.
Christopher M 04.16.05 at 4:16 am
Man, I stopped reading this crap after the first paragraph. Someone point out Quiggin’s gems, please.
Just kidding.
Danny Yee 04.16.05 at 8:02 am
I concur. Five minutes is enough to tell that a novelist can’t actually write, or that a nonfiction work is clueless. If I pick up a creationist tract thinking it’s serious biology it might take me less than 30 seconds to realise what’s going on…
But I don’t ever review books based on a 5 minute skimming – the closest I’ve come is reviewing a Tom Clancy novel after reading only its last two thirds.
Steve Carr 04.16.05 at 9:38 am
You can read 20 pages of a book (that’s about 5000 words) in five minutes? That’s unbelievably fast.
Keith M Ellis 04.16.05 at 10:07 am
Hmm. I also am more than a bit uneasy with what’s implied in this phrase of John’s: “and the average quality so low”.
“Quality” determined in what context? As with my previous comment, I’m wary of selection bias.
If the argument is that triage is necessary (and it is), then I’d argue that “skimming” is only effective as part of a larger toolset. On its own it’s unreliable.
If the argument is as a counter-argument against the assertion that one must read all of a writer’s words to criticize them, well…surely the abolutist nature of that assertion is its own refutation? At least commonsensically?
While “if you haven’t read it, you can’t criticize it” is usually a rhetorical tactic and not an earnest argument, it also seems to me that the “I don’t need to” response is suspciously self-serving.
maree 04.16.05 at 11:03 am
When I was young [long ago] I thought it was impolite to give up a book without reading it through — I must have wasted a lot of time that way. However it was many years before I could bring myself to quick rejection. I find now that I agree largely with what you have said. I would reiterate [why not iterate, or is that only in maths?] that you have differentiated between skimming & reading, which the previous commentator seems not to have noticed. Have you noticed how often these days thin text is dressed in jargon or heavy language in order to make it seem worthwhile to spend time on? That common sense is “dressed” up to look like the result of much study or effort? Or am I just getting cynical/jaded?
Winston Smith 04.16.05 at 11:27 am
Spend five minutes on the introduction (“Notes on Relativism”) to Feyerabend’s _Farewell to Reason_–or on just about anything by Bruno Latour–and your question will be answered.
After five minutes with the aforementioned Feyerabend I could tell that it was unmitigated sophistry. Later I DID end up spending many hours on that hundred pages (a tragic waste of the human spirit, in retrospect) and discovered that it was even worse than I’d initially thought. Intellectually irresponsible rubbish.
Anyway, if the question is “can we EVER tell within five minutes that a book/paper is garbage?”, the answer is clearly ‘yes’–even when there are no blatant grammatical errors or suchlike.
Of course it’s also obvious that we can’t *always* do so. So I guess the real question is “how often can we do so?” Dunno the answer to that one, unsurprisingly.
Ian R 04.16.05 at 1:12 pm
As I slide terifyingly speedily into my dotage I have in recent years initiated a ‘100 page rule’ to my, mainly novel, reading. Just as life is said to be too short to stuff a mushroom, so too is it fruitless to wade on beyond about a hundred pages through nutrient-free porridge. Off the ‘skimming’ point, but relevant to the matter of overall time constraint.
Ian R 04.16.05 at 1:14 pm
Please add another ‘r’ to ‘terrifying.’ Finger dyslexia again.
Colin Danby 04.16.05 at 2:27 pm
The “Rafe Champion” post at catallaxy has it right, as does Danny Yee above.
The problem with this question is that it encourages people to conflate:
(a) making a quick judgment about what it’s worth expending time reading
(b) complaining about bad style
(c) making a serious critical assessment of an article or a book
Joel Turnipseed 04.16.05 at 4:39 pm
… but who hasn’t tossed a book aside, only later to pick it up in a different mood and find that it’s wonderful?
Of course, continuing to read a book in the wrong mood is its own disaster–no small thing to remember when you’re not setting a book aside lightly, but throwing it with great force.
JR 04.16.05 at 8:14 pm
The 5-minute skim is a necesary heuristic– life is too short to read even a small fraction of what’s out there, so you have to develop a way to reject most of what comes before you.
But here’s a good counter-example: Bill James, the inventor of modern baseball statistics, a self-educated night watchman, self-published, whose writing was eccentric, to say the least- his career is chronicled as a sidelight in Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball.
almostinfamous 04.17.05 at 9:55 am
i love skimming rather than reading, because sometimes all you neeed is an idea of what the dude/dudette is trying to say. this way i have time to enjoy. in general, however i find my opinions differ based largely on how much i am interested in or know about the subject.
on a mostly unrelated note, skimming of the comic strip Pearlsbefore swine should leave you holding your sides in laughter.
Doug 04.18.05 at 4:17 am
Isn’t this another entry in the new CT category “intellects teenie-weenie and not very sympathetic at that”?
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