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Is this question acceptable?: How to study a math text

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    Question: How to study a math text

    Andy points out in the comments that the user asking is an undergraduate student and he might get more useful responses at math.se. I want to ask if the same question, only on the graduate level, i.e. reading graduate textbooks and research monographs etc, is acceptable.

    Two other questions mentioned in the comments, somewhat related, were closed.

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    I would prefer not to see this question on MO, at whatever level. If you could make it very, very precise then it might just be acceptable. To be a very precise question, it has to be so that an answer can be short and not provoke a whole slew of comments after it along the lines of "Yes, but X said in 1943 that if you read maths books upside-down then you'll just get a headache.".

    Of course, it's an important skill to learn but it's an afternoon tea discussion because any piece of advice on this issue worth hearing about should also be accompanied by quite an extensive discussion on why that piece of advice works for that particular person and what it is about that person that makes it work for them; otherwise, how are you going to choose your own strategy?

    • CommentAuthorpeterwshor
    • CommentTimeAug 13th 2010
     

    I think this question really could be useful for graduate students ... it's a skill that different people approach in different ways, but it's not at all clear to someone approaching math textbooks for the first time how you should proceed, and seeing various people's strategies could be very useful.

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    I think that advice on this could be very useful for graduate students, indeed for more than just them. I just don't think that MO is the right place to gather that advice. I wouldn't vote to close a question that asked "Where can I find about about different ways to read maths books?", but I would vote to close a question that asked "How do people read maths books?".

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    I think a question asking people how they read books/papers would be useful, though the linked question was at too low a level for MO.
    • CommentAuthorAndrewL
    • CommentTimeAug 16th 2010 edited
     
    I vote it's a good question for MO since there really is no "correct" answer and it would give an interesting insight into the thought processes of the posters here.

    Paul Halmos famously said that a splendid mathematical education can be obtained by actively reading the first 10 pages of a dozen or so serious treatises on mathematics' various subfields.I'm not sure if that's true,but one would certainly have a much deeper understanding of each of those subfields by doing so.
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    Andrew L: Having no correct answer is not generally considered to be a criterion for a good MO question. Many think the opposite. On the other hand, there have been successful advice questions, and I agree with Andy Putman that a question along these lines but at a more advanced level might work.

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