Donald Hall in "Four Kinds of Reading" identifies four legitimate
types of reading. The thrust of his argument is that not all reading is
worthwhile, and literature is frequently misread, either as narcotic
reading or as philosophical discourse. While this may be true, it is
useful to examine the four kinds of reading material he identifies and
explore how these types of reading materials are both read and used in
notes.
Most academic writing requires students to read for information or ideas. The focus in reading here is primarily intellectual.
The first kind of reading Hall identies is reading for information.
Materials like newspapers are designed to be read quickly in order to
find facts. Most newspaper sentences are no more than fifteen words;
paragraphs, no longer than three sentences. The text appears in narrow
columns so the reader's eye can quickly move down the page. Typically,
readers do not read every word, but skim the page for key facts. Hall describes reading for information as
. . . reading to learn about a trade, or politics, or
how to accomplish something. We read a newspaper this way, or most
textbooks, or directions on how to assemble a bicycle. With most of this
sort of material, the reader can learn to scan the page quickly, coming
up with what he needs and ignoring what is irrelevant to him, like the
rhythm of the sentence, or the play of metaphor. Courses in speed
reading can help us read for this purpose, training the eye to jump
quickly across the page. . . . Quick eye-reading is a necessity to
anyone who wants to keep up with what's happening, or learn much of what
has happened in the past. (Hall 164)
Note Taking: Much of the factual information
that students will use in a research paper can be read this way. When
taking notes, students should limit their notes to key nouns or phrases,
and avoid adjectives or adverbs. Students should be especially careful
about "lifting" verbs from their sources. If students use distinctive
verbs or lists of nouns from the source, these should appear in
quotation marks in the student paper.
Unlike reading for information, reading for ideas is slow, and
sometimes torturous. Ideas require careful thought in order to be
understood. The fact that John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov.
22nd, 1963, is a straightforward fact and easily understood. The answer
to the question What were the immediate and long lasting effects of Kennedy’s assassination on the American psyche? requires careful thought and consideration.
While students can scan for information, ideas have to be appropriated which requires careful reflection.
Students may need to re-read the material, take notes, spend time
thinking about what was written, define words, research background and
context, or discuss the material with a teacher or friend in order to
comprehend complex ideas.
With a philosopher one reads slowly, as if it were
literature, but much time must be spent with the eyes turned away from
the pages, reflecting on the text. . . . [I]ntellectual writing . . .
requires intellectual reading, which is slow because it is reflective
and because the reader must pause to evaluate concepts. (Hall 165)
Note Taking: When reading complex material,
students will need to jot down key nouns and then translate the original
material into words the student understands. Sometimes it helps to
summarize key ideas, sentence by sentence or paragraph by paragraph.
The goal is to "digest" the material in order to understand it.
Unfortunately, students often take the illegitimate shortcut of "cutting
and pasting" ideas from the original source without filtering the ideas
through their own consciousness. If a student cannot explain something
he or she has read, the student cannot use it as source material.
These last two methods of reading apply primarily to writing about
literature. The reader's goal in reading literature is to "feel"
something, to connect to the writing on a visceral level.
Most people read novels to escape. What is sometimes called genre fiction
or sometimes "pulp" fiction includes inexpensive and mass produced
works of entertainment that people read to while away their time or ease
their stress. While there is nothing wrong with some relaxing reading
for pleasure, this type of reading seldom comes into play in the
academic world. Hall describes escape reading as "narcotic reading"
(Hall 165)
the automated daydream, the mild trip of the housewife
and the tired businessman, interested not in experience and feeling but
in turning off the possibilities of experience and feeling (Hall 165). .
. . [T]he reader is in control: once the characters reach into the
reader's feelings, he is able to stop reading,
or glance away, or superimpose his own daydreams. (Hall 166)
Note Taking: Occasionally, an instructor might
ask students to write a book review or personal reaction to a favorite
book. When taking notes for this kind of assignment, students should
focus on personal reactions to the reading and provide a summary of the
plot. However, instructors will seldom expect students to read or write
about literature in this way.
Unlike escape fiction, literature is meant to engage
the reader in lived experience, so that readers wrestle with the
emotional dilemmas that characters face. Hall suggests that
If we read a work of literature properly, we read
slowly, and we hear all the words. If our lips do not actually move,
it's only laziness. The muscles in our throats move, and come together
when we see the word "squeeze." We hear the sounds so accurately that if
a syllable is missing in a line of poetry we hear the lack, though we
may not know what we are lacking. In prose we accept the rhythms, and
hear the adjacent sounds. We also register a track of feeling through
the metaphors and associations of words. . . . [T]he great writers
reward this attention. Only by the full exercise of our powers to
receive language can we absorb their intelligence and their imagination.
This kind of reading goes through the ear--though the eye takes in the
print, and decodes it into sound--to the throat and the understanding,
and it can never be
quick. It is slow and sensual, a deep pleasure that begins with touch
and ends with the sort of comprehension that we associate with dream. . .
. To read literature is to be intimately involved with the words on the
page, and never to think of them as the embodiments of ideas which can
be expressed in other terms. . . . Great literature, if we read it well,
opens us up to the world, and makes us more sensitive to it, as if we
acquired eyes that could see through things and ears that could hear
smaller sounds." (Hall
164-5)
Unlike escape literature, which though enjoyable and sometimes even
intellectually stimulating, is often written quickly and following a
formula, great works of literature are carefully and artistically
crafted, wedding sound to sense.
Note Taking: When writing about a work of
literature, students should strive to find the emotional center of the
work (what is at stake). Students should note literary conventions,
repetitions, and related ideas. It is often useful to identify things
which seem confusing or strange because these often lie at the heart of
the work's meaning. Again, it is often useful for students to summarize
or paraphrase the whole work before beginning a detailed study of the
interconnections between the parts of the work.
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