Chapter 2 Introduction to Academic Reading

Learning Objectives

• Identify the expectations for reading in post-secondary courses
• Recognize the types of reading assignments frequently included in post-secondary courses
• Apply strategies to manage and complete post-secondary-level reading assignments efficiently and effectively
• Identify specific reading strategies that work best for you
• Identify the main idea of a text
• Recognize patterns and identify keywords to differentiate between main and supporting ideas
• Apply pattern-identification words to reinforce understanding of main ideas
• Make inferences from implied information

This chapter introduces the types of reading you will be expected to do as a post-secondary student. You will learn a variety of reading and comprehension strategies for mastering these new challenges—and you will practice these strategies so that you can add them to your toolbox to become a more effective and confident reader.

For people who do not usually enjoy reading, the readings required at a university level can be challenging. Even avid readers who love to read will find some texts more difficult than others. Nearly every post-secondary course you take will require reading—often a lot of reading—and the texts may be significantly more complex than those you’ve read before.

However, reading academic texts, like any other skill, can be tackled effectively with preparation, with a plan, and with tools—and like any other skill, reading gets easier with practice. This chapter introduces strategies for handling the reading demands you will encounter at the post-secondary level. The techniques introduced here will help you develop your ability to read effectively and efficiently, whether you are required to read a short article or a long textbook.

Reading in University

In high school, most of the required reading probably consisted of high-school-level textbooks and literature (novels, plays, short stories, and poems). Perhaps you also occasionally read newspaper or magazine articles written for a general audience.

In university, you will read a much wider variety of texts, many written for more sophisticated readers. The content of the texts will likely be more complex: more detailed, more abstract, more research based, and more reliant on background knowledge. Table 2.1 illustrates some of the most common texts you will encounter in your studies.

Your post-secondary courses will sharpen both your reading and writing skills. Most of your writing assignments—from brief response papers to in-depth research projects—will depend on your understanding of course readings or related readings. It is difficult, if not impossible, to write effectively about a text that you have not understood. Even when you do understand the reading, it can be hard to write about it if you have not engaged with the ideas in the text. Luckily, there are many reading strategies that will help you understand and engage with the required readings.

Table 2.1: Common Post-secondary Texts
Type	Audience	Purpose	Features
Textbooks	Written for students in an educational setting	To facilitate student learning To summarize large amounts of information in a given field	New vocabulary terms are bolded, and definitions are provided. Key ideas are summarized at the beginning and end of the chapter. Glossary contains definitions of keywords. Index helps the reader find key information. Comprehension questions encourage student engagement with the text. Study questions help student prepare for exams. Other study aids are provided to help student understand and retain information.
Trade books	Written for a general audience, outside an educational setting, who is interested in learning about the topic	To inform	Thesis and purpose are presented in the introduction. Key ideas are in chapter titles, first and last paragraphs of each chapter, headings, and graphics.
Articles in popular magazines or websites	Written for the general public	To inform and/or entertain	Writing style is easy to read. Key ideas are in the introductory paragraph, headings, closing paragraph, and graphics.
Newspapers	Written for the general public	To inform	Writing style is easy to read. Key ideas are in the title and the first paragraph(s) Subsequent paragraphs present increasingly general details.
Scholarly books and journal articles	Written for highly educated specialists in a given field who are already familiar with the topic	To inform To add new ideas and information to a field of study	Writing style is sophisticated and sometimes dense. Writing uses discipline-specific vocabulary. Work may begin with an abstract (a summary of the main points of the article). Introduction provides the writer’s thesis. Headings indicate how the writer has organized support for the thesis. Content is specific and detailed, often including results of research studies.

Reading Strategies

This section introduces strategies that will help you get the most out of your reading assignments. These strategies fall into three broad categories:

• Planning strategies to help you manage your reading assignments
• Comprehension strategies to help you understand the material
• Active reading strategies to take your understanding to a deeper and more comprehensive level

Prereading Strategies

Have you ever stayed up all night cramming before an exam? Or found yourself skimming a detailed memo from your boss five minutes before a crucial meeting? The first step in successful reading is planning. This involves both managing your time and setting a clear purpose for your reading.

Manage Your Reading Time

Some of your post-secondary reading assignments will be fairly straightforward. Others, however, will be longer or more complex, so you will need a plan for handling them.

When you receive a reading assignment, preview it to assess its difficulty level and to determine how much time you will need to set aside for reading. Divide the text into manageable chunks and set aside enough time to read it. For example, if you are asked to read a seventy-page chapter for next week’s class, don’t wait until the night before to get started. Give yourself a few days and tackle one section at a time.

