Vanishing into the Amnestic Sphere

I've always been unable to explain very well why I don't retain much of what I read on the job. But my editor colleague Elaine breaks it down perfectly:

"People often comment to me that I must learn a lot from all the different material I copyedit. It's hard to explain that the mind in 'copyediting' mode works differently from the one in 'learning' or 'reading for pleasure' mode—you just don't retain much meaning or knowledge when you're thinking in the 'small' terms of details of spelling, usage, punctuation, and so forth. There's no time for the kind of rehearsal and deep reading that leads to retention. (Unfortunately, I've done a lot of really interesting books that have completely vanished into the amnestic sphere.)"

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