Activity of Reading
We don’t have to know everything about a topic to understand it well. Knowing too much is as bad as knowing too little. The key is to understand key ideas/milestones really well.
Reading in its nature is an activity -> Passive consumption of information IS NOT reading. You need to actively think and analyze new information and connect it with what you know. The level of activity and participation in reading any new information determines determines how well you are in understanding it.
- Especially with hard books, it require hard mental operations and it is tough
- The reward is that the mind moves from knowing less to knowing more through understanding
There is a big difference between reading to increase information we know about a topic (adding more facts to what we already know) and reading to improve our understanding (create mental models, connect it to what we know, internalize it, understand it through derivation and connection from different angles)
- We start from writer being superior than reader on the topic -> Converge to equality as reader’s understanding improves
- We need to know when when, why, and how it applies and our push back (critique). To understand something means to know:
- Its connections with other facts
- Its contrasts
- Conditions for it to hold
In conclusion, reading a book for understanding is like learning through discovery because we are left alone with the book to explore and interrogate by reading between the lines, using our imagination/reflection to connect it with facts we already know about the topic AND construct its logic/analogy/contradiction.
Levels of Reading
Elementary reading: Answering what does the sentence say (surface level meaning) without any much thinking
Inspectional reading: Reading a book in a very short period of time to get its structure, type, parts to obtain a surface level understanding
Analytical reading: Reading for deep understanding where we ask very deep and organized questions to get to the bottom of what it was set to deliver
Synotopical reading: Read many books about a subject to construct an analysis and connection about it that doesn’t exist in one book. It is the hardest and requires the most effort
We must always do inspectional reading first before any analytical reading regardless of our goal. This would help us prime the brain of what to expect and be ready for new information
Some books are to be tasted (majority) Others to be swallowed (minority) Very few to be chewed and digested
Inspectional Reading
Systematic Skimming
It is extremely helpful because it helps us figure out what the book is all about and what it has to offer. Most books don’t deserve analytical reading and inspectional reading is enough to get its main idea/contribution which would save us a lot of time by not reading it cover-to-cover. It should NOT take more than 1 hour.
Steps for systematic skimming:
- Read the title/subtitle
- Read the table of content carefully. If the book has a detailed table of content, read it as well. We can get the structure of the books from TOC
- Read the index. It tells us the range of topics covered and books/authors referred by the author. It would be helpful to read some paragraphs in the book where important terms were mentioned
- Read the plurb. Authors sometimes summarize the main point(s) in the plurb
- Read summaries of critical chapters of the book
- Turn the pages and read randomly some paragraphs/pages
- Read the epilogue of main parts as authors typically summarize their contribution
Superficial Reading
Read the book through without stopping to understand or lookup anything. Very useful for hard and difficult books such as The Wealth of Nations. We can get the big picture that will help us during our second pass for analytical reading
Demanding Reader
Important and hard books make a big difference in the rate of improving your understanding and increasing the facts we know about their domain. They help tremendously in creating mental models and thinking from first principles. They stretch our mind and we need to raise to their level of mastery to be able to ask the right questions and engage with the reading.
The goal of active reading is answering the following questions:
- What is the books about?
- Main theme/ideas and their subtopics in their order
- Main ideas/arguments/assertions?
- What is being said in details and how?
- Is the book all true? Which parts?
- You should make up your mind and NOT just adopt author’s msg
- Significance of information presented
- Question the significance of information and whether it is important
Inspectional reading helps us answer the first two questions while analytical reading helps us answer the last two questions.
Reading between the lines is very crucial in getting the most out of the material. Also, writing down the questions and answers would improve understanding and alertness.
You should always be critical and question the information you read after understanding it.
Marking books:
- Underline important points
- Vertical lines to emphasize a statement or paragraph too long to underline
- Fold or have a mark on top of the page for the most important thing(s) in the book. Use it sparsely
- Numbers in the margin for the points the author is using to build his argument
- Numbers of other pages the cover the same point or contradict it
- Write in the margin for Q/A and conclusion for important points in your own words
- Use first page for each chapter to outline main point and its structure and your understanding
- Use first pages in the book to outline main points and structure of the book
- Use last few pages as index for the main points in the book in their order
Analytical Reading
Stage I: Rules for finding out what is the book about
RULE 1: You must classify the book we are reading as early as possible and preferably before reading it (inspectional reading)
RULE 2: State the structure/unity of the book in one or few sentences. We typically can do this by reading the title/subtitle, preface, table of contents, and the introduction.
RULE 3: State the major parts the form the structure and how they are interrelated and contribute to the overall structure. We can outline the parts, the parts of the parts, etc. but we typically approximate and stick to the first level unless there is a need to dig deeper.
RULE 4: Find out what the author’s problems are. We must be able to determine the main points and main questions the authors are trying to investigate.
Stage II: Rules for interpreting the book’s contents
RULE 5: Find out the important words and what the author means from using such words. We can depend on our daily use of the language to understand the majority of the words in the text. However, there are few words that require special attention that would typically have subtle meanings or the author has specific meaning that he wants to come across to the reader mind.
RULE 6: Find out the most important sentence and figure out their propositions. Most authors make it clear about the importance of certain sentences and words through their use of style, marks, and order.
RULE 7: Construct the basic arguments from connecting the most important sentences. Arguments can either start with conclusion followed by evidence(s) or the other way around
RULE 8: Find out what the author’s solutions are.
Stage III: Rules for criticizing a book as a communication of knowledge
RULE 9: You must always understand before judging any work or written material. We must always critique the book and provide our own judgement after understanding the author’s main point(s) and arguments. Otherwise, you are just a consumer and have no opinion. Critiquing doesn’t mean disagreeing. You can agree with the author, but you have to use your own logic and words to express why you agree with the author.
RULE 10: When you disagree, do so reasonably.
Author soundedness:
- Uninformed: Lack knowledge that was revealed after his work
- Misinformed: Argue with things that are false
- Illogical: Reasoning over some facts don’t hold or don’t lead to the conclusion arrived by the author
Therefore, in the case of disagreeing with the author(s), we need to show where the author is:
- Uninformed
- And/Or misinformed
- And/Or illogical
- And/Or his analysis is incomplete
Synotopical Reading
Syntopical reading means reading many books on the same subject and comparing them to construct your own understanding or framework, rather than accepting any single author’s version of truth.
Therefore, the goal is to analyze a problem or idea across multiple authors and develop your own synthesis of the issue.
Reading and Growth Mindset
Regardless of how good a reader you are, there will always be books that are beyond your reach and require effort to understand them.
Reading for more information would lead to increase information about facts we already know. It doesn’t improve our understanding because improving our understanding requires a change in our brain by adding more facts and connections to concepts/topics.
There is NO limit for the growth of the mind.
Mind can and will deteriorate if not challenged and stretched regularly.
Advise
- It is important to not stop at words/phrases you don’t understand and keep going by trying to get the meaning from the context.
- Vary speed of reading according to the complexity of the information. Even within the same book, some chapters/paragraphs must be read at different speeds.
- Brain is faster than eyes in comprehending new information. Use fingers to avoid such limitations, increase focus, and improve speed
- Always use your own words when summarizing, explaining, or even stating main points. DO NOT USE AUTHOR’S WORDS.