About Mathematics Commentary
On Reading the Text
This text is written in an informal style that is designed purposely to serve these students as attractive reading.
Even this style does not, however, entirely make up for the difference between mathematical exposition and general literature.
Math writing is far more dense and often requires rereading a sentence or phrase to make sense of it. This is rarely true of
literature where you can get the general idea through rapid reading or even scanning. It is therefore important that you
encourage your students to read the text with care.
One of the finest classroom lessons I was fortunate to attend was taught by Professor Morey Wantman at the University of Rochester.
It was the first class of a statistics course and Professor Wantman had us read together a few paragraphs of our stat text. After
every few sentences he would stop and ask us what was being conveyed. Then when we had read the entire section, he asked us what
it had been about. I came away from that lesson realizing that I had to change my reading habits.
You may wish to try this as well.
Note: Only later did I learn that Professor Wantman had made important contributions to the Manhattan Project, which developed
the atomic bombs that ended World War II.