This post is a summarization of what I’ve learned from reading part 1 of Mortimer J. Adler’s and Charles Van Doren’s 1972 revision of “How to Read a Book”. This book doesn’t only teach you how to read a book. It also teaches you how to listen, and how to write. And how to learn and how to teach.
There are 4 layers to reading. Inspectional reading is the second layer: 1. Foundational Reading 2. Inspectional Reading 3. Analytical Reading 4. Thematic Reading
Most readers, even those who call themselves readers, remain at level 1.
Reading is not a passive activity. Regardless you are reading fiction or nonfiction, reading requires agency, and without it, it is an extremely time wasting activity. Reading is as active as a ball game, in which the author is the thrower and the reader is the catcher. The more effort put in, the better the results.
Here, I describe how one performs inspectional reading in two steps. Experienced readers perform them simultaneously.
It’s important to note that the act of reading is very wide and vast. Listening, for instance, is a form of reading.
Inspectional Reading 1
Skimming or Prereading
You might have two questions:
- Is this material even worth reading?
- What information or viewpoints are present in the material?
Or, you might have limited time and want to figure out everything about the material. Inspectional reading allows you to determine whether a material is worth reading in detail or not. And if not, you will at the least have primed yourself on the contents of the material.
These are the six steps to skimming/pre-reading:
- Look at the title page, and then if there’s any preface, quickly read it. Pay attention to any subheadings, related explanations, or the author’s viewpoints or aim/purpose/mission.
- Read the table of contents. If there is a summary for each heading in the table, read them too.
- Check the index. If you encounter important vocabulary, read a few places of the material in which that vocabulary appears.
- Look at the material’s introduction, blurb, or any comments made by the author and publisher. You now have enough information to determine whether you want to read this material more closely or not.
- Now select a few chapters that look closely related to the material’s topic. If these chapters have a summary, be it at the start or the end of the chapter, read those summaries closely.
- Open the material and randomly flip around. Read out a paragraph or two as you flip, sometimes maybe even reading a few pages together in succession, but don’t read too many. Besides, do not skip the last two three pages of the material. If the material has a separate conclusion, read that. But don’t also forget to read the last two three pages before the conclusion.
This whole process should take a few minutes to an hour at most. It is a system that allows you to follow the author’s train of thought. Here’s why in more detail.
- Look at the title page, and then if there’s any preface, quickly read it. Pay attention to any subheadings or related explanations or the author’s viewpoints or aim/purpose/mission. The goal is to have a rough idea what the material is about.
- Read the table of contents. If there is a summary for each heading in the table, read them too. This allows you to understand the structure of the material.
- Check the index. If you encounter important vocabulary, read a few places of the material in which that vocabulary appears. This will provide you an understanding about the scope of topics covered, as well as the type of the materail and some context about the writers. It will also provide understanding about the key or crucial points in the material and the writer’s intent, attitude or other new methods.
- Look at the material’s introduction, blurb, or any comments made by the author and publisher. You now have enough information to determine whether you want to read this material more closely or not. Most of the time, the publisher aids the author to extract the most refined pieces of information to give to the reader.
- Now select a few chapters that look closely related to the material’s topic. If these chapters have a summary, be it at the start or the end of the chapter, read those summaries closely.
- Open the material and randomly flip around. Read out a paragraph or two as you flip, sometimes maybe even reading a few pages together in succession, but don’t read too many. Besides, do not skip the last two three pages of the material. If the material has a separate conclusion, read that. But don’t also forget to read the last two three pages before the conclusion. As you flip around, keep an eye for any signals about the main points of discussion, and keep an eye on how the material’s theme develops.
At any step along the way, you can archive this material to a particular folder or label in your mind.
Inspectional Reading 2
Coarse Reading
Coarse reading is reading a material from start to end without stopping. If you don’t understand a part, that’s fine. Move on and focus your attention on the parts you do understand. Once you’ve read the material from start to end once, you can spend more time on those parts you didn’t understand during your second read-through.
Constantly stopping on the parts you don’t understand means you miss the crucial points the author is making. These crucial points are normally easy to understand.
An important point to note is that very few materials are even worth coarse reading in full. Therefore, honing the ability to speed read is every important. There are three obstacles readers faces that prevent them from speed reading:
- Subvocalization
- Fixation
- Regression (i.e., rereading text you’ve already read)
The simplest solution to increase speed is to pinch your thumb, index finger, and middle finger to form a pointer. Move this pointer along the lines you are reading and ensure you keep up with the pointer. In this way, you begin reading with your brain, not your eyes.
