Reading a whole book, especially a long and difficult one, is an extremely difficult problem for the average reader to imagine.
It's easier to read a short story than to read a book. It's easier to read an article than to read an entire book on the same topic.
But if you can read an epic poem or **, you can read a lyric poem or a short story. If you can read a book on theory – a historical, philosophical discourse or scientific theory – you can read an article or abstract in the same field.
When we refer to reading, the same rules of reading are applied to other materials that are easier to read.
Rule 1 of analytical reading: You must know what kind of book you are reading, and the sooner you know, the better, preferably long before you start reading.
A lot of ** will appear sociological point of view, a lot of natural science knowledge will also appear on **, some books are obviously not**, but the readability is compared with **some.
The main purpose of an expository book is to convey knowledge.
Judging whether a book is an expository book or not depends mainly on whether the book is composed of some opinions, theories, hypotheses, and inferences.
We need to know not only what kind of book is giving us guidance, but also how it is being guided. For example, history and philosophy, physics and ethics, which provide different knowledge and enlighten different ways when dealing with the same problem.
The first rule of analytical reading, although applicable to all books, is particularly suitable for reading non-**, discursive books.
The necessary way to start a discussion about a book is to say what kind of book it is in the simplest terms.
In the beginning, to be able to explain the classification of a book, it is necessary to use the title, preface, and table of contents.
Reading the title of a book allows the reader to get some basic information before they start reading.
For example, "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", you can know when you see the title of the book, this is a history of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, and when you see the first chapter of this book, "The Empire Territory and Armed Forces in the Antoninary Era", you can know that the Antonine era is the author's most powerful era of the Roman Empire.
Authors usually pay attention to the title, table of contents, and preface, so that the reader knows what kind of book it is.
For example, Einstein and Infeld told readers in the preface to their book The Evolution of Physics that they were writing a "book of science, which is very popular, but which cannot be read in the same way as a reader". They also lay out an analysis table of the content, reminding the reader to further understand the details in their concepts.
These are important tips that readers shouldn't let go, but unfortunately many readers usually overlook.
Reading the title of the book is important, but it is not enough. Unless you can have a classification standard in mind, no matter how clear the title of the book is, no matter how detailed the table of contents and preface in the world is, it will not help you.
In the case of Aristotle's Politics and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, you can't tell what a real problem is, and how many different real problems there are.
The title of the book can sometimes make it easier to sort the book.
For example, seeing "Fundamentals of Geometry" and "Principles of Geometry", anyone knows that this is a book about mathematics.
But it is not enough to just look at the title of the book, but also pay attention to the title of the chapter, such as "City of God", "Social Contract", "Leviathan", only by looking at the title of the book can you know that they are all political discourses.
So, it's not enough to categorize books, you have to know what this genre of books are about. The title, chapters, preface, and sometimes even the entire book may not be clear, and you have to have a standard in mind.
This rule is undoubtedly difficult, and it will only be easier if you find the difference between different books and make a reasonable classification that will stand the test of time.
Our taxonomy divides books into two broad categories, one is fictional works – *drama, epic, lyric poetry. One is the explanatory discourse.
Using this method, most books can be properly categorized, but there is a basic principle that is needed when it comes to discursive works.
Practicality is about what works, whether it's immediate or long-term. Theory, on the other hand, is concerned with understanding or understanding something.
Practical and theoretical, representing knowledge and action. Wise action comes from knowledge. An example is the difference between pure science and applied science, or between science and technology.
There are professions or groups of people who are only interested in the knowledge to be conveyed, do not deny the usefulness of knowledge, but insist on knowledge for knowledge's sake. Others are concerned about what knowledge can help solve life's problems.
The difference between practical and theoretical is that one is "know what it is" and the other is "what we want to do and how to use it." "It's about the rules of operation.
The rule of operation is the difference between knowing and doing.
Any book that teaches you what to do and how to do it is a practical book.
Any guidebook is a practical book, any study technique that explains an art, a practical manual in any field (e.g., engineering, medicine, cooking), or any esoteric book that can be classified as "didactic" (e.g., normative books on economics, politics, ethics, etc.).
The so-called normative books are books that tell you what to do and what not to do, and at the same time explain that there will be rewards for what you do and what punishments will be for not doing it.
Sometimes you can tell if a book is practical or not from the title. If the title has "......or "how to ......You can categorize it right away. If the title of the book is in a field that you know is practical, such as ethics or politics, engineering or business, and some books on economics, law, or medicine, you can easily categorize them.
