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Better Reading Experience

While any browser can be used to read these books, Microsoft's Edge browser offers a few things that result in a significantly better reading experience. The following sections describe the parts and the entire process.

Reading Aloud

When viewing a chapter, if you "right click", there is a "Read Aloud" option on the right-click menu. Try it.

Sometimes, I find listening preferable to reading. Sometimes, listening and reading combined works better.

Chapter Summary using CoPilot AI

Microsoft has integrated its CoPilot AI into the Edge browser. You can use CoPilot to obtain summary of a chapter. If you have not used CoPilot, here are a few instructions...

When viewing a chapter, press the CoPilot icon, which can be found in the upper right corner of Edge. This opens a CoPilot sidebar. In this sidebar, you will see a "Create a summary" button. Press it and CoPilot will provide you with the summary.

If you had previously opened CoPilot, then in order to obtain a summary, you will need to refresh it first. To refresh, press the refresh icon. It is very close to top right corner of CoPilot sidebar. Then press the "Create a summary" button.

Once you have used CoPilot in various ways, you will find the above description rudimentary.

Section Summary using CoPilot AI

You can use CoPilot to obtain summary of any section. Here are the instructions...

While reading chapters in my books, you can choose the section or sections that you want to read and only those sections are displayed; and other sections are hidden. This was discussed in the previous chapter.

When viewing those selected sections, press the CoPilot icon, which can be found in the upper right corner of Edge. This opens a CoPilot sidebar. If you had previously opened CoPilot sidebar, then refresh it. In this sidebar, you will see a "Create a summary" button. Press it and CoPilot will provide you with the summary.

Rewrite Section using CoPilot AI

You could ask CoPilot to rewrite your selected sections by retaining its meaning and logic but cleaning up its grammar. Here are the instructions...

When viewing the selected sections, press the CoPilot icon, which can be found in the upper right corner of Edge. This opens a CoPilot sidebar. This sidebar has an input box in which you can chat with CoPilot. If you had previously opened CoPilot sidebar, then refresh it. In this box enter the following request and then press the Enter key. CoPilot will present the webpage content rewritten for you.

Rewrite the entire contents of the webpage, 
without changing its meaning and logic flow,
but eliminate all grammatical flaws.

Here is an alternative request that you can make.

Rewrite the entire contents of the webpage, 
without changing its meaning and logic flow,
for a smoother reading experience

You could also try these same commands with the entire chapter being viewed, but CoPilot may not rewrite the entire chapter. This can also happen with sections that are too long.

Abstract or Summary

You could obtain an abstract of the chapter or section or sections that you are currently viewing by requesting CoPilot to produce the abstract with the following command:

Write an abstract for the webpage contents.

Here is another command that can generate both the abstract and the summary.

First, write an abstract for the page contents. 
Then, summarize the main points on this page.

Combining All Technologies

If you want to quickly get familiar with an entire book, then for each chapter, obtain both an abstract and summary, read them, and proceed to the next chapter.

Summaries aid in understanding the content being read. However, any summary, whether it is human written or AI generated, will skip a large amount of content. So, any summary can miss one or more important points during the summarization. So, reading summaries cannot be a substitute for reading the whole material. That said, summaries help you get started with the material. That is valuable.

Listening is easier than actually reading.

With all the technologies mentioned above, using the following steps helps in understanding the written word better:

  • Select an individual section
  • Obtain both its abstract and summary. Read it.
  • Use the "Read Aloud" feature and listen to the section.
  • Think about it. Let that thinking guide you to the next step.