I've had very good luck using LLMs to do this. I paste the part of the book that I don't understand and ask questions about it.
Asking the right kind of questions is a genuine skill.
It applies to every domain of life where you are at the mercy of a "professional" or at the mercy of some knowledge differential. So you need to be a good judge of whether the answers you're getting are good answers or bad answers.
Whaaaaat? How does this work? If you're trying to learn a new topic, how are you supposed to recognize a good (and truthful) answer, whether it's from an LLM or instructor?
By being skeptical of the answers, testing the answers, corroborating with other sources, etc.
This isn't new. This is literally how we've been exploring this knowledge game for thousands of years.
I bet when you're learning a new subject you do the same exact thing.
You as the reader when you're reading anything are supposed to verify claims the author is making.
You never expect anything to be sources of truth.
That's why every textbooks either cites the sources or proves their work.
Very rarely do you have any textbook that's just a list of facts out of thin air. I don't think I've seen a single textbook, even bad ones, do this. They always cite their claims, or they show the logical steps to prove or justify a claim. Good textbooks make it easy to follow and clearly show their steps for the convenience of their readers.
Any good textbook seriously considers both the historic literature on their subject, presents the context of that literature, and shows some kind of proof of work that synthesizes all of that to support their claim.
This is always the case. This is how basic academic writing is done.
And it is the job of the reader to follow those citations, and to verify the claims. That's literally how our academic system works.
It's basic literacy.
> Know how to find information in the old technology called “books"
> Can think critically about statements made in such different contexts as advertising, entertainment, news reporting, and books written in an earlier century.
So, before indulging this any further, do you mind citing your source for the definition of "basic literacy" that includes the claim "never expect anything to be sources of truth"?