The art of reading / the art of learning from discourse. Learning new facts about the world doesn’t count as enlightment. Enlightment is achieved only in addition to know what the author says and what he means and why he says it.

Levels of reading:

1. Elementary Reading Recongnizing words. What does the sentence say? In the simplest sense.

2. Inspectional Reading (skimming systematically). Time limited ~15 minutes
   What is the book about? What is the struecture? This offset the needs to achieving a superficial knowledge of the book while reading.

   You must be able to read the text steadily, without having to stop to look up the dictionary or struggle over grammar and syntax.

   2 aspects of Inspectional Reading:

   1. Systematic Skimming or Pre-reading
      First you do not know wheather you want to read the book. You do not know wheather it deserves an analytical reading. Second, let us assume that you have only a limited time to find out.
      So you pre-read it to see if it’s worth a more careful reading. So to understand what the author’s main attention is.

      1. Look at the title page and preface.

      2. Study the table of contents to obtain a general sense of the book’s structure

      3. Check the index - when you see terms listed that seem curcial, look up at least some of the passages cited.

      4. If the book has a dust jacket, read the blurb.

         if you want to do more: 5. Look at the chapters that seem to be pivotal to it’s arguemnt. And read the summaries opening and closing of the chapter.

         6. Turn the pages, dipping here and there, reading a couple of paragraphs. But no more then several pages. You’re looking for signs of main content.

   Superficial Reading - What is the right approach on reading a difficult 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.

Analytical Reading This is preeminently for the sake of understanding. Rule 1. Classify books according to their categories

1. fiction or expository works.

   • expository works: history, philosophy, physics..
   • theoretical/pratical, pure/applied, science/technology
   • what you should do or how to do it, guide books are pratical book. including, moral, ethics, political problems.
     • sociological studies merely reporting the acutal behavior of men without judging it is not ethical or pratical book, these are works of science and they are theoretical.

2. titles, contents, preface, indexes

Syntopical Reading - reads many books and place them in relation to each other. (Set relation of books, pattern recgonition.. etc )

1. What is the book about as a whole? - discover leading theme and how author delveoped this theme in an orderly way.
2. What is being said in detail, and how? - discover main ideas, assertions, and arguments that constitute the author’s particular message.
3. Is the book true, in whole or part? You’re obligated to make up your own mind.
4. What of it? If the book has given you information, you must ask about its significance. Is it important to you to know them? If the book has enlightened you, what else follows?