That's what the title tells you.
Second, questioning the validity of something is theoretical, while questioning the purpose of anything is practical.
For example, Locke's "Theory of Human Understanding" and "The Origin, Expansion and End" of **Ming** can be inferred from the title of the book, the first is a book of theory, because any book of analysis and discussion is a book of theory. And the problem is practical, so the second is a practical book.
Combined with the preface, "Theory of Human Understanding" introduces the exploration of the origin, truth and limits of human knowledge. And the other one is concerned with the end and purpose of **.
If the title, table of contents, and preface of the book cannot be used to determine the type of a book, it is necessary to use the "beginning and end and key summary parts" of the review reading, combined with the content of the book and the classification conditions of the heart, you can make a judgment in a short time.
A practical book often has words like "should" and "should", "good" and "bad", "result" and "meaning".
The typical statement used in practical books is that something should be done (or done); It is right to do (or make) something; Doing so will result better than doing that; It's better to choose this way than that, and so on.
On the other hand, theoretical works often say "yes" without words like "should" or "should". That's to say that something is true, that it's the truth, and that it's not about how to change things for the better, or how to make things better, or so on.
The above methods have only provided some clues, and you must also be skeptical when it comes to the classification of books. Because some book authors themselves can't tell the difference between practical and theoretical, and some books are partly of this category and partly of that category. Some economics books are purely theoretical.
But these are all reminders of how advantageous it is to analyze how the writer handles the problem after having the standard in mind.
Reading paves the way for the future Classification of theoretical works.
According to the traditional division, theoretical works are classified into historical, scientific, philosophical, and so on. However, it is more difficult to divide it more precisely, and I will only give a general explanation here.
In the case of history books, the secret lies in the title. If the word "history" does not appear in the title, other prefaces and so on will tell us that what is missing from the book is in the past.
History is the knowledge of a particular event, which not only exists in the past, but also has a series of evolutions through different eras. Historians, when describing history, often take it personally—personal comments, observations, or opinions.
History is a chronicle, dealing with some real events that happened at a specific time and in a specific place. The word "chronicle" is meant to remind you of that.
Science, on the other hand, doesn't care too much about the past, it wants to know how it happened in all or most cases. What scientists seek is a law or a general rule.
The titles of science books usually reveal less information than history books. Sometimes the word "science" comes up, but most of the time words like psychology, geometry, or physics come up.
We have to know what kind of subject the book is talking about, like geometry is of course science, and metaphysics is philosophical.
Philosophy is more like science than history, and pursues general truths rather than specific events in the past, whether the past is modern or distant.
But philosophers ask different questions than scientists, and so do they solve them.
We can't tell the difference between philosophy and science by the title of the book. But there is one rule that can be done (provided that you have read a book a lot):If a theoretical book emphasizes something beyond your everyday, routine, normal life experience, it is a scientific book. Otherwise it's a philosophical book.
The experience of science is mostly derived from the laboratory or this perennial observation, which cannot be verified by ordinary people, while the experience of philosophy is not divorced from the life of ordinary people.
What a philosopher mentions to his readers is his own normal and ordinary experience to prove or support what he says.
For example, the philosophical works in psychology in Locke's Theory of Human Understanding are the mental processes we experience in our lives. Freud, on the other hand, presented his clinical experience in a psychoanalytic practice.
This is not to say that philosophers are mere thinkers, and scientists are merely observers. They all need to think and observe the same, but they think differently about their observations.
Regardless of how they arrive at the conclusions they want to prove, their methods of proving are different: scientists will cite the results of their particular experience, while philosophers will cite the commonality of human beings as examples.
This approach is different, and it will give you an idea of what kind of book you are reading. If you can take the categories of experiences mentioned in the book as a condition for understanding the content, then you will understand that the book is a work of philosophy or science.
The situation is similar in terms of history books.
Historians are not the same as scientists and philosophers. Historians have different ways of arguing and illustrating facts.
What's more, typical history books appear in the form of storytelling. Regardless of whether it's a fact or a story, telling a story is telling a story. A historian's writing must be beautiful, that is, he must abide by the rules of telling a good story.
Reading a whole book, especially a long and difficult one, is an extremely difficult problem for the average reader to imagine. It's easier to read a short story than to read a book. It's easier to read an article than to read an entire book on the same topic. But if you can read an epic poem or **, you can read a lyric poem or a short story. If you can read a book on theory – a historical, philosophical discourse or scientific theory – you can read an article or abstract in the same field.