This instruction is for readers who read for information and understanding, not just for entertainment, and it is based on book of Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren: How to Read a Book. Revised and Updated Edition. Simon & Schuster 1972. All text marked with quotation marks is from that book.
The reading should be active since information does not just move from the teacher to the student but the student must think and find connection to his own knowledge in order to understand. Books can be considered teachers that are absent since the student cannot ask anything from the teacher if he does not understand. Goal of reading can be increasing information (remembering), increasing understanding (enlightment), and entertainment.
There are four kinds of reading: Elementary reading is what the schools teach for pupils. Inspectional reading is the next level of reading and has two parts: systematic skimming of the text and superficial reading. Inspectional reading tells if you should choose this book or maybe some other book is more suitable for you. In the skimming phase, the title page of a book is examined (what is the scope or goal of the book), and table of content (what it contains) and index (how wide is it) is checked. Scan through a chapter that seems to be essential for the topic. The superficial reading phase suites well for difficult books: the book is read through without stopping to the difficult parts that are not understood. This helps understanding in the second reading because something is already familiar and the human brains can connect new things to the familiar things more easily - seeing the forest from the threes. Third kind of reading is analytical reading and it is the topic of this instruction. Fourth kind of reading is syntopical reading where the reader construct an analysis beond the book(s).
How to prevent falling asleep while reading? Active reading helps: "ask questions while you read - questions that you yourself must try to answer in the course of reading". Adler and Van Doren give four main questions: "What is the book about as a whole?, What is being said in detail, and how?, Is the book true, in whole or part?, What of it?" (more about these later). Another mean for active reading is drawing markings. Of course, you cannot do that with library books. Good ways to mark (own) books are underlinging, vertical lines at the margin, stars, asterisks or others in margin, numbers in the margin, circling of key words or sentences, and writing in the margins of the page. Do not mark the library books or other loaned books! Third way for active reading is writing notes while reading. Notes can be structural, conceptual, and dialectical.
Reading should be a habbit, and for making it to be a habit, Adler and Van Doren have given set of rules for analytical reading. When you have developed a habit of reading, you can forget these separated rules. The rules are not given in cronological order, and several of them can be fulfilled with one single reading.
Following the rules of the first stage of analytical reading provides knowledge of a book's structure. This stage provides answer to the first question: "What is the book about as a whole?"
"You should know what kind of book you are reading, and you should
know this as early in the process as possible, preferably before you
began to read." Title of the book usually give the first answer to
this question. Books can be teorethical answering to question 'what?'
and practical answering to question 'how?'. Theorethical books can be
about history, science, or philosophy. What the book is about? What is its main point and theme? "State
the unity of the whole book in a single sentence, or at most a few
sentences (a short paragraph)".
"Set forth the major parts of the book, and show how these are
organized into a whole, by being ordered to one anothter and to the
unity of the whole." Simple things does not have parts but larger
things are constructed from these simple unities. Usually things are
not simple, at least if a whole book is written about a thing. Write
your own outline for the book even when the book has an outline (be
active). "A piece of writing should have unity, clarity, and
coherence." The author may not give the problems directly. Questions can be
teorethical, for example "Does something exists? What kind of thing is
it? What caused it to exists? Why? What purpose it serve? What are the
consequences of its existence? What are its characteristic properties?
What are its relations to other things of a similar sort? How does it
behave?". The questions can also be practical, for example "What
means should be chosen to a given end? What things must one do to gain
a certain objective, and in what order? Under these conditions, what
is the right thing to do, or the better rather than the worse?".
"The last step of structural outlining is to know the problems the author is trying to solve."
First, you need to find the important words and their
definitions. Term means here a basic element of communicable
knowledge, it is not just a word. Often, authors use words
ambiguously, e.g. different words to mean the same thing. Moreover,
one word may mean many terms, many words may be needed to define one
term. Of course, all fields of science have their own jargon.
