---
title: Levels of Reading
tags: [Reading]
summary: Thoughts on distinguishing different depths of reading and adjusting your habits accordingly.
---

In a previous post I mentioned that I like to take marginal notes
when I want to engage deeply with a text.  This is quite time
consuming because I stop to evaluate each paragraph and think about
how to summarize it.  This kind of reading is only appropriate for
a relatively small portion of the books that I read.  I learned
from A.G. Sertillanges's book, *The Intellectual Life*, that it is
a mistake to read books with a higher level of attention than they
deserve.  His prescription is quite systematic, distinguishing four
distinct categories of reading.[@sertillanges87 152] I would simply
suggest that we should adjust the tools and degree of annotation to
the text at hand and our research purposes for it.  Seneca makes
much the same point:

> 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 not curiously; and some few
> to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.[@empty Quote
> taken from the excellent [Taking
> Note](http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2007/12/seneca-on-
> gathering-ideas.html) blog.]

 [^1]: Quote taken from the excellent [Taking Note](http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2007/12/seneca-on-gathering-ideas.html) blog.

After spending quite a bit of time working out a digital annotation
system, I face the danger of wanting to apply it to everything I
read.  This transforms into what Sertillanges diagnoses as an
inordinate lust for collecting information:

> Some people have so many and such full notebooks that they are
> prevented by a sort of anticipatory discouragement from ever
> opening them.  Their imaginary treasures have cost much time
> and trouble, and they yield no return.
> [@sertillanges87 188]


More to come on note-taking in general.