Why We Must Read the Preface First?

“Kalau kalian mau belajar, kalian harus baca dulu preface-nya. Kata pengantarnya. Kalian juga harus membaca biografi penulisnya.” If you want to study, you need to read the preface first. You also need to read the author’s biography. Said Mr.X in his first course of the 3rd semester. He is a lecturer who gives mark E to so many students (I hope not including me) in 3 subjects. When he said that, I was very interest and I read the preface and biography of his recommended book immediately. I felt that I know what I can get from that book. I knew why the author wrote that book. And I knew how the author convinces the entire student to study this amazing knowledge. Just it!

Well, after I read a preface of some recommended books from my mentor, I feel the important one. This is what my mentor said, “To learn something, you must know the reason why you should learn that. Even when we just take a pray we need to know the reason why we should do that five times a day.” 

To read a book, we must know the reason why we should read that through the author’s mind within the preface. Preface is a place where the author writes his reason in writing the book, why he wrote the book in some chapter, where he got the inspiration and references in writing the book, and some notes to the reader and the next recommended author. Therefore we will know where the author will bring us by his book within the preface. After knowing the reason, we also must know the background of the author. Like a mother who wants the best education for her children by choosing the good teachers, we must ensure that we learn a knowledge from the right person.

So what? Let’s read the preface. Let’s study some new vocabularies that are mentioned within the preface. Let’s read the author’s biography. Let’s read the book.

^_^