"How to Read a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler

• Since reading of any sort is an activity, all reading must to some degree be active.
• Your success in reading is determined by the extent to which you receive everything the writer intended to communicate.
• We can only learn from our “betters”.
• To be informed is to know simply that something is the case. To be enlightened is to know, in addition, what it is all about: why it is the case, what its connections are with other facts, in what respects it is the same, in what respects it is different, and so forth.
• The goal a reader seeks determines the way he reads. The effectiveness with which he read is determined by the amount of effort and skill he puts into his reading.
• The first level of reading we will call Elementary Reading. In mastering this level, on learns the rudiments of the art of reading, receives basic training in reading, and acquires initial reading skills.
• The second level of reading we will call Inspectional Reading. Inspectional reading is the art of skimming systematically. When reading at this level, your aim is to examine the surface of the book, to learn everything that the surface alone can teach you.
• The third level of reading we will call Analytical Reading. Analytical reading is thorough reading, complete reading, or good reading--the best reading you can do. The analytical reader must ask many, and organized, questions of what he is reading.
• Analytical reading is preeminently for the sake of understanding.
• The fourth and highest level of reading we will call Syntopical Reading. When reading syntopically, the reader reads many books, not just one, and places them in relation to one another and to a subject about which they all revolve.
• The levels of reading are cumulative.
• There are two types of inspectional reading.
• systematic skimming or pre-reading
• Look at the title page, and if the book has one, at its preface. Read each quickly.
• Study the table of contents to obtain a general sense of the book’s structure.
• Check the index if the book has one.
• Read the publisher’s blurb.
• Look now at the 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.
• superficial reading
• Skimming or pre-reading is the first sublevel of inspectional reading. Your main aim is to discover whether the book requires a more careful reading.
• It is not uncommon for authors to try to summarize as accurately as they can the main points in their book.
• 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.
• Many books are hardly worth even skimming; some should be read quickly; and few should be read at a rate, usually quite slow, that allows for complete comprehension.
• The problem of speed reading is the problem of comprehension.
• Every book should be read no more slowly that 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.
• The four basic questions a reader asks:
• 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?
• There is no other way of forming a habit of operation than by operating. That is what it means to say one learns to do by doing.
• Analytical Reading:
• 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.
• State the unity of the whole book in a single sentence, or at most a few sentences.
• 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.
• Find out what the author’s problems were.
• Find the important words and through them come to terms with the author.
• Mark the most important sentences in a book and discover the propositions they contain.
• Locate or construct the basic arguments in the book by finding them in the connection of sentences.
• Find out what the others solutions are.
• 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 judgement”.
• When you disagree, do so reasonably, and not disputatious or contentiously.
• Respect the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion, by giving reasons for any critical judgment you make.
• To make knowledge practical we must convert it into rules of operation. We must pass from knowing what is the case to knowing what to do about it if we wish to get somewhere.
• The methods of teaching different kinds of subject matter are different.
• Every book has a skeleton hidden between its covers. Your job as an analytical reader is to find it.
• The best books are those that have the most intelligible structure.
• The First Stage of Analytical Reading
• Classify the book according to kind and subject matter.
• State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity.
• Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole.
• Define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve.
• Come to terms with the author by interpreting his keywords.
• Grasp the author’s leading propositions by dealing with his most important sentences.
• Know the author's arguments, by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences.
• Determine which of his problems the author has solved, and which he has not; and as to the latter, decide which the author know he had failed to solve.
• A “term” is the basic element of communicable knowledge.
• One word can be the vehicle for many terms, and one term can be expressed by many words.
• Every field of knowledge has its own technical vocabulary.
• “State in your own words!” That suggests the best test we know for telling whether you have understood the proposition or propositions in the sentence.
• A good book deserves an active reading. The activity of reading does not stop with the work of understanding what a book says. It must be completed by the work of criticism, the work of judging.
• Most people think that winning the argument is what matters, not learning the truth.
• Critical reading demands that you make up your own mind.
• If you have not been able to show that the author is uninformed, misinformed, or illogical on relevant matters, you simply cannot disagree. You must agree.
• The most important thing to remember about any practical book is that it can never solve the practical problem with which it is concerned. A theoretical book can solve its own problems. But a practical problem can only be solved by action itself.
• The best protection against propaganda of any sort is the recognition of it for what it is. Only hidden and undetected oratory is really insidious.
• To “know” anything we must use our powers of judgment and reasoning, which are intellectual.
• Don’t try to resist the effect that a work of imaginative literature has on you.
• The first piece of advice we would like to give you for reading a story is this: Read it quickly and with total immersion. Ideally, a story should be read at one sitting, although this is rarely possible for busy people with long novels.
• You must finish a story in order to be able to say that you have read it well.
• The most important thing to know, when reading any report of current happenings, is who is writing the report.