Contrary to common belief, speed reading does increase comprehension. And comprehension is more than answering simple questions like what the content of a material is. But don’t let reading quicker give you a sense of accomplishment. All it means is that if you read too fast, the material itself wasn’t worth spending time on. A good inspectional reader knows when to read fast and when to slow down.
The 4 Questions to Answer while Reading
- On the whole, what exactly is this material discussing? What type of material is it?
- What is the author detailing and how are they detailing it? What’s the overall framework used by the author to develop their viewpoints or understanding of a particular topic?
- Does it make sense what the material is saying? Does it make fully sense or only partly?
- What sort of relation does this material have with you? If the material provides you information, what’s the significance of this information? Why does the author want you to know it? Is it necessary for you to know it?
In more detail,
On the whole, what exactly is this material discussing? **You must figure out a method to determine:
- The main theme or topic of the material;
- How the author sequentially develops it;
- How they gradually break down the main topic into sub-topics.**
What is the author detailing and how are they detailing it? You must find a way to identify the main ideas, assertions and arguments. Together they form the particular message the author wishes to convey.
Does it make sense what the material is saying? Does it make fully sense or only partly? For you to be able to answer question three, you must first answer questions one and two. A serious reader will be obliged to answer question three.
What sort of relation does this material have with you? If the material provides you information, what’s the significance of this information? Why does the author want you to know it? Is it necessary for you to know it? If the material not only provided information but also enlightened you or inspired you, then it is even more necessary that you find related or deeper implications or suggestions.
These four questions encapsulate the responsibility of a reader. The first two are more important for inspectional reading, whereas analytical reading cannot be completed without the last two.
How to Make a Book Belong to You
The highest levels of effective reading is where the material becomes a part of you and you become a part of the material.
To do this, you must recognize reading is a proactive effort. You also must recognize that you need to pick up a pencil and not only read between the lines, but also write between the lines–literally. The act of directly writing on a material, agreeing or disagreeing with the author and thus beginning a dialog with the author is one of the greatest forms of respect you can pay to them.
Some ways to take notes in a material:
- Underline main points or powerful sentences.
- Draw another line next to a segment you already underlined to further emphasize it. If the segment is too long, draw a vertical line alongside the entire segment.
- Mark asterisks or other symbols in the margins, but only sparingly—say, only the 10 or so most important statements or passages in the material. You could also fold the page or add a bookmark where you’ve added such symbols. So when you do pick up the material from your shelf, your memory is refreshed.
- Number the margins when the author sequentially unfolds a series of important arguments.
- Jot down the page numbers in the margins. These page numbers can refer to other places in the material that have related viewpoints or completely different points. You can do this with notation like “Cf.” to mean compare or cross reference. This sort of notation helps unify the material, by unifying the ideas present in it.
- Circle key words or key sentences. This has the same function as underlining.
- In the margin of the page, note down your questions and your answers. You could also clarify complex points in the margin, or note down the sequence in which the material’s theme develops. Let the last blank page be an index of sorts, where you sequentially note down the author’s main points. An experienced reader will, after making an index on the blank pages at the end of the material, use the blank pages at the front of the material to write a high level summary, writing the entire structure of the material. They will not list out the main points one by one, or describe each page one by one, because they’ve already done that in the index.
Reading is Snowboarding
The younger you start to learn to snowboard, the easier it is.
When snowboarding, there are many moving pieces that first have to be practiced separately such as :
- How to handle a snowboard
- How to keep your gaze on the path in front of you
- How to keep your back upright
Only after can those separate practices be combined together to form what is called snowboarding. Though the combination only occurs when your attention isn’t fragmented, and is all focused onto the act of snowboarding itself. You don’t care about anything, you have no worries, nor do you care who’s watching or of the sort.
It’s also important to recognize that there is no such thing as an innate ability. Artists are not gifted with their skill. They rather follow a set pattern or framework that allows them to hone their craft. For an artist, there is never an end point. What separates a craftsman from the masses is the rules that they follow. The only difference between before and after honing a skill is speed. Everything you followed (the framework, the patterns, the rules) remain the same. To a practitioner, they are always practicing. Reading about a framework and implementing it are independent.
Conclusion
If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, feedback, criticisms, or corrections, please do post them down in the comment section below!