Your method for dividing up the work will depend on the type of reading it is. If the text is very dense and packed with unfamiliar terms and concepts, it may be best to read no more than five or ten pages in one sitting so that you can truly understand and process the information. With more user-friendly texts, you will be able to handle longer sections—perhaps twenty to forty pages at a time. And if you have a highly engaging reading assignment, such as a novel you cannot put down, you may be able to read lengthy passages in one sitting.

As the semester progresses, you will develop a better sense of how much time you need to allow for the reading assignments in different subjects.

Set a Purpose

Another key to successful reading is setting a purpose. Knowing what you want to get out of a reading assignment helps you determine how to approach it and how much time to spend on it. It also helps you stay focused during those moments when it is late and you are tired, when relaxing in front of the television sounds more appealing than curling up with a stack of journal articles.

Sometimes your purpose is simple: you might just need to understand the reading material well enough to discuss it intelligently in the next class. However, your purpose will often go beyond that. For instance, you might need to summarize a text, to compare two texts, to formulate a personal response to a text, or to gather ideas for future research.

Here are some questions to ask to help determine your purpose:

1. How did my instructor frame the assignment? Often, instructors will tell you what they expect you to get out of the reading. For example, the instructor might ask you to do the following:
- • Read Chapter 2 and come to class prepared to discuss current theories related to conducting risk assessments.
- • Read two articles, by Smith and Jones, and compare the two authors’ perspectives on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
- • Read Chapter 5 and think about how you could apply these guidelines to the first stages of on-site patient assessment.
2. How deeply do I need to understand the reading? If you are majoring in emergency management and you are assigned to read Chapter 1, “Introduction to Emergency Management,” it is safe to assume the chapter presents fundamental concepts that you will be expected to master. However, for some reading assignments, you may be expected to form a general understanding but not necessarily master the content. Again, pay attention to how your instructor presents the assignment.
3. How does this assignment relate to other course readings or to concepts discussed in class? Your instructor may make some of these connections explicitly, but if not, try to draw connections yourself.
4. How might I use this text again in the future? If you are assigned to read about a topic that has always interested you, your reading assignment might help you develop ideas for a future research paper. Some reading assignments provide valuable tips or summaries worth bookmarking for future reference. Think about what you can take from the reading that will stay with you.

Marking Up a Text

When you are doing assigned readings, it’s helpful to annotate (mark up) the text as you read. That way, when you need to revisit the text in order to write an essay or study for an exam, you don’t need to reread the whole thing. You can return to your annotations—the parts you marked the first time you read the text—which indicate the most important points.

There is no one “right” set of symbols to use to mark up a text, but do develop a consistent set of symbols that you use regularly, and recognize instantly, to help you visually identify what is happening on the page:

• If a central theme or topic is explicitly stated, circle it.
• If a central theme or topic is not explicitly stated, write it at the top of the page or at the beginning of a section.
• Enclose main points in brackets.
• Underline or highlight keywords and phrases that contain significant details.
• Number the items in a list.
• Use square brackets or highlighting for key terms when the definition follows.
• Draw asterisks, question marks, arrows, or other symbols to mark the importance of ideas, to note terms you want to return to, or to indicate relationships between ideas.
• Jot outlines in the margins.
• In the margins, write questions that you can use to test your memory later.

Practice 2.1

Mark up a page of a textbook you’re using this semester.

Then over the next couple of weeks, aim to develop a personalized standard method of marking up a text:

• Assign specific meanings to symbols (arrows, asterisks, brackets, question marks, exclamation marks).
• Assign specific significance to underlining, double-underlining, circling, and highlighting.
• Assign significance to the position of Post-it notes or paper flags (if you will use them).
• Choose a position on the page where you will write main ideas/themes.
• Choose a position on the page where you will write follow-up questions.

A paragraph with words and phrases underlined, some marked with letters and symbols, and notes in the margins regarding key points and the main idea. — Figure 2.1: Sample Marked-Up Text
Text taken from Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez and Nathalie Kermoal, *Living on the Land: Indigenous Women’s Understanding of Place*. AU Press, 2016, pp. 7–8.

The more consistent you are with your techniques for marking up a text, the more useful your strategy will be and the more time you will save while both reading and reviewing.

Improve Your Reading Comprehension

You have blocked off time for your reading assignment and set a purpose for reading. Now comes the challenge: making sure you actually understand all the information you are expected to process. Now that you are reading at the post-secondary level, you will likely need to improve your skills in understanding the material you read.

For any expository text—that is, nonfiction informational writing—your first comprehension goal is to identify the main points and relate any details to those main points.

Next, you read for specific supporting details. Recognizing patterns will help you organize your thinking in systematic ways that parallel the presentation in the source. You will also need to make inferences (“read between the lines”).

Because university-level texts can be challenging, you will also need to monitor your reading comprehension. That is, you will need to stop periodically and assess how well you understand what you are reading.

