Concept
Active Reading Questions
Active reading questions are the four questions Adler and Van Doren say every serious reader must answer about a book: what is it about as a whole, what is being said in detail and how, is it true in whole or in part, and what of it, so that reading becomes a conversation with the author rather than passive intake.
Adler and Van Doren's central claim is that reading well is active: the reader keeps asking questions and tries to answer them. The four questions give that activity a shape. The first asks for the book's main theme and how its parts fit together, which you should be able to state in a sentence or two. The second asks for the key terms, the main propositions and the arguments behind them. The third asks for your own judgement, but only after you can show you understood: agree, disagree or suspend judgement, and give reasons. The fourth asks why it matters and what follows for you. Marking the book serves the questions: underlining key sentences, numbering the steps of an argument, writing questions and objections in the margin. A reader who can answer all four has read the book; one who only turned every page has not yet.
A real-life example
Kerem, an engineer in Bursa, finishes a book on decision-making and realises he cannot say what it argued. For the next book he keeps the four questions on a card. After each chapter he writes the chapter's point in one sentence and one objection in the margin. At the end he can explain the book to a colleague in two minutes and say exactly where he disagrees.
How to use it
- 1Before reading, write the four questions on a card and keep it in the book.
- 2After each chapter, write its main point in one sentence and one question or objection in the margin.
- 3When you finish, answer all four in writing, including your own judgement and what follows for you.