Saturday, July 2, 2016

The Benefits of Philosophy

"A study published in the International Journal of Business Administration found that what students read in college directly affects the level of writing they achieve. In fact, researchers found that reading content and frequency may exert more significant impacts on students’ writing ability than writing instruction and writing frequency. Students who read academic journals, literary fiction, or general nonfiction wrote with greater syntactic sophistication (more complex sentences) than those who read fiction (mysteries, fantasy, or science fiction) or exclusively web-based aggregators like Reddit, Tumblr, and BuzzFeed. The highest scores went to those who read academic journals; the lowest scores went to those who relied solely on web-based content."
Another study that shows something I've argued for a while now: it's quality, not quantity, that matters when it comes to reading. You can read a ton of books, but that doesn't matter if all the books are crap. Sure, read your schlocky novels and children's books for fun, but read something complex or thought-provoking too. Don't starve your brain. It's hungry. Feed it.

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