HOW TO READ A BOOK : MORTIMER J . ADLER
The dimensions of reading :
We were all taught how to read (otherwise you wouldn’t be here), but were you taught how to read a book? This has to be one of my favourite non-fiction books of all time. Mortimer J. Adler is incredibly eloquent and writes in a way that almost feels like meta-writing (writing about writing).
As well as this book being a manual for approaching different types of books and getting the most of them, the author also highlights amazing points to do with the pursuit of knowledge and the importance self learning. After all, what is a book if it isn’t an absent teacher. Reading is a conversation between the author and the reader. The reader needs to read actively . There can be no absolutely passive reading . The book consists of language written by someone for the sake of communicating something to reader . So gradually lift yourself from a state of understanding less to one of understanding more and intelligently.
The levels of reading :
1) Elementary reading: rudimentary, basic, and initial reading . At this level , the question asked for the reader is ,” what does the sentence say ?” .
2) Inspectional reading: (a)systematic skimming or pre reading : look at the title page and preface quickly ….judge a book by it’s cover. And study the table of contents, index and publishers,and finally dipping in here and there
(b)superficial reading : read the book through without stopping or ponder the things you don’t understand , we usually miss big points by focusing so much on minute . The reader must ask four questions…
#what is the book about as a whole?
#what is being said in detail?
#is the book true ,in whole or part?
#is it important to you to know them? What of it?
3) Analytical reading : Mortimer Adler uses a perfect analogy to describe the structure of a book:
Pigeonholing a Book ......
Analytical Reading 1st Rule: 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.
X-Raying a Book.......
Analytical Reading 2nd Rule: STATE THE UNITY OF THE WHOLE BOOK IN A SINGLE SENTENCE, OR AT MOST A FEW SENTENCES (A SHORT PARAGRAPH).
Analytical Reading 3rd Rule: 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.
Analytical Reading 4th Rule: FIND OUT WHAT THE AUTHOR’S PROBLEMS WERE
Coming to Terms with the Author The dictionary is full of words. They are almost all ambiguous in the sense that they have many meanings. But a word that has several meanings can be used in one sense at a time. When writer and reader somehow manage for a time to use a given word with one and only one meaning, then, during that time of unambiguous usage, they have come to terms.
RULE 5 : FIND POETRY THE IMPORTANT WORDS AND THROUGH THEM COME TO TERMS WITH THE AUTHOR.
Determining an Authors Message books are made of many key words and sentences Propositions and arguments are units of thought and knowledge.
Analytical reading RULE 6 MARK THE MOST IMPORTANT SENTENCES IN A BOOK AND DISCOVER THE PROPOSITIONS THEY CONTAIN
Analytical reading RULE 7. LOCATE OR CONSTRUCT THE BASIC ARGUMENTS IN THE BOOK BY FINDING THEM IN THE CONNECTION OF SENTENCES.
Criticising a Book Fairly 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.
Special Criteria for Points of Criticism
Show wherein the author is uninformed, misinformed, illogical or incomplete analysis is done
Agreeing or Disagreeing with the Author
Analytical reading rule 10 : WHEN YOU DISAGREE, DO SO REASONABLY, AND NOT DISPUTATIOUSLY OR CONTENTIOUSLY.
An argument is irrelevant if you believe there is no understanding to get out of it.
Analytical reading rule 11: RESPECT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND MERE PERSONAL OPINION BY GIVING REASONS FOR ANY CRITICAL JUDGMENT YOU MAKE.
Practical books can never solve a problem, they can only tell you how to solve it.
Ask yourself two questions when reading a practical book
• What are the author’s objectives?
• What means for achieving them is he proposing?
It also offers offers techniques designed for reading specific literary genres, be they practical books, imaginative literature, plays, poetry, history, science and mathematics, philosophy, or social science .
4)Synoptical reading: what is the ultimate goal of reading ? Find out .
STEP 1: FINDING THE RELEVANT PASSAGES
• The idea is to find the best books to tackle your problem. The way you discover these is through inspectional reading.
STEP 2: BRINGING THE AUTHORS TO TERMS.
• it is the readers job to take all their terms and find a universal meaning you can apply to all of them.
• Learning from all Authors
STEP 3 : GETTING THE QUESTIONS CLEAR
• The difficulty is that the questions we want answered may not have been seen as questions by the authors. But even he does not discuss the question explicitly, we can sometimes find an implicit answer in his book.
STEP 4 : DEFINING THE ISSUES.
STEP 5 : ANALYZING THE DISCUSSION
Reading and the growth of the mind:
Your mind can be interpreted as things you read .A good book does reward you for trying to read it. The best books reward you most of all. The reward, of course, is of two kinds. First, there is the improvement in your reading skill that occurs when you successfully tackle a good, difficult work. Second and this in the long run is much more important-a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read bet ter, you also learn more about life.
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