How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren

Inspectional Reading

1. Pre-reading
2. Superficial reading

Analytical Reading

1. What is a book about as a whole?

1. What type of book is it? (theoretical, practical, etc.)
2. What is the book's unity?
3. How does the book support the unity? What is it's structure?
4. What questions or problems was the author trying to solve?

2. What is the book saying in detail and how?

5. Find the important words and come to terms
   • What are the important terms?
   • What does the author mean by them?
6. Mark the most important sentence in a book and identify the propositions they contain
7. Locate or construct the basic arguments in the book by finding them in the connection of sentences
   • This might be in a single sentence, in a paragraph, in a string of paragraphs, in sentences from discontiguous paragraphs, etc.
8. Identify which problems the author has solved and which he has not. For the latter, decide which the author knew he did not solve. This step is in conversation with step 4.

3. Is the book true, in whole or part?

9. You must be able to say "I understand" before agreeing, disagreeing, or passing judgement
10. When you disagree, do so reasonably, not contentiously.
11. View disagreement as being remediable. Respect the difference between knowledge and personal opinion by giving reasons for any critical judgements made.

Criteria for points of criticism

12. Show where the author is uninformed
13. Show where the author is misinformed
14. Show where the author is illogical
15. Show where the analysis or account is incomplete

4. What of it?