If I'm trying to acquire a new skill, one of the first things I try to do is listen to skilled practitioners of that skill talk about it to each other. What are the terms-of-art? How do they use them? What does this tell me about how they see their craft? Their shorthand is a treasure trove of crystallized concepts; once I can use it the same way they do, I find I'm working at a level of abstraction much closer to theirs. (#)
This is also known as comparative reading and it represents the most demanding and difficult reading of all. Syntopical Reading involves reading many books on the same subject and comparing and contrasting the ideas, vocabulary, and arguments. This task is undertaken by identifying relevant passages, translating the terminology, framing and ordering the questions that need answering, defining the issues, and having a conversation with the responses. The goal is not to achieve an overall understanding of any particular book, but rather to understand the subject and develop a deep fluency. (#)
"I actually wrote a 'dictionary' of all the terms because there were so many of them, and understanding what all the terms meant really helped me orient myself and ask better questions later on." (#)
I'm always a little leery of definitions because everyone has his or her own, but when you write a book you get to choose your own definitions. In this case I'm basing my definitions on the work done by Ralph Johnson's group and assorted associates. (#)
"We're finding out a lot from the neuroscience of learning that the brain needs to accumulate the information, but then also organize it and make sense of it and create an internal story that makes the knowledge make sense." (#)