Note that the important terms of the author may be different than
those that are important for the reader. The term should be important
for the reader if he does not understand it (e.g. it is new for
him). Author may emphasize those terms that are important
from his point of view. Earlier knowledge helps finding important
terms. Previous rules also give the important terms e.g. title and
structure usually mentions many of them.
When the important terms are found, the reader should find
meanings for them (note: words can change meaning). The
reader should try to define the terms that he does not understand
using other terms he already understand. This does not mean that all
unknown words are checked from a dictionary while reading.
"Mark the most important sentences in a book and discover the
propositions they contain." The author has to justify the proposition,
otherwise they are only personal opinions. The author should
give reasons why the readers should believe him: "if this is so, then
that; since this, therefore that; it follows from this, that that is
the case" etc. The propositions are the answers to the questions that the
book is trying to solve.
Here, relation between sentences and propositions is the same as
above between words and terms. The reader has to interpret what the
author means with the important sentences in a book. Essential is that the
reader has understood. One way to test that is to try explaining the
thing with own words. If this does not succeed, "only words have
passed, not thought or knowledge". Another way is to figure out an
example where the thing is valid.
"Find if you can the paragraphs in a book that state its important
arguments; but if the arbuments 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 proposition that compose the argument."
All arguments must have justifications. Generalizations must be
based of facts (reasoning or testing). In addition, argumentation is
based on presumptions that are not always explicitly stated. Some of
them are self-evident (tautologies) and some must be attested (somewhere).
The last step is to find out the author's solutions to problems
(defined in Rule 4). After this, the thing presented
in the reader shoud understand the message of the book.
"The last step of interpretation is to know which of the problems the author solved and which he did not." Active reading does not stop to understanding of the book. After
understanding, thinking continues with criticism. Now it is time to
"talk back to the author".
"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'."
Usually, criticism is perceived to be negative, disagreeing with
the author. On the contrary, criticism can be also positive, even when
it is not called 'constructive' criticism. 'I do not understand' is
also criticism, but it is more against the book, its language, not
about the topic.
'I suspend judgment' means that something is not shown, and the
reader cannot decide whether to agree or disagree. If the
justifications are solid, the reader cannot disagree, but he can
dislike the conclusion.
The point is not to win an argument but find the truth. It is not
essential to show that the author is wrong but explain to oneself the
reasons (justifications) why to agree or disagree. "Disagreement is
futile agitation unless it is undertaken with the hope that it may
lead to the resolution."
"Respect the difference between knowledge and mere personal
opinnion, by giving reasons for any critical judgment you make."
Self-evident propositions are considered indemonstrable and undeniable
truths, but most knowledge is not absolute. However, there are
opinions that can be defended, concidered be true because of objective
evidence or other.
When the reader has end up to disagreeing with the author, three
conditions must be re-examined: emotions, assumptions, and
viewpoint. Reasons for disagreeing should not be feelings but
objective reasons. Assuptions of the author and the reader can differ
and lead to disagreeing if they are not stated clearly. The reader
should at least try to see the author's point of view. If these are in
order, there are four ways to criticize a book.
If the author is uninformed, he has missed some relevant piece of
knowlegde. This missed knowledge maybe something new that has been
published after the book, for example. In order to show that the
author is uninformed, the reader should be able to state the missing
knowledge and show how its relevance.
The author is misinformed if has done an error that leads to an
assertion that in not supported by facts. The error can be due a lack
of knowledge, wrong assuption, etc.
"If you cannot show that the author is uninformed, misinformed, or
illogical on relevant matters, you simply cannot disagree. You must
agree. ... All you can say is that you do not like the
conclusions." If author's analysis is incomplete, he has not answered all the
questions or the ramifications of the solutions. All books are
somewhat incomplete, so ending up to this "flaw" means that reader
should explicitly point out what is the precise inadequacy in the
book.
"The final step of criticism is to point out
completeness. It touches structural outlining insofar as considers how
adequately the author has stated his problems, and interpretation
insofar as it measures how satisfactorily he has solved
them."
