Reading Exercise 1

Some Principles of College Reading

The reading and writing [students] do in each course will differ from what [they] do in other courses in more than just subject matter. In [their] earlier years [students] may have assumed that teachers taught different subjects:  in history [students] considered such topics as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; in science, [students] thought about molecules and chemical compounds.  But subject matter is only the most obvious difference among the courses that [students] take. . . . instructors consider themselves members of different academic disciplines, not just because they study different subject matter, but because they have developed different systems for looking at and organizing experience. In the broadest sense, all courses have the same subject matter—the world—but as [students] study each discipline, [they] will need to look at that subject matter from a slightly different angle.

*Maimon, Elaine P., et al.  Writing in the Arts and Sciences.

        Cambridge, MA:  Winthrop Publishers, Inc., 1981.

 

Consider the following quotations:

• "Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested:  That is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read but cursorily, and some few to be read with diligence and attention." -- Francis Bacon, Of Studies
• "If we think of it, all that a University, or final highest school can do for us, is still but what the first School began doing—teach us to read."  --  Thomas Carlyle, The Hero as a Man of Letters
• "Reading furnishes the mind only with the materials of knowledge;  it is thinking that makes what we read ours." -- John Locke, Of the Conduct of Understanding

Questions: 

1. What does each of these statements say about the nature of the act of reading? 
2. What adjustments do you need to contemplate?
   

Related Readings:

• For some additional insights on the nature of reading that may assist you in your college classes, read Mortimer Adler’s essay, “Hard Reading Made Easy.”
• There will be many times when you will have to read material that is very difficult.  For some advice on reading such material, refer to Adler’s essay on “How to Read a Difficult Book.”