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       #Post#: 80--------------------------------------------------
       Reading: the essential, the recommended, and the superfluous?
   DIR By: LouFederer
       Date: July 18, 2012, 10:43 am
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       Hi guys
       I have just organised my first file for the degree and have read
       through the study guides for this year. Needless to say, I am
       slightly alarmed by the amount of reading that needs doing.
       Don't get me wrong, I'm not a shirker and I love reading, but
       the titles listed under the 'essential' reading lists seem
       endless and insuperable! How am I going to find the time to get
       all of this done, and make progress, and write up all my notes
       (and then remember them)?! I've looked at exam questions from
       past papers, and, to my eyes, a great deal of those questions
       don't appear to require expert knowledge on the minutiae of
       every text, or every possible critical opinion on the works in
       question. I am planning to study with my texts in one hand and
       the exam questions in the other, and use my (pretty good)
       judgement to decide whether the questions are going to need
       extra-fine, detailed understanding, with page numbers and
       citations to boot, or whether I can do just as well by being
       slightly more economical with my time, and keeping those
       recurrent exam questions at the front of my mind.
       I know everybody studies in different ways, and some of us have
       more time than others to consume every commentary and journal
       article on the finer points of a philosophical work, but is
       London right to call this reading 'essential', i.e. am I going
       to be seriously disadvantaged without going the (extra) extra
       mile?
       I would really appreciate your comments and thoughts on this, I
       suspect I'm not the only person to have thought along these
       lines. :)
       Lou  :)
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