Ethan Hamilton's Key Ideas from How to Read a Book
by Mortimer J. Adler

The next stage of reading is called inspectional reading. At this point, we are reading through a book in order to see what it is and judge whether or not we should spend more time with it. There are two types of inspectional reading:

• Systematic skimming
• Superficial reading

During systematic skimming, we check the parts of the book such as the table of contents or the index to see what material the book covers. This gives us a superficial understanding of what the author is trying to accomplish.

During superficial reading, we might read straight through the book without critical assessment.

Once we know the basics about some reading material, we might judge that we need to spend more time with it in order to understand it better. This stage of reading is called analytical reading. During the analytical reading stage, we might assess the author’s arguments, study the narrative, or assess the aesthetic value of the writing. Different types of reading material require different approaches. During analytical reading, we are trying to understand the reading material at the nuts and bolts level.

Syntopical reading is the most demanding level of reading, where we might examine multiple books on a subject in order to compare and contrast them. While the goal of analytical reading is about understanding one particular book, syntopical reading is about understanding the breadth of a field or subject area. This stage of reading involves identifying relevant sections of different books, understanding the questions the authors are asking, and critically assessing the views and arguments and how they relate to each other.