How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

Chapter 20 introduces syntopical reading, the highly advanced fourth level of reading. This level requires readers to use more than one book to understand a subject completely. The second requirement is “Knowing which books should be read [which] is a great deal harder to satisfy” (301). Knowing which books should be read requires identifying subject matter and creating a bibliography according to the subject. In order to do so, the reader must first turn to the second level of reading, inspectional reading.

The first step in syntopical reading is to find relevant passages from different authors. The second step is to bring one’s chosen authors to terms by identifying and analyzing their key words. For the third step, the reader will need to frame a set of questions and determine how each of their chosen authors answers them. The fourth step is defining issues, meaning that the reader should find differences in how their chosen authors answered the third step’s questions. The fifth and final step is to analyze the discussion: The reader will need to compare and contrast opposing answers.