{"id":9147,"date":"2016-09-08T09:02:08","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T16:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=9147"},"modified":"2016-09-08T09:02:08","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T16:02:08","slug":"how-to-read-a-book-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/how-to-read-a-book-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"“How to read a book” book review"},"content":{"rendered":"

How to Read a Book –\u00a0 Adler and van Doren<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"How<\/a><\/p>\n

This book looks at the four different types of reading, ranging from elementary reading, to inspectional reading, to analytical reading to syntopical reading, focusing in particular detail on the latter two categories.<\/p>\n

All books are not equal, and they should be read in different ways, at different levels of detail, and at varying speeds. At the \u201clighter\u201d end of the scale, inspectional reading involves skimming a book, reading or pre-reading at a superficial level, and working out the main thrust or content of the material. Footnotes, bibliography, publisher\u2019s blurbs etc. can all provide additional helps to the inspectional reader in this type of reading.<\/p>\n

The authors emphasise throughout the importance of engaged and active reading \u2013 making a book your own. There are various ways and means of doing this, but the reader must engage with the material, take notes, underline, highlight etc. I have read books like this for a long time, and it is rare for me not to read with a highlighter in my hand.<\/p>\n

Analytical reading involves classifying books, working out the main plot or structure of the book, its terms and its key arguments. There is an element of X-raying the book, working out its key structure and arguments. The analytical reader must also learn to critique the author, having first understood him.<\/p>\n

The fourth level of reading, syntopical reading, is reading across books, and comparing them. This will be essential work at Doctorate level no doubt, with the need to understand and overview a wide range of authors on a particular subject or in a particular field. It is important to engage inspectional reading to this end, skimming and pre-reading across a subject and working out which books require further study and more analytical engagement.<\/p>\n

This book has been a good reminder to me of the importance of the different types of reading. It is often tempting to read books at the same level of depth and speed. I often feel I am \u201ccheating\u201d or robbing myself if I skim or only read parts of a book. I won\u2019t have that luxury at DMin level and will need to grow in the ability to read at every level, to learn how better to skim a book quickly, critique an author, quickly to understand the main concepts of a book, and to be able to gain an overview of wide-ranging and complex issues across a number of books.<\/p>\n

My highlighter pen is ready, and I am getting my first pair of reading glasses tomorrow.<\/p>\n

I am almost ready for this DMin course!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Geoff Lee<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How to Read a Book –\u00a0 Adler and van Doren This book looks at the four different types of reading, ranging from elementary reading, to inspectional reading, to analytical reading to syntopical reading, focusing in particular detail on the latter two categories. All books are not equal, and they should be read in different ways, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[660,881],"class_list":["post-9147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adler","tag-how-to-read-a-book","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}