Improve your reading by asking the right questions

There are four rules to Analytical Reading:

• Classify the book according to kind and subject matter.
• State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity.
• Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole....

If we want to do things that haven’t been done or learn things that have never been learned — in short, be more creative — we must learn to ask the right questions, ones so good that they’re half-answered in the asking. And to do that, it might help to understand the process.

When you have more questions than answers, ask yourself:

• What are these questions?
• Would you like to direct your questions to a particular character?
• Are they questions that you may be able to answer by reading more about the author's life and works...