How to Read a Book: Notes on Intelligent Reading

Teachability as a Virtue

Read not to contradict & refute, not to believe & take for granted, but to weigh & consider.

To read seriously is to be teachable. A reader should not approach a book only to oppose it or accept it blindly. The task is to understand what the author is saying, weigh the ideas, and consider the argument.

The Activity & Art of Reading

The art of reading is catching any type of communication as well as possible.

Art of reading: Mind with no help from outside, elevates from a state of understanding less to understanding more.

There is a difference between reading for understanding and reading for information.

Reading for information:

• facts read at the same level

• not difficult

Reading for understanding:

• elevated level of current understanding

• shock of puzzlement

• higher than the reader

• reader aims for equality

• more insights

Diff b/w learning by instruction & learning by discovery.

Teaching & being taught are correlative functions OR initiating & receiving communication are related processes.

Grasp things through words & phrases synonymously. Penetrate beyond the surface of language.

The Four Levels of Reading

Levels ⇒ 4th includes 1st, 2nd & 3rd etc.

Level 1: Elementary Reading

Learning to read. This is the first level: recognizing words, understanding sentences, and grasping what the text literally says.

Level 2: Inspectional Reading ⇒ skimming systematically

• What is the structure of the book?

• What are its parts?

Level 3: Analytical Reading

Level 4: Syntopical Reading

The levels are cumulative. The first level is not lost in the second, the second is not lost in the third, and the fourth includes the earlier skills while going beyond them.

Second Level of Reading: Skimming or Pre-Reading

• Reading through table of contents can be valuable as a roadmap before taking the trip.

• Placing the book, after skimming preface & title, in the right category in your mind.

• Based on step 1 and 2, check the index. Make an estimate of topic covered and the kind of books and authors referred to. Check any crucial terms and look up some paragraphs cited. Use your judgement to maybe find cause of author's attitude and approach.

• Read the chapters from contents that seem most pivotal to its argument.

• If there is a summary at the end of these chapters read them.

• Read randomly for main ideas.

• Read last few pages.

Inspectional reading is a deliberate first examination of a book. Its purpose is to see what the book is about as a whole, how it is organized, and whether it deserves deeper analytical reading.

Superficial Reading

• Read difficult books in one go without stopping or at least 50% & don't stop and ponder over what you don't understand.

For a difficult book, first see the overall movement before becoming stuck on individual lines. You can return to difficult passages later with more context.

On Reading Speeds

• Trick is to adjust speed acc. to the content.

Fixations & Regressions

• Fix eye coordination using finger (marker) reading.

The Problem of Comprehension

• Major focus is comprehension while speed reading.

• Analytical thinking increases comprehension.

Forming the Habit of Reading

Artists have to follow a certain set of rules to turn the activity into habits of second nature (like eating or breathing).

From Many Rules to One Habit

• Isolated skills need to be mastered.

• Then these skills can be combined to become an expert on the skill you are learning.

The rules of reading become a single habit through practice. The reader gradually combines classification, skimming, finding terms, understanding propositions, reconstructing arguments, and making notes.

Analytical Reading

Pigeonholing a book.

Importance of classifying books.

Rule 1:

You should know the type of book you are reading preferably before you start reading so that the book can be read in an appropriate manner.

X-Raying a Book

Rule 2:

State the unity of a book in single sentence or a few sentences.

Rule 3:

Set forth the major parts of the book and show how these are organised into whole by being ordered into one another and to the unity of whole.

Major parts don't have to be the parts defined in the book.

Rule 4:

Find out what author's problems were.

If the author specifies the question or not, it's reader's job to know the questions being answered by author & these questions have to be in the right order – primary & secondary. Which questions are to be answered first and which can be answered later.

These first four rules help the reader find what a book is about: its kind, unity, structure, and the problems the author is trying to solve.

Coming to Terms with the Author

Readers & writers should understand the terms in the same way.

Rule 5:

Come to terms with the author by finding the most important words.

Step beyond the language to find the thought behind it.

Finding the Key Words

The words that are most difficult to understand might be the key words. Ordinary words can be excluded. Italics, bold, quotes.

Key words show the author's important terms. The reader must find what those words mean for that author, rather than assume an everyday meaning.

Finding the Key Sentences

Rule 6:

Mark the most important sentences in a book and discover the most important propositions.

• Underlined, bold sentences.

• Keywords may also help find.

• All must relate to the main idea.

• Usually former or latter sentences would be the reasoning / conclusion.

Finding the Propositions

• State in your own words.

• If you repeat his words, it means only words are passed to you & not knowledge.

• Can you provide your own examples or illustrations on what was described by the author.

A proposition is what the author asserts. Restating it in your own words and giving your own example shows that you have understood more than the wording.

Rule 7:

Locate or construct the basic argument in the book by finding them in connection of sentences.

Determining an Author's Message

Why an author thinks we should be persuaded to accept his propositions.

An argument may stretch across several sentences, paragraphs, or chapters. The reader traces the connection between claims, reasons, examples, and conclusions.

Understanding the Complexity of a Book

words → sentences → paragraph(s) → chapter(s)

Tip: Be specially aware while reading a book. Ex. which part of the page you are currently reading, what is the sub-title for the section, what is the chapter name, what's the chapter number, what is the subsection number. This will help in understanding the overall flow of the book & make meaningful connections.

How to Make a Book Your Own

• Saying – you have to read between the lines to get the most out of anything.

Writing in the margin or at top or bottom of the page to record questions, reduce complicated discussion to a simple statement.

Devices for Marking

• Underlining.

• Vertical lines at margin.

• Star, asterisk for most important points.

• Numbers in the margin to indicate sequence points for an argument.

• Numbers of other pages in the margin.

• Circling of key words or phrases.

The Three Kinds of Note-Making

During inspectional reading, make a note of answers for – what type of book is it? What is the structure of author's plan of explanation for the argument? what is it about as a whole?

During analytical reading, notes will not be structural but they will be conceptual.

During syntopical reading, notes will refer to other pages in other books.

During dialectical reading, notes will be about shape of the discussion from different authors.

Structural notes help map the book. Conceptual notes help understand its terms, propositions, and arguments. Dialectical notes connect one author's ideas with the discussions found in other books.

Ask Yourself Questions While You Read

Inspectional:

• What is the book about as a whole?

Analytical:

• What is being said in detail & how?

Syntopical:

• What of it?

A demanding reader also asks: Is the book true in whole or part? The final question, "What of it?", asks why the book matters and what follows from its ideas.

Syntopical Reading

Syntopical reading means reading more than one book on the same subject. It brings different authors into relation: finding relevant passages, coming to terms with the authors, identifying shared questions, comparing answers, and seeing the shape of agreement and disagreement.

Final Thought

The goal is not simply to read faster or remember more. It is to become a demanding reader: teachable, attentive, analytical, and able to move from words, to sentences, to arguments, to a book as a whole, and finally to meaningful connections across books.