You are
expected to do much more reading at university than at school or college;
it's not called ‘reading for a degree' for nothing.
Here are
five tips to help you improve your reading:
1.
Styles of reading
2. Active reading 3. A tip for speeding up your active reading 4. Spotting authors' navigation aids 5. Words and vocabulary |
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1.
Styles of reading
There
are three styles of reading which we use in different situations:
Scanning:
for a specific focus
The
technique you use when you're looking up a name in the phone book: you move
your eye quickly over the page to find particular words or phrases that are
relevant to the task you're doing.
It's
useful to scan parts of texts to see if they're going to be useful to you:
Skimming:
for getting the gist of something
The
technique you use when you're going through a newspaper or magazine: you read
quickly to get the main points, and skip over the detail. It's useful to
skim:
Use
skimming when you're trying to decide if a book in the library or bookshop is
right for you.
Detailed
reading: for extracting information accurately
Where
you read every word, and work to learn from the text.
In this
careful reading, you may find it helpful to skim first, to get a general
idea, but then go back to read in detail. Use a dictionary to make sure you
understand all the words used.
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When
you're reading for your course, you need to make sure you're actively
involved with the text. It's a waste of your time to just passively read, the
way you'd read a thriller on holiday.
Always
make notes to keep up your concentration and understanding.
Here are
four tips for active reading.
Underlining
and highlighting
Pick out
what you think are the most important parts of what you are reading. Do this
with your own copy of texts or on photocopies, not with borrowed books.
If you are a visual learner, you'll find it helpful to use different colors to highlight different aspects of what you're reading.
Note
key words
Record
the main headings as you read. Use one or two keywords for each point. When
you don't want to mark the text, keep a folder of notes you make while
reading.
Questions
Before
you start reading something like an article, a chapter or a whole book,
prepare for your reading by noting down questions you want the material to
answer. While you're reading, note down questions which the author raises.
Summaries
Pause
after you've read a section of text. Then:
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3.
A tip for speeding up your active reading
You
should learn a huge amount from your reading. If you read passively, without
learning, you're wasting your time. So train your mind to learn.
Try the SQ3R
technique. SQ3R stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recall and
Review.
Survey
Gather
the information you need to focus on the work and set goals:
Question
Help
your mind to engage and concentrate. Your mind is engaged in learning when it
is actively looking for answers to questions.
Try
turning the boldface headings into questions you think the section should
answer.
Read
Read the
first section with your questions in mind. Look for the answers, and make up
new questions if necessary.
Recall
After
each section, stop and think back to your questions. See if you can answer
them from memory. If not, take a look back at the text. Do this as often as
you need to.
Review
Once you
have finished the whole chapter, go back over all the questions from all the
headings. See you if can still answer them. If not, look back and refresh
your memory.
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4.
Spotting authors' navigation aids
Learn to
recognize sequence signals, for example:
"Three
advantages of..."
or "A number of methods are available..." leads you to
expect several points to follow.
The
first sentence of a paragraph will often indicate a sequence: "One
important cause of..." followed by "Another important
factor..." and so on, until "The final cause of..."
General
points are often illustrated by particular examples, for example:
General: Birds' beaks are appropriately
shaped for feeding.
Particular: Sparrows and other seed-eating
birds have short, stubby beaks; wrens and other insect eaters have thin
pointed beaks; herons and other fish hunters have long, sharp beaks for
spearing their prey.
Whatever
you are reading, be aware of the author's background. It is important to
recognize the bias given to writing by a writer's political, religious,
social background. Learn which newspapers and journals represent a particular
standpoint.
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5.
Words and vocabulary
When
you're a graduate people expect you to use a vocabulary which is wider than a
school-leaver's. To expand your vocabulary:
Choose a
large dictionary rather than one which is ‘compact' or ‘concise'. You want
one which is big enough to define words clearly and helpfully (around 1,500
pages is a good size).
Avoid
dictionaries which send you round in circles by just giving synonyms. A
pocket dictionary might suggest: ‘impetuous = rash'.
A more
comprehensive dictionary will tell you that impetuous means ‘rushing with
force and violence', while another gives ‘liable to act without
consideration', and add to your understanding by giving the derivation ‘14th
century, from late Latin impetuous = violent'.
It will
tell you that rash means ‘acting without due consideration or thought', and
is derived from Old High German rasc = hurried.
So
underlying these two similar words is the difference between violence and
hurrying.
There
are over 600,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary; most of them
have different meanings, (only a small proportion are synonyms).
Avoid
dictionaries which send you round in circles by using very complicated
language to define the term you're looking up, leaving you struggling to
understand half a dozen new words.
Keep
your dictionary at hand when you're studying. Look up unfamiliar words and
work to understand what they mean.
Improve
your vocabulary by reading widely.
If you
haven't got your dictionary with you, note down words which you don't
understand and look them up later.
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Further
Reading
Your
next step should be to print out and work through the study guide Reading
Academically
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