Quotes from Mortimer Adler

Anyone who fails to consult the explanatory notes and the list of abbreviations at the beginning of a dictionary has only himself to blame if he is not able to use it well.

STEP 5 IN SYNTOPICAL READING: ANALYZING THE DISCUSSION

Analytical reading is preeminently for the sake of understanding

2. STUDY THE TABLE OF CONTENTS

4. If the book is a new one with a dust jacket, READ THE PUBLISHER'S BLURB.

Many persons believe that they know how to read because they read at different speeds. But they pause and go slow over the wrong sentences. They pause over the sentences that interest them rather than the ones that puzzle them.

6. Finally, TURN THE PAGES, DIPPING IN HERE AND THERE, READING A PARAGRAPH OR TWO, SOMETIMES SEVERAL PAGES IN SEQUENCE, NEVER MORE THAN THAT.

Common is not the same as universal.

If one could enumerate all the essentials which a sound educational program consider, I would say that the techniques of communication, which make for literacy, are our first obligation, and more so in a cemocracy than in any other kind of society, because it depends on a literate electorate.

1. WHAT IS THE BOOK ABOUT AS A WHOLE?

intelligent action depends on knowledge. Knowledge

The questions answered by inspectional reading are: first, what kind of book is it? second, what is it about as a whole? and third, what is the structural order of the work whereby the author develops his conception or understanding of that general subject matter?