how to properly read a book

you know when you're really used to doing something and for so long that after a while you just think oh hey i can actually do this that's what i thought about reading i read a lot i read as much as my schedule allows me my free time and i read a lot for work as well my law degree basically consisted of reading my master's degree basically consisted of reading and after a while i thought well i must know how to read and then then i read a book on how to read a book and i kid you not the book is literally called how to read a book and it was written by mortimer j adler and charles van doren and it basically blew my mind in today's video i want to cover some of the essentials of this particular title but i will not cover the entire book because that would basically destroy the experience of reading it yourself the book is divided into four parts and i will cover the essential topics of the first two part 3 and 4 focus more on how to read specific types of genres and how to really master syntopical reading so i'll leave those for your own reading pleasure let's start with the goals of reading you can read for information and you can read for understanding and learning pulling information out of a text is a prerequisite for learning you can't understand the contents of a book without at least getting in the information it's trying to convey however being informed should not be your ultimate goal your goal should be reading for the sake of increased understanding knowing how to read well will help you accomplish this intermediate reading skills are better used to allow you to take information out of books but the real reading techniques techniques that may take years to properly develop and reinforce are the ones that really allow you to understand what you're reading there are 4 reading levels that means that if you want to learn the next level of reading you need to master your current one the first level is elementary reading here you are concerned with the language what does a sentence say can you identify the words themselves and perceive what they mean this is how everyone starts reading but it really doesn't help you really understand the contents of the book or text you are analyzing inspectional reading is level number two when you read at this level your goal is to examine the surface of the book that's why this level is also identified as skimming or pre-reading with inspectional reading you should be able to understand what kind of book it is and its main structure analytical reading is a more complex and systematic kind of reading it should be thorough complete the best reading you can actually do analytical reading means the reader must ask many organized questions about the topic of the book it is intensely active here you should work at the book until it becomes your own in the words of the author reading a book analytically is chewing and digesting it finally we have syntopical reading which can also be called comparative reading here the reader reads many books to interpret one it's comparison of texts but also a way to build an analysis of the subject that is not in any specific book mastering the third level of reading analytical reading should be your main purpose here analytical reading however should not be used for mere entertainment or to obtain information passively it should be used to work in the information it's the fundamental reading process every student should engage in however there is no analytical reading without inspectional reading you see inspectional reading is like scanning a book with the right techniques you are able to identify the subject matter the most relevant topics and its purpose a huge part of this is actually skimming sometimes gaming has a weird connotation where it's considered an inferior reading method but it's not it should always precede analytical reading and most of all it's a completely valid reading technique you should implement when you're short of time the authors of how to read a book actually created a list of suggestions to become better at skimming a few of them are read the titles subtitles or other indications of the scope or aim of the book or the author's special angle on the subject study the table of contents to obtain a general sense of the book structure like a road map to the book find the chapters that are fundamental to the book's main argument if these chapters have summary statements in their opening or closing pages you should be reading those statements carefully turn the pages dipping in here and there reading a paragraph or two sometimes several pages in sequence but never more than that you should always be looking for signs of the main subject and understand the purpose and author's angle but let's return to analytical reading as i've just mentioned analytical reading requires a reader to ask the right questions and do so throughout the entire book but the essence of active reading is asking 4 basic questions to the book you're 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 and what about its significance and now you ask how can i ask questions to a book while that is part of the difficulty of reading you see you need to answer the questions you ask asking these questions is part of your duty as a reader this is where the difference lies between the demanding and the undemanding reader these also apply to anything worth reading from a book to an article reading while you are thinking about these questions and seeking the right answers in the process is part of the difficulty of really knowing how to read and a demanding reader is able to use some methods to make a book their own that is picking the work of an author and analyzing it to the point that the resulting analysis transforms your perception of the book into something new there are many different ways to do this but one of the core techniques is intelligently marking or annotating your book as you can see analytical reading has rules and a structure picking up a book and reading it from page one doesn't cut it for analytical reading if you do that you're not truly grasping the contents of the book this doesn't apply necessarily to books that you read for entertainment books for entertainment can be read without going into full analytical reading mode although they have their own rules as you can find out if you read part three of this book so rule number one of analytical reading is knowing what kind of book you are reading as early in the process as possible this means you need to know the genre of the book as well as the setting and type of content this can be done if you engage in inspectional reading or skimming you read the title subtitle table of contents glance at the preface and thus jack it and you probably get a general idea of what that particular title is all about on to rule number two you should state the unity of the whole book in a single sentence or at most a few sentences basically you must say what the whole book is about as briefly as possible this doesn't cover the categories you should be seeking in rule number one rather you should try to describe the purpose of the book in a sentence you need to discover its theme or main point rule number three is understanding how the major parts of the book are organized into a whole a good book like a good house is an orderly arrangement of parts and each major part has a certain amount of independence if the book you are analyzing conveys a major theory that unifies the entire book you now need to understand how each argument contributes to the theory and helps build it from scratch each argument will tie to other arguments but it will also be sufficiently independent to be considered an argument in itself you can do this by learning how to outline a book basically uncover the skeleton that the book conceals and finally rule number four find out what the author's problems were usually a good book starts with a questions or a set of questions and then proceeds to answer them throughout the remaining chapters to comply with this rule you should be able to state the main question that a book tries to answer and you should be able to state the subordinate questions in case the main question is complex or has a lot of parts these questions can be theoretical or practical does something exist what kind of thing is it what purpose does it serve and then what things must want you to gain a certain objective under what conditions would it be better to do this rather than that i mean really there are thousands of different questions an author can ask and answer throughout the book but it will always be theoretical or practical it's your job as a reader to understand which questions apply to the content of certain books and reach questions don't there's so much more to cover on meaning terms and the author's message they are also part of the reading process especially analytical reading but there are complex tasks that require a whole separate analysis that i cannot cover in this video if you're feeling a bit overwhelmed about all of this and believe me i'm feeling overwhelmed after recording this voiceover i really recommend you to grab how to read the book and just experience the full thing because it really is a phenomenal guide if you want to listen to it for free you can do so with your audible subscription who's sponsoring today's video this subscription lets you listen to this title as well as other thousands of audiobooks despite the social distancing you can use audible to learn more reduce stress and stay entertained you can download their titles and listen offline anywhere and anytime which means you can grasp the contents of entire books while you're commuting cleaning or even meal prepping the app itself is free and can be installed in all devices so you can browse a huge catalog and purchase individual titles even without a subscription also even if you use multiple devices you'll never lose the page where you were in your audiobook because it synchronizes across your computer smartphone and ipad also with the holiday offer you can try audible plus for 495 dollars per month for your first six months this is the best deal audible has offered this year so don't forget to go to audible.com mariana or text mariana to 500 500 to get your six months for almost half the price and start writing down the list of titles you want to listen to in 2021 i really hope you enjoyed today's video and i will see you next week bye guys

Channel: Mariana's Corner

Views: 124,586

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Id: Ht63rOvSNb4

Length: 11min 12sec (672 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 06 2020