How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

  • Mortimer J. Adler
  • Charles Van Doren

Different rates of reading to read better

Variable speed reading

Reading is ACTIVE, more the better

Made of Acts, each requiring skill

Reading types

Understanding

Information

Comes from our betters

Insights > understanding

Facts

Enlightened: When we understand author (becoming informed is first)

Sophomores - widely read but with poor understanding

Learning types

  1. Instruction (or aided discovery)
  • Focused on discourse, either by written word or listening - the art of being taught from books/disrouce
  1. Discovery (unaided)
  • Investigation
  • Research
  • Reflection
    • The art of reading nature or the world

Other requirements while learning:

  • Thinking
  • Senses
  • Imagination

Levels of reading

1.Elementary

  1. Inspectional

Identifying individual words to understand them

  1. Analytical
  1. Syntopical (comparative)

Requires work

a. Skim intentionally/pre-reading

For deeply understanding

Work, asking questionals

Read many books for comparison and to a subject

analysis of subject beyond the books

b. Superficial reading

  • Reading the book without looking up things you dont understand (impedes understanding/reading if fixated on in first reading)
  • Concentrate on things you do understand

Speed reading

different rates for different books/sections

optimising fixations and regressions > thumb + 2 fingers as rabbit across page > use to increase concentration also

Comprehension and concentration

Rules of reading (analytical)

Active reading questions

  1. WHAT IS THE BOOK ABOUT AS A WHOLE?
    (The First Stage of Analytical Reading - rules 1-4)
  1. WHAT IS BEING SAID IN DETAIL, AND HOW?
    (Second stage of analytical reading - rules 5-8)
  1. IS THE BOOK TRUE, IN WHOLE OR PART?
  1. WHAT OF IT?

RULE 1. YOU MUST KNOW WHAT KIND OF BOOK YOU ARE READING, AND YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS AS EARLY IN THE PROCESS AS POSSIBLE, PREFERABLY BEFORE YOU BEGIN TO READ

  • Classify the book according to kind and subject matter.

RULE 2. STATE THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE BOOK IN A SINGLE SENTENCE, OR AT MOST A FEW SENTENCES (A SHORT PARAGRAPH).

  • State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity.

RULE 3. SET FORTH THE MAJOR PARTS OF THE BOOK, AND SHOW HOW THESE ARE ORGANIZED INTO A WHOLE, BY BEING ORDERED TO ONE ANOTHER AND TO THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE

  • Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole.

RULE 4. FIND OUT WHAT THE AUTHOR’S PROBLEMS WERE

  • Formulate main question and subordinate questions of author

RULE 5. FIND THE IMPORTANT WORDS AND THROUGH THEM COME TO TERMS WITH THE AUTHOR.

  • Come to terms with the author by interpreting his key words.

RULE 6. MARK THE MOST IMPORTANT SENTENCES IN A BOOK AND DISCOVER THE PROPOSITIONS THEY CONTAIN

  • Grasp the author’s leading propositions by dealing with his most important sentences.

RULE 7. LOCATE OR CONSTRUCT THE BASIC ARGUMENTS IN THE BOOK BY FINDING THEM IN THE CONNECTION OF SENTENCES


OR


FIND IF YOU CAN THE PARAGRAPHS IN A BOOK THAT STATE ITS IMPORTANT ARGUMENTS; BUT IF THE ARGUMENTS ARE NOT THUS EXPRESSED, YOUR TASK IS TO CONSTRUCT THEM, BY TAKING A SENTENCE FROM THIS PARAGRAPH, AND ONE FROM THAT, UNTIL YOU HAVE GATHERED TOGETHER THE SEQUENCE OF SENTENCES THAT STATE THE PROPOSITIONS THAT COMPOSE THE ARGUMENT. (mark up pages to make this connection)

  • Know the author’s arguments, by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences.

argument—a sequence of propositions, some of which give reasons for another

tautologies, common notions - self-evident propositions, status of indemonstrable but also undeniable truths

RULE 8. FIND OUT WHAT THE AUTHOR’S SOLUTIONS ARE.

  • Determine which of his problems the author has solved, and which he has not; and as to the latter, decide which the author knew he had failed to solve.

RULE 9. YOU MUST BE ABLE TO SAY, WITH REASONABLE CERTAINTY, “I UNDERSTAND,” BEFORE YOU CAN SAY ANY ONE OF THE FOLLOWING THINGS: “I AGREE,” OR “I DISAGREE,” OR “I SUSPEND JUDGMENT (argument is not convincing).”

RULE 10: HEN YOU DISAGREE, DO SO REASONABLY, AND NOT DISPUTATIOUSLY OR CONTENTIOUSLY

RULE 11: RESPECT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND MERE PERSONAL OPINION, BY GIVING REASONS FOR ANY CRITICAL JUDGMENT YOU MAKE.

Disagreeing with author rules

  1. Since men are animals as well as rational, it is necessary to acknowledge the emotions you bring to a dispute, or those that arise in the course of it
  1. you must make your own assumptions explicit. You must know what your prejudices—that is, your prejudgments—are. Otherwise you are not likely to admit that your opponent may be equally entitled to different assumption
  1. an attempt at impartiality is a good antidote for the blindness that is almost inevitable in partisanship. Controversy without partisanship is, of course, impossible. But to be sure that there is more light in it, and less heat, each of the disputants should at least try to take the other fellow’s point of view. If you have not been able to read a book sympathetically, your disagreement with it is probably more contentious than civil.

Special Criteria for Points of Criticism

  1. Show wherein the author is uninformed.
  2. Show wherein the author is misinformed.
  3. Show wherein the author is illogical.
  4. Show wherein the author’s analysis or account is incomplete.

click to edit

5 steps in syntopical reading

  1. FINDING THE RELEVANT PASSAGES
  1. BRINGING THE AUTHORS TO TERMS.
  1. GETTING THE QUESTIONS CLEAR.
  1. DEFINING THE ISSUES.
  1. ANALYZING THE DISCUSSION.