Reading For Academic Purposes

[Liz944]

Reading For Academic Purposes

Some ways of reading
We read in different ways depending on what we read and why we read it. Below are some of the different kinds of reading you might have some experience of:

♦ Reading for a detailed understanding of content is what you will spend much of your time trying to do as a student. It involves a great deal of care and thought, and includes some of the other kinds of reading mentioned below.
♦ Exploratory reading is reading to gain basic information from a text. One type of exploratory reading is skimming through a text in order to get a general impression of it. We might read like this when we flick though a magazine for the first time.
♦ Scanning to search for specific information is another type of exploratory reading. This is the type of reading we do when we look for a name in a phone book, when we know what we are looking for.
♦ Revision reading involves reading rapidly through a text that you are familiar with, in order to confirm your knowledge of it. This is often done before exams.
♦ Critical reading involves intensive analysis of a text and often means the reader will challenge the position of the author.
♦ Reading for enjoyment or relaxation is what we do with novels and magazines that we do not have to concentrate very hard on. This is not always possible as a student, because of pressure of deadlines.
♦ Proof-reading requires meticulous attention to spelling, punctuation, sentence structure etc. This should be done before you submit your final draft of an assignment.

While you are at university try out different ways of reading to see which works best for you. Remember, you will need to use different reading strategies depending on what you need out of your texts.

What to read
Students rarely have the time to read every text on their reading lists from cover to cover. So it is important to be as focused and realistic as possible. The following points will help you decide what texts to read and how intensively to read them:

Choose your texts with care
• If they are from a reading list, are the texts required reading or recommended reading?
• Were they mentioned in other texts you have read?

Plan your time
• When do you need to read the text by? Is there a deadline?
• When do you work best; mornings, evenings?
• How much can you read in an hour?
• How many texts do you think you can read before the deadline?

Consider why you need to read the texts.
• Are you preparing for a lecture, or gathering information for an assignment?
• Do you need a detailed understanding of a text, or just a general idea of what it is about?
• Would it be better to skim over a few texts than to look at just one in detail?

Approaching a text for the first time – getting an overview
Skimming and scanning are two techniques you can use to explore texts. They can help you locate and evaluate information.

Skimming is useful for getting an overview of a text and evaluating how relevant it is to you. There are various ways to skim a text:

• Read selected paragraphs of each section of your texts (e.g. introduction and conclusion).
• Most clearly written books will present their main message at least three times – in the introduction, in the main body of the text and in the conclusion. By reading the first and last paragraphs you have a two in three chance of picking up the major themes and important concepts.
• Read the first sentence of each paragraph. This can be quite time consuming but will give you a more detailed idea of the text.
• We call the first sentence the topic sentence, because it generally contains the topic of the paragraph.

Scanning involves running your eyes rapidly over a section of a text (a page, a chapter, etc.) to find specific information. It is very useful to use scanning to answer questions (see SQ3R below).

Reading for detail
It is not enough just to skim or scan a text you need to use at university. If a text is important, you need to dedicate time and effort to try to understand it in as much detail as possible. Reading for detail is an active process, not a passive one. It means you have to:

♦ think about what you are reading,
♦ make associations between it and what you already know, and
♦ evaluate how useful it is to you.

Critical reading
At university it is important to examine texts critically. This means engaging in a dialogue with the author and adopting a questioning attitude about the information. Do not accept the author’s viewpoint without asking yourself questions about the text, for instance:

♦ What evidence does the author present for his/her statements?
♦ Is the author’s argument consistent with others you have read?

A useful reading strategy – SQ3R
To make the most of a text, you will need to read it more ways than one. The SQ3R method helps you do this. SQ3R stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recall, Review.
SURVEY

♦ Skim the whole text to gain a general overview of its structure, purpose, contents, style etc.
♦ Always remember the purpose of your reading, particularly if you have an essay title or topic heading. If the book is not relevant to your purpose move on to something else.
♦ Begin to make notes of what you think the text is about.

QUESTION

♦ Looking at the notes you took while surveying the text, identify the parts of the text you are unclear about. Think of questions that (if you find the answers) will help to make the text clearer to you.
♦ To find the answers to your questions, break the text up into meaningful units or segments (a paragraph or two, a page) and read it bit-by-bit.
♦ Add to your notes as you find answers (or any other information about the text that you think might be helpful).

READ

♦ Quickly read through your text again segment-by-segment. You do this to ensure that you are following the line of argument correctly.
♦ Try to focus on the main points:
♦ Differentiate between essential information and significant details.
♦ Avoid getting bogged down in extensive supporting details.
♦ Up-date your notes with any new insights on the text that you might have.

RECALL

♦ Without referring to the text or your notes, see how much of the information you can recall.
♦ Make a note of each main point but also note down areas where you feel confused or uncertain so that you can concentrate on those parts of the text for clarification.
♦ As you question-read-recall after each reading segment try to relate the important points to the other segments, building layer upon layer. This will help you acquire a meaningful continuity of the material as you read through your texts.

REVIEW

♦ Now re-read the whole text in order to complete and clarify your notes as well as to fix the information more permanently in your mind.

Remember that reading should be an active process not a passive one. An active reading strategy (like SQ3R) can transform the reading of texts from time-consuming, boring chores into stimulating explorations of important resources, which may have lasting value to you.
Perseverance is the secret of success. The SQ3R method may seem laborious and complicated at first but if you carry on using the strategies they will become automatic you will find that you need less time and effort reading.

[gomababe]

May I also add for those oof us doing Science-related courses that involve reading journal articles that reading the abstract, introduction and conclusions {include results if the abstract doesn't already give an overview of them already} is the best way to get through a journal article, particularly if it looks intimidatingly long. Ideally you should only read through the methods section if you feel it is pertinent to any questions you might get asked at some time in the future. Most of this is just sound advice from university staff since it appplies to everyone, though it is particularly useful for us as well.

[Greg]

I think the parts of a journal article you read depends upon why you're reading it. I find if I'm doing a literiture search to find information relevent to a project I'm doing skipping the introduction is normally safe (Since I already know how it fits into my field overall) but skipping the results is not (Since if someone draws the wrong conclusions you don't want to base part of your project on it) Good peer review means you shouldn't need to double check people have interpreted their results properly, but how many academics actually trust peer review with some of the **** that gets into academic journals?

[keiraknightleyfan27]

I just have a lot of trouble with getting the stuff done in time. On certain books I read about 10 pages per half hour and it's so time consuming! I am currently behind because after a few hours I just get burnt out and I can't do it any more. I'm trying to figure out a schedule. I find I read better in the afternoons because then I'm not as sleepy as at night so I try to read then, but it doesn't always work out.