In order to improve our reading, we need to learn to ask the right
questions in the right order.
Don’t forget,
reading a book, for any reason other than entertainment, is
essentially an effort on your part to ask the book questions (and to
answer them to the best of your ability).
| Apple 10.5" iPad Pro Bundle with Bonus Stylus Pen+ More |
There are four main
questions you must ask about any book, found in How to Read a Book:
The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading:
1. What is the
book about as a whole? You must try to discover the leading theme of
the book, and how the author develops this theme in an orderly way by
subdividing it into its essential subordinate themes or topics.
2. What is being
said in detail and how? You must try to discover the main ideas,
assertions, and arguments that constitute the author’s particular
message.
3. Is the book
true, in whole or part? You cannot answer this question until you
have answered the first two. You have to know what is being said
before you can decide whether it is true or not. When you understand
a book, however, you are obligated, if you are reading seriously, to
make up your own mind. Knowing the author’s mind is not enough.
4. What of it?
If the book has given you information, you must ask about its
significance. Why does the author think it is important to know these
things? Is it important to you to know them? And if the book has not
only informed you, but also enlightened you, it is necessary to seek
further enlightenment by asking
How to Make a Book
Your Own
Asking a book
questions as you read makes you a better reader. But you must do
more. You must attempt to answer the questions you are asking. While
you could do this in your mind, Adler argues that it’s much easier
to do with a pencil in your hand. “The pencil,” he argues,
“becomes the sign of your alertness while you read.”
When you buy a
book, you establish a property right in it, just as you do in clothes
or furniture when you buy and pay for them. But the act of purchase
is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a book.
Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of
yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it— which
comes to the same thing— is by writing in it.
Why is marking a
book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake— not
merely conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active,
is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or
written. The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot
express it usually does not know what he thinks. Third, writing your
reactions down helps you to remember the thoughts of the author.
Reading a book
should be a conversation between you and the author. Presumably he
knows more about the subject than you do; if not, you probably should
not be bothering with his book. But understanding is a two-way
operation; the learner has to question himself and question the
teacher. He even has to be willing to argue with the teacher, once he
understands what the teacher is saying. Marking a book is literally
an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author.
It is the highest respect you can pay him.
Adler goes on to
argue that there are many ways to mark a book. He recommends you
underline major points, draw vertical lines at the margin to
emphasize a passage too long to be underlined, place a star,
asterisk, or other “doodad” in the margin to emphasize the most
important statements in the book, place numbers in the margin to
indicate a sequence of points made in the natural development of an
argument, place page numbers of other pages in the margin to remind
you where else in the book the author makes the same points, circle
keywords or phrases, and write your questions (and perhaps answers)
in the margin (or at the top or bottom of the pages).
When you are giving
a book an inspectional reading, you won’t have much time to make
notes. Yet you, as a demanding reader, are still asking questions
about the book. Primarily 1) what kind of book is it? 2) what is it
about as a whole? and 3) what is the blueprint the author lays down
to develop our understanding of the subject matter?
These answers should
be recorded when they are fresh in your mind.
At this point your
notes primarily concern the structure of the book and not its
contents or the strength of its argument. You know the general idea
and the blueprint.
The best way to
start reading better is to form the habit of reading well. Setting
aside time to read help makes you smarter.
Reading is like
skiing. When done well, when done by an expert, both reading and
skiing are graceful, harmonious activities. When done by a beginner,
both are awkward, frustrating, and slow.
This is the third
part in the how to read a book series.