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elementary reading
Inspectional Reading.
Analytical Reading.
Analytical reading is preeminently for the sake of understanding.
Syntopical Reading.
Inspectional Reading I: Systematic Skimming or Pre-reading
LOOK AT THE TITLE PAGE AND, IF THE BOOK HAS ONE, AT ITS PREFACE.
STUDY THE TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHECK THE INDEX
READ THE PUBLISHER’S BLURB.
CHAPTERS THAT SEEM TO BE PIVOTAL TO ITS ARGUMENT.
TURN THE PAGES, DIPPING IN HERE AND THERE, READING A PARAGRAPH OR TWO, SOMETIMES SEVERAL PAGES IN SEQUENCE, NEVER MORE THAN THAT.
Inspectional Reading II: Superficial Reading
In tackling a difficult book for the first time, read it through without ever stopping to look up or ponder the things you do not understand right away.
Every book should be read no more slowly than it deserves, and no more quickly than you can read it with satisfaction and comprehension.
Ask questions while you read—questions that you yourself must try to answer in the course of reading.
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?
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.
three quite different kinds of notes
The questions answered by inspectional reading are: first, what kind of book is it? second, what is it about as a whole? and third, what is the structural order of the work whereby the author develops his conception or understanding of that general subject matter?
structural.
conceptual.
dialectical.
