## March 16, 2012

### Speed Reading: Taking care, moving backwards, slowing down…

Tutor was Han-Na Cha.

Let’s comment on the second one first, because that’s shorter. If a summary, or key point list, is offered at the end, it’s convenient to do that -> section headings -> start, linearly forward to get some indication of where it’s going and which parts to skip over. If not, the section headings themselves offer a decent summary (often, yet not always).

Onto the first: reading symbols. We begin, naturally, with an example.
$(\forall x,y)(\forall \epsilon > 0)(\exists \delta)(|x-y|< \delta \Rightarrow |f(x)-f(y)|<\epsilon)$
This one is the definition of continuity of a function $f$ everywhere. Once again, the brackets here provide an obvious chunk. Draw attention, here, to the first triplet:
$(\forall x,y)(\forall \epsilon > 0)(\exists \delta)$
This is /also/ a chunk: that is, it’s a combination you see a lot, and it’s also the initiation step for this sentence: we have initiation, followed by statement. It’s also importantly different from
$(\forall \epsilon > 0)(\exists \delta)(\forall x,y)$
which is used for uniform continuity, despite sharing all three chunked phrases, with two paired.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out the way to get better at reading is to read more, and look out for the patterns that emerge.

### One comment

1. #### Han-na Cha

Hi Chris,

Thanks for clarifying the action points. Good update – I’ve been on holiday for 2 weeks so going to read your updates from this one.

10 Apr 2012, 16:28

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