Jeffrey Kaplan, a philosophy professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, challenges the modern assumption that reading speed equates to reading efficiency. He argues that the most effective way to retain information is not to skim faster, but to engage in a deliberate, labor-intensive process of marginalia that forces the brain to synthesize meaning in real-time. For busy professionals who often feel they are drowning in information but starving for understanding, Kaplan's method offers a counterintuitive path to mastery: slow down to speed up.
The Muscle Memory Trap
Kaplan begins by dismantling the passive reading habits that plague even the most educated readers. He draws a striking parallel between driving on autopilot and reading without engagement. "If you drive a lot then it all sort of becomes muscle memory and you don't have to do it in like a in like an engaged focused way it just it just sort of happens," he observes. This is the exact opposite of what is required for deep learning. The core of his argument is that retention is not a byproduct of exposure, but a result of active cognitive friction.
He posits that simply "passing your eyes over the words" is a recipe for failure. Instead, he proposes a specific, rigid procedure: writing a one-sentence summary of every paragraph in the margin. This is not mere note-taking; it is an exercise in compression. "You can only summarize something you can only take six sentences worth of ideas and and condense them down into one sentence of ideas," Kaplan writes. "You can only do that if you like understand what those six sentences mean and figure out what the central core idea is that all of these six sentences have in common." This requirement forces the reader to identify the signal within the noise, a skill that is invaluable in high-stakes decision-making.
The Escalating Synthesis
The method evolves as the text progresses, demanding increasingly complex cognitive work. By the third paragraph, the reader must not only summarize the current text but also synthesize the previous two paragraphs into a single sentence. "What that forces you to do is it forces you to connect these ideas right just like summarizing this first paragraph what you have to do is take all of the ideas in that whole paragraph... and mash them into each other," Kaplan explains. This recursive process ensures that the reader is constantly building a cohesive mental model rather than collecting isolated facts.
Critics might note that this approach seems prohibitively time-consuming for the modern executive who needs to process dozens of pages daily. Kaplan anticipates this objection head-on, reframing the concept of efficiency. He argues that the time saved by skimming is an illusion. "A waste of time is sitting and passing your eyes over the text and not retaining it not thinking through it and absorbing it," he asserts. "If you're gonna do that you might as well go play dodgeball or go sailing or whatever whatever you want to do go do that." The logic is sound: re-reading or cramming later is far less efficient than doing the heavy lifting upfront.
If you want time to actually do that stuff then you got to do this this is efficient it will take a little longer yes but what it will do is it will mean that the time that you spend reading is is better used is more productive.
The Long-Term ROI of Deep Reading
Kaplan supports his methodology with a personal case study from his own academic career, illustrating the long-term retention benefits of this approach. He recounts answering a professor's question about the definition of economics fifteen years after taking the course. The definition—"the study of the allocation of scarce resources"—had stuck not because he memorized it, but because he had actively processed it. "I like wrote it down and then I rephrased it in my own words and then I just sort of stopped reading and thought about it for a minute," he recalls. This active engagement created a durable memory trace that passive reading never could.
He contrasts this with the typical student experience, where reading results in a "D plus level" of understanding, necessitating hours of cramming at the end of a term. By investing more time initially, the reader achieves an "A minus" level of understanding and requires only minimal review later. "This method took you 65 hours over the course of the semester and it generated a c plus this method took 60 hours and it generated an a which is more efficient," Kaplan concludes. The math favors the deep reader, even if the initial investment feels steep.
Bottom Line
Kaplan's argument is compelling because it shifts the metric of success from speed to retention, offering a rigorous framework for anyone drowning in information. The strongest part of his case is the demonstration that active synthesis prevents the "muscle memory" of reading, where words are processed without meaning. However, the biggest vulnerability is the sheer cognitive load required; this method demands a level of focus that may be difficult to sustain during periods of high stress or information overload. For the busy professional, the takeaway is clear: true efficiency lies not in reading more, but in thinking harder while you read.
There is no way to summarize a text like this without thinking through the material and understanding it and retaining it.