SOPHIE V READS

I read everyday but sometimes it’s only Wikipedia pages. I read what I enjoy. I’m not going to be able to read to something I’m not enjoying. I tend to read short articles, Wikipedia pages and descriptions, mostly on the internet. I get interested in a topic and go looking for it on the internet. I don’t really read things on Facebook or social media. I also tend not to read what people tell me to read. If someone gives me a book, I won’t read it. I need to be the person to find it (The texts), to find the material interesting. If it comes to me as recommendation, it’s already boring.

I keep loads of tabs, I favourite pages of interest, but never return to them once I have ‘favourited’ them. I don’t always finish reading them, I will read most of it and then return to the article a month later. When I start reading, if it’s really interesting, I don’t finish it. Then I will come back to it with a word document and take notes. When I re-read, I compile all the connected articles and I summarise them into one document. I copy and paste the key words and information. I don’t print it out, it just gives me a better idea of what it was that I was interested in. I don’t tend to reread it after writing it- it’s just for me.

I read short stuff. I have this silly stuff, and by saving it online, it affords me more time. When I consider my research to expanded enough I return and re-read all the research I have gathered. Not reading the stuff I find interesting is awful. I find books in PDF format and I print them out but I know I won’t read them. The titles are very important to me in my work and that’s a form of writing. It’s more enjoyable. I write English notes on English texts and in French, I write French notes. If it’s rational descriptive information it’s going to be in French and then abstract ideas will be in English.

Breaks and weekends are the times I transport printed all the PDFs with me. But I will read novels on holiday. When I was 12 I really liked reading even though I’ve been quite slow. I was in a literature major in high school, but I’m reading less and less, not because I’m not enjoying it but because I find it hard to focus on the written text. I skim and surf a lot and that makes me really slow. I start by doing that and then I have to go back again and again to read the whole thing. I have to re-read a page over and over again to get all the information. I read novels fast and theoretical writing slowly. I’m not concentrated enough to get all the information. I interpret a lot. I’m not interested in getting the truth from the text; I’m just interested in what I can get from it for my own research and how it relates to my line of thought at the time.