Common experience is available to all "just because they are
alive". Common here means universal, not that every one really has
experienced the same. It is something that large part of human beings
has experienced. Common experience is relevant for reading fiction,
pholosophy etc. Special experience requires effort to be attained. It may be
attained, for example, due a laboratory experiment. Special experience
is relevant for reading scientific works. When a reader can give a concrete example of a thing presented in a
book, he has used his relevant experience and understood the thing.
Reading other books here means for example the earlier books of the
same author. This gives larger context to a topic. Of course, the
author of the books should probably be a great writer and at least one
of the books should be a so called great book.
Reading other books helps more reading of history and philosophy
than science and fiction, but when "a book" is replaced with "an
article", this point become essential for "lesser author" than the
great ones, too.
Commentaries can be used to help reading. However,
commentators can be wrong in their interpretations and conclusions,
and the commentary may be incomplete. The commentaries should be read
only after reading the book. Abstracts have a similar role in reading. They help remembering the
content of the book. They also help to finding out if the work is
something that should be read for readers own work (writing) or if it
is about a different topic.
Dictionaries are useful when reading text on foreign
language. However, the reader should not check every unknown word from
a dictionary because this will easily cause loosing track of the
reading. Only those words that are completely new and seem to be
important for the author should be checked. Words can be looked from a dictionary in a four ways: how to spell
or pronounce a word ("Words are physical things"), how to use a word
in a sentence ("words are parts of speach"), what a word means 'here'
("words are signs"), and how a word has been used through time ("words
are conventional").
Above mentioned applies also to encyclopedias. Note that today
exists two kinds of encyclopedias: such that are edited
(i.e. traditional encylopedias such as Encyclopedia Britannica) and such
that can be written by everybody (e.g. Wikipedia). Finally, encyclopedias
are not the best sources for understanding since they are limited.
Same as in case of dictionaries, facts can be looked from a
encyclopedia in four ways: Facts that does not require explanations
("facts are propositions"). An encyclopedia can report opinions but
they should be clearly stated ("facts are 'true' propositions") and
thus things that does not have clear consensus cannot be found from
(traditional) encyclepedias and can be vague in a 'new' encyclopedia.
Facts can be informational singulars or relatively unquestioned
generalizations. ("facts are reflections of reality") i.e. "facts are
not ideas or concepts, nor are they theories in the sense of being mere
speculations about reality". Facts can change and they are culturally
determined ("facts are to some extent conventional").
This page is based on a book titled "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer
J. Adler and Charles Van Doren.
Books
1. Classify the book according to kind and subject matter
2. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity
3. Enumerate its major parts in their order and
relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole
4. Define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve
II The second stage of analytical reading: Rules for interpreting a book's content
5. Come in terms with the author by interpreting his key words
6. Grasp the author's leading propositions by dealing with his most important sentences
7. Know the author's arguments, by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences
8. Determine wich of his problems the author has solved, and which he has not; and of the latter, decide which the author knew he had failed to solve.
III The third stage of analytical reading: Rules for criticizing a book as a communication of knowledge
A. General maxims of intellectual etiquette
9. Do not begin criticism until you have completed your outline and interpretation of the book. Do not say you agree, disagree, or suspend judgement, until you can say "I understand".
10. Do not disagree disputiously or contentiously
11. Demonstrate that you recognize the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion by presenting good reasons for any judgement you make.
B. Special criteria for points in criticism.
12. Show wherein the author is uninformed
13. Show wherein the author is misinformed
14. Show wherein the author is illogical
The author is illogical if his reasoning has flaws. This is related to
above, being uninformed or/and misinformed that occur much more than
just being illogical.
15. Show wherein the author's analysis or account is incomplete
Aids to reading
Relevant experience
Other books
Commentaries and abstracts
Reference books: dictionaries and encyclopedias
Using of reference books require knowing of what the reader want to
know (what to ask), where to find it out (what reference to use), how
to use the refencence book, and what the authors of the reference book
considere knowable ("only those things about which men generally and
conventionally agree are to be found in reference books").
Sources and Acknowledgements