"As we have seen, **there are two main stages of syntopical reading**. One is preparatory, and the other is syntopical reading proper. "Let us write out all of these steps for review. "I. SURVEYING THE FIELD PREPARATORY TO SYNTOPICAL READING 1. **Create a tentative bibliography** of your subject by recourse to library catalogues, advisors, and bibliographies in books. 2. **Inspect all of the books on the tentative bibliography** to ascertain which are germane to your subject, and also to acquire a clearer idea of the subject. "Note: These two steps are not, strictly speaking, chronologically distinct; that is, the two steps have an effect on each other, with the second, in particular, serving to modify the first. "II. SYNTOPICAL READING OF THE BIBLIOGRAPHY AMASSED IN STAGE I 1. **Inspect the books already identified** as relevant to your subject in Stage I in order to find the most relevant passages. 2. Bring the authors to terms by **constructing a neutral terminology of the subject** that all, or the great majority, of the authors can be interpreted as employing, whether they actually employ the words or not. 3. Establish a set of neutral propositions for all of the authors by **framing a set of questions to which all or most of the authors can be interpreted as giving answers**, whether they actually treat the questions explicitly or not. 4. **Define the issues**, both major and minor ones, by ranging the opposing answers of authors to the various questions on one side of an issue or another. You should remember that an issue does not always exist explicitly between or among authors, but that it sometimes has to be constructed by interpretation of the authors’ views on matters that may not have been their primary concern. 5. **Analyze the discussion by ordering the questions and issues in such a way as to throw maximum light on the subject**. More general issues should precede less general ones, and relations among issues should be clearly indicated. "Note: Dialectical detachment or objectivity should, ideally, be maintained throughout. One way to insure this is always to accompany an interpretation of an author’s views on an issue with an actual quotation from his text. ([Location 4779](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B004PYDAPE&location=4779)) --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[reading-books]], [[analytical-reading]], [[syntopical-reading]], [[knowledge-management]] **Source** -- [[20250103084100 - B - How to Read a Book]]