Prereading Nonfiction Books

It’s true — you can’t judge a book by its cover. But you can tell a lot

about a nonfiction book by prereading it, or examining the particulars

before you read the first page. (Check out Chapter 10 for more on the

art of prereading.). By prereading, you can tell what information is in

the book and whether reading part or all of it is worthwhile.

Examine these parts of a book before you read it:

 ✓ Table of contents: Glance at the chapter titles and headings

to find out what’s in the book. You can also tell a lot about an

author’s ability to organize ideas and present arguments from

the table of contents. If the topics in the table of contents are

presented in a logical manner, if each topic leads succinctly into

the next, you’re holding a well-organized book in your hands.

 ✓ Index: Scour the index for information about the topic you’re

interested in. If the information you need isn’t in the index,

the book probably isn’t worth reading.

 ✓ Preface: You can usually find a good description of the book’s

purpose in the preface, as well as information about the

author’s background and credentials.

 ✓ Introduction: A good introduction explains what is covered in

the book. Plus, you can get a feel for the author’s writing and

determine whether the book will be easy to read or a slog.

 ✓ Chapter summaries: Find out whether the last paragraph of

each chapter offers a summary of the chapter; if it does, read

those last paragraphs first. You can get a rock-solid idea of

what the book covers this way.

While you’re examining your nonfiction book, take a look at the

copyright page to see when it was published. If the book covers a

subject that has undergone changes in recent years, the book may

be out of date and not useful to you. The copyright page is located

on the flipside of the title page.

Confirming the truth of confirma-

tion bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency of people to focus on

evidence that confirms their existing views and to ignore or

discount information that may challenge those views.

Scientists, for all their reputation as dispassionate sifters of

data, often fall easy prey to this bias — repeatedly rejecting

experiments that come to the ‘wrong’ conclusions. The his-

tory of science is full of cases in which scientists carry out an

experiment to prove their theory, but if the results come back

disagreeing, instead of rethinking the whole theory, they sus-

pect the experimental set‐up.

Some great scientific discoveries arose through such behav-

iour, but also many erroneous ideas and theories were per-

petuated long after they should’ve been abandoned.

If the problem of confirmation bias sounds rather abstract,

consider this example. Mind-boggling sums are directed

at developing drugs today that are supposed to help cure

illnesses — and the scientists are often given the task of prov-

ing that the drugs really work. However, if the studies find that

they don’t work, neither the scientists nor the manufacturers

benefit — therefore they tend to repeat the studies until they

get a more positive result. This one is then carried forward.

As a result, zillions of zlotys are spent on remedies that don’t

really work — and may actually be harmful!

Here are four tips for raising your EQ:

✓ Spot emotions: Be aware of other people’s emotions.

Try to notice and read nonverbal signals such as body

language and facial expressions in those around you.

✓ Reason with your emotions: Use your emotions to

guide your thinking, for example to help you prioritise.

A common error is to give too high a priority to trivial

things that are urgent, and neglect important things that

don’t have an obvious deadline. Using your EQ can coun-

teract this tendency.

✓ Understand emotions: Emotions can conceal a wide

range of causes. For example, if someone is getting angry,

it may be because of what you’ve just done or are cur-

rently doing (which may trigger a defensive response

from you). But it may also be because they just had some

bad news (say, a speeding ticket on the way to work) or

maybe they’re just overtired. (In Dostoyevsky’s famous

book, Crime and Punishment, the detective Porfiry

Petrovich displays great emotional intelligence and

empathy in his investigation of Rodion Raskolnikov.)

✓ Handle your emotions: The ability to do this is the final

key aspect of emotional intelligence. For example, an ath-

lete may be tempted to perform a celebratory trick in the

last lap — and maybe lose their focus — and the race.

This actually happened at the 2006 Winter Olympics

when snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis made the mistake

of celebrating her gold medal before actually having actu-

ally won it and ended up with her face in the snow.