Finally, you can improve comprehension by taking time to determine which strategies work best for you and putting those strategies into practice.

Key terms

• Main/controlling ideas (located in thesis statements and topic sentences)
• Key details (located within paragraphs)
• Patterns (form the structure of the paragraph or section)
• Inferences (are not usually written out and must be inferred by the reader)

Many people read to remember everything and do not distinguish among key concepts, key supporting details, positions relative to these concepts, and inferences that can be drawn. Creating a road map with these highlights helps you both understand and remember what you read. This section includes exercises so that you can practice identifying the main and supporting ideas in passages representing the different patterns.

Read for the Main Idea

When you’re reading an expository text, your first comprehension goal is to identify the main point: the most important idea that the writer communicates, which is often stated early on. Finding the main point gives you a framework to organize the details presented in the reading and relate the reading to concepts you have learned in the course and through other reading assignments.

Some main ideas are directly stated; others are implied, and you must infer a statement yourself. When you read, you can identify the main idea of a paragraph, section, chapter, or book by asking yourself the following questions:

• What is the topic or subject matter? What/who is this about?
• What am I supposed to understand about this? (This is the main idea about the topic.)
• Are there any sentences that help clarify what I am supposed to understand about the topic? (Often the first or last sentence will state the main idea.)
• How do I know for sure? All the important information in the paragraph is covered by the main idea sentence. Does it help me understand what is being said about the topic?

Practice 2.2 will give you opportunities to practice identifying the main ideas in paragraphs.

Practice 2.2

Read the three passages below and identify the main idea in each. In the first two examples, the controlling idea is directly stated in the topic sentence. Identify the main idea in both.

In the third passage, the main idea is implied: choose the statement from the list that best represents the main idea of the passage and then explain why the other three statements do not work.

Passage 1: Identify the main idea in this paragraph.

When we think about it, is there really something that we can call “the public”? The population of communities is really made up of a set of publics. The needs and interests of a population are uniform on only the broadest matters, such as health and the security of the person and their property. Beyond those very broad areas of policy, needs and interests differ, sometimes very markedly and sometimes in ways that cause conflict between competing interests. It is highly unlikely that diverse needs or interests of all groups or individuals can all be satisfied at the same time. Thus, industrial firms that produce hazardous wastes may need sites to dispose of such undesirable by-products. Such firms can be thought of as one “public,” and it is apparent that their needs will conflict with the interests of another public—the people who live near the proposed disposal site.

Main idea: ___________________________________________________

Passage 2: Identify the main idea in this paragraph.

Marketing research is a major component or subsystem within a marketing information system. It is used in a very wide variety of marketing situations. Typically, in a marketing research study, the problem to be solved is first identified. Then a researcher decides whether to use secondary or primary sources of information. To gather primary data, the researcher may use the survey, observation, or experimental method. Normally, primary data are gathered by sampling. Then the data are analyzed, and a written report is prepared.

Main idea: ___________________________________________________

Passage 3: Identify the implied main point in this paragraph.

According to psychiatrist Richard Moscotti, the ability to work well is one key to a balanced life. He feels both underworking and overworking are to be avoided. A second key is the ability to love, which requires a certain amount of openness. The ability to be loved is the third key to a balanced life. This is difficult for those who feel unworthy of love. The last key is the ability to play, which involves knowing how to relax.

Main idea: ___________________________________________________

1. The first key to a balanced life, according to Moscotti, is the ability to work well.
2. According to Moscotti, some people have trouble receiving love.
3. The final key to a balanced life, according to Moscotti, is the ability to play.
4. According to Moscotti, there are four keys to a balanced life.

State why the other three answers are not the unstated main idea.

Reasons:

1. ___________________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________________
Examples taken from Langan, John. Ten Steps to Building College Reading Skills. Townsend Press, 1989.

How did you do? Were you able to identify the more general statements from the supporting details? Usually, the controlling idea (or the main idea) is stated in a topic sentence at or near the beginning of the paragraph, but sometimes it is not. Remember that when identifying the topic sentence, all of the other ideas in that paragraph need to be an example or detail relating to that main point. If one of the ideas does not fit, either you have chosen a statement or idea that is too specific, or the writer did not create a strong topic sentence in the paragraph. When we look at creating paragraphs and topic sentences in Chapter 10, you will learn what creates a strong topic sentence, and this will help you with identifying them in the future.

Read for Key Details

After identifying the main point, look for the supporting points: details, facts, and explanations that develop and clarify the main point. Some texts make that task relatively easy. Textbooks, for instance, include the aforementioned features as well as headings and subheadings intended to make it easier for students to identify core concepts. Graphic features such as sidebars, diagrams, and charts help students understand complex information and distinguish between essential and inessential points.

