Barbara Keating Staton, Thomas. Using the R.S.V.P. attack on each study task will prompt many psychological factors that promote effective learning. It gives you an idea of the overall scheme or pattern of the subject, and as a result you can study the individual topics and ideas with greater comprehension because you know the general form of which they are parts. This is why you should study the table of contents of a book before proceeding beyond the first page. Also, if the table of contents breaks down each chapter into subtopics, you will find it helpful to refer to it as you proceed through the book, reviewing the organization of each new chapter as you study it.
Some authors begin each chapter with a foreword or outline.
Some end each chapter with a summary. Whenever you begin to study a text, check the author s plan. If you are spending more than 15 to 20 seconds per page, you are probably reading too much detail and need to teach yourself to speed more rapidly down the paragraphs, looking at each only long enough to get the general idea. Good scanning is hard mental work. You cannot let your eyes languidly drift down the page and your mind ramble along.