• One of the most remarkable things about the great philosophical books is that they ask the same sort of profound questions that children ask.
• The most important thing to discover in reading any philosophical work is the question or questions it tries to answer.
• It is the most distinctive mark of philosophical questions that everyone must answer them for himself. Taking the opinions of others is not solving them, but evading them.
• Dogmatic theology differs from philosophy in that it’s first principles are articles of faith adhered to by the communications of some religion. A work of dogmatic theology always depends upon dogmas and the authority of a church that proclaims them.
• We have stated more than once that the level of reading are cumulative, that a higher level includes all of those that precede or lie below it.
• The first thing to do when you have amassed your bibliography is to inspect all of the books on your list. You should not read any of them analytically before inspecting all of them.
• An inspectional reading tells you whether the book says something important about your subject or not.
• Once you have identified, by inspection, the books that are relevant to your subject matter, you can then proceed to read them syntopically.
• It must never be forgotten that the art of analytical reading applies to the reading of a single book; when understanding of that book is the aim in view.
• Syntopical Reading:
• Finding the relevant passages
• Bringing the authors to terms.
• Getting the questions clear.
• Defining the issues.
• Analyzing the discussion
• In syntopical reading, it is you and your concerns that are primarily to be served, not the books that you read.
• Above all, remember that your task is not so much to achieve an overall understanding of the particular book before you as to find out how it can be useful to you in a connection that may be very far from the author’s own purpose in writing it.
• It is you who must establish the terms, and bring your authors to them rather than the other way around.
• Syntopical reading, in short, is to a large extent an exercise in translation.
• Always accompany an interpretation of an author’s views on an issue with an actual quotation from his text.
• If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You must tackle books that are beyond you.
• The majority of the several million books that have been written will not make sufficient demands on you for you to improve your skill in reading.
• Every book should be read no more slowly than it deserves, and no more quickly than you can read it with satisfaction and comprehension.
• Skimming or pre-reading a book is always a good idea; it is necessary when you do not know, as is often the case, whether the book you have in hand is worth reading carefully.
• It is generally desirable to skim a book that you intend to read carefully, to get some idea of its form and structure.
• Do not try to understand every word or page of a difficult book the first time through.
• Do not be afraid to be, or to seem to be, superficial. Race through even the hardest book. You will then be prepared to read it well the second time.
• Ask questions while you read--questions that you yourself must try to answer in the course of reading.
• The Four Basic Questions a Reader Asks:
• 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?
• Rules for Finding What a Book is About:
• Classify the book according to kind and subject matter.
• State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity.
• Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole.
• Define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve.
• Rules for Finding What a Book Says (Interpreting its contents):
• Come to terms with the author by interpreting his keywords.
• Grasp the author’s leading propositions by dealing with his most important sentences.
• Know the author's arguments by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences.
• Determine which of his problems the author has solved, and which he has not; and as to the latter, decide which the author know he had failed to solve.
• Rules for Criticizing a Book as a Communication of Knowledge:
• Do not begin criticism until you have completed your outline and your interpretation of the book. (Do not say you agree, disagree, or suspend judgment, until you can say “I understand”.)
• Do not disagree disputatious or contentiously.
• Demonstrate that you recognize the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion by presenting good reasons for any critical judgment you make.
• Show wherein the author is uninformed. 
• Show wherein the author is misinformed.
• Show wherein the author is illogical.
• Show wherein the author’s analysis or accounts is incomplete.
• Note: Failing the above, you must agree at least in part.
• Five Steps in Syntopical Reading:
• Finding the relevant passages.
• Bringing the authors to terms.
• Getting the questions clear.
• Defining the issues.
• Analyzing the discussion.
• Preparation for Syntopical Reading:
• Create a tentative bibliography of your subject by recourse to library catalogs, advisers, and bibliographies in books.
• Inspect all of the books on the tentative bibliography to ascertain which are germane to your subject, and also to acquire a clearer idea of the subject.
• Syntopical Reading of the Bibliography from Preparation:
• Inspect the books already identified as relevant to your subject in stage 1 in order to find the most relevant passages.
• Bring the authors to terms by constructing a neutral terminology of the subject that all, or the great majority, of the authors can be interpreted as implying, whether they actually employ the words or not.
• Establish a set of neutral propositions for all of the authors by framing a set of questions to which all or most of the authors can be interpreted as giving answers, whether they actually treat the questions explicitly or not.
• Define the issue, both major and minor ones, by ranging the opposing answers of authors to the various questions on one side of an issue or another. You should remember that an issue does not always exist explicitly between or among authors, but that it sometimes has to be constructed by interpretation of the author’s views on matters that may not have been their primary concern.
• Analyze the discussion by ordering the questions and issues in such a way as to throw maximum light on the subject. More general issues should precede less general ones, and relations among issues should be clearly indicated.
• If you ask no questions, you will get no answers.