Some details are more important than others in explaining, supporting, or developing the main idea.

These exercises will give you opportunities to practice identifying the key details in paragraphs.

Practice 2.3

Identify the key term, its definition, the main idea, and the supporting detail in this paragraph.

Eidetic imagery is the technical term for what most people know as photographic memory. People with eidetic imagery can recall every detail of a memory as clearly as if they were looking at a photograph. People often wish they had this ability, but it can lead to trouble. For example, a law student with eidetic imagery was accused of cheating on an examination because his test paper contained exactly the words in his textbook. To prove his innocence, he studied an unfamiliar passage for five minutes and then wrote down more than four hundred words from it without making a mistake.

Example taken from Langan, John. Ten Steps to Building College Reading Skills. Townsend Press, 1989.

Practice 2.4

Highlight several effects caused by the condition described.

Suffering from debilitating guilt causes many self-defeating behaviours in adulthood. We see adults submitting to the outrageous demands of partners or employers. We see individuals who appear to be constantly angry and then, almost immediately, guilty. We see adults who have felt lifelong depression. The rage felt when shamed in childhood and when suffering from debilitating shame in adulthood is turned against the self because of the dependency on the other for survival. When we are rejected in adulthood by a mate or lover, the feelings we experience are anger at being rejected. Furthermore, if we suffer from debilitating shame, we have not been able to gain autonomy. We continue to feel dependent upon attachment figures. It is from them, from their feelings, attitudes, and opinions of us, that we feel worthwhile. To be angry at someone depended upon for survival causes us enormous guilt. Anger is redirected on the vulnerable self. We become trapped in a circular bind of shame, anger, anxiety, guilt, and depression.

Example taken from Middelton-Moz, Jane. Shame and Guilt: Masters of Disguise. Health Communications, 1990, p. 62.

Read for Patterns: Making Connections

Depending on the writer’s purpose and the information being shared, there are four general groupings by which information is organized:

1. Definitions, details, and illustrations
2. Time sequences, process descriptions, experiments/instructions, and simple listing
3. Compare and contrast
4. Cause and effect

The list below categorizes keywords that can help you identify main and supporting ideas when you are reading. They help the reader follow the logical organization of the material. You will also need to apply these throughout the rest of the chapters when developing sentences, paragraphs, and essays. In Chapter 25: Comma, you will learn about the punctuation that is used with these transitional words.

Keywords for Identifying Idea Patterns

• Definitions, details, and illustrations. Usually when you see one of these, a definition or concept preceded it.
- ▪ for example
- ▪ for instance
- ▪ as an illustration
- ▪ to illustrate
- ▪ such as
- ▪ to be specific
- ▪ specifically
- ▪ including one
• Time sequence, process description, experiment/instructions, simple listing. Some of these can be used to show sequence in both time and ideas.
- ▪ Time order:
  - – first, second, third, etc.
  - – then, since, next, before, after, as soon as, now, until, later, while, during, when, finally
- ▪ Additive listing: also, another, and, in addition, moreover, next, first of all, first, second, furthermore, last of all, finally
• Compare and contrast
- ▪ Compare: similarly, similar to, just as with, in comparison, likewise, like, liken, both, compared to, in the same way, in a similar fashion
- ▪ Contrast: on the other hand, conversely, rather, on the contrary, but, however, alternatively, differ, instead of, in contrast to, despite, nevertheless
• Cause and effect
- ▪ thus, because, because of, causes, as a result, results in, result, affects, therefore, since, leads to, brings about, consequently

Read for Implications: Tracing an Idea to Its Conclusion

The methods of recognizing patterns discussed above are concrete and easy to identify. Inferences, on the other hand, are more subtle.

To understand the tasks of implying and inferring, think about a time when you had people visiting your home. When it became late, and you wanted them to leave, did you ask them directly, “Can you leave now”? Probably not. Instead, you may have implied that you wanted them to leave. You may have said, “Oh, I can’t believe it’s midnight!” You may have mentioned that you had to wake up early the next morning, or you may have stretched and yawned, hoping that your guests would pick up on your cues and infer that it was time to leave. You wanted them to “read” the hints to arrive at the conclusion that you wanted them to leave, even though you did not say it directly.

Implying refers to how a person conveys a subtle message. Inferring refers to how another person receives or interprets that message. When a writer implies something, they give hints but do not state the point directly. The reader is required to infer the writer’s meaning by “reading between the lines.”

However, the reader may not actually pick up on the hints at all. Or perhaps the reader will notice the hints but will interpret them differently than the writer hoped. Sometimes readers make inferences that are based more on their own preferences and experiences than on the information the writer provided on the page.

This also means that two readers reading the same text may interpret it differently because of differing individual