Reading Selectively or Extensively?
Once famous English philosopher Francis Bacon said, "Reading makes a full man", which means that anyone who wants to be a full man must keep on reading. But books are of various kinds and different contents. Then how to read?
Some people say that we should read selectively. They believe that it is not how much one reads but what he reads that really counts. Since we have no enough time to read all kinds of books, we should read selectively to achieve a high efficiency, reading only those that are useful to our majors and future works. Only by this way can we make full use of our time, and gain more practical knowledge.
However, others claim that reading extensively is a better choice. In their opinions, different books are of different uses. Just like Bacon mentioned, "Histories make men wise;poets witty;the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to content." Therefore, reading widely is necessary for a full man.
In my viewpoint, we should read both selectively and extensively. The two reading ways have their respective roles in our reading. We can read selectively for specialized knowledge, or read widely for general information. Therefore, the combination of the two methods is more reasonable.