A semester is a really short amount of time to learn anything.

This makes life difficult. Sometimes, the professor turns whole interesting topics into footnotes. Some topics just aren't mentioned at all. Why? It might be because the professor doesn't like or agree with the textbook on some of the ideas in the class. Many of my professors just don't have time to go all of the stuff that the textbook can put a lot of detail into.

Speaking of detail, the word choice and sentence structure of textbooks can often be dry and informative. That's not engaging. But you've got to learn somehow.

Do I have to?

Oh, good. Straw Man has appeared to save the day. He'll be showing up in quotation marks and italics for the rest of this article.

Now, on to some tips to maybe make textbook reading easier.

1. Take notes

Are you kidding me? I go to class and take notes on the lecture, and you want me to do MORE?

Yes, I do, Straw Man. Writing helps you really engage with the information. And repeating the same activity, writing just like you do in class, helps reinforce that this sort of learning is the same. It's helpful for me to remember it and include my own jokes as I go so I compress sometimes lengthy explanations into a few keywords. See?

2. Memes

Memes? The funny pictures online? What do those have to do with reading a textbook?

Sure, that word refers to the funny online pictures. But at its core, memes are just simple units of information. They're really helpful for compressing detailed and nuanced situations into small and contextual pieces.

For example, my intercultural communication textbook refers to military proxy wars in some depth. In my notes, I only wrote a short quote from a video game that summarizes the same information in a context I was already familiar with.

3. Operant conditioning

If all else fails, promise yourself a treat when you get done with reading the selection or chapter. Maybe a yummy food. Maybe an episode of your favorite show. Maybe you get to look at some funny pictures of llamas. (I think that last one is just for me.)

Now, I can't promise this will make reading textbooks fun. But it might a few of your books page-turners instead of stomach-turners.