in the old days I'd go to a physical university library, find the topic section, go to the topic section and then pick the shortest book the subject. That would give me a succinct frame, then I'd read the longer books.

Not sure how to modernize that.

— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) July 19, 2020

Here’s what I do to learn fields rapidly:

1) Find reviews online for undergrad textbooks and closely read at least three of the best ones of those you can find.

2) Then, once you have the vocabulary and ideas in your head from these books, find some of the canonical papers in the field and read those. Look up any words you don’t know or concepts you can’t understand.

3) Once you have read a few dozen to a few hundred scientific papers in the field, then move on to upper-level textbooks that are also well-reviewed. Read at least two of those.

4) At the same time as above, read some pop science books (if any) about the field, recognizing they are often distorted. However, many are much better written than the textbooks and can lead to understanding in areas that textbooks omit as “obvious” or that just aren’t seen as relevant to the field because academia is so very narrow.

5) Go back and re-read some of the papers you didn’t understand well before and find some new ones, too. Preferably a few dozen more at least.

6) At the end of all this, you’ll often have a better understanding of the field than most undergraduates who actually majored in this area, if you are diligent and have a decent brain.

7) Repeat and prosper for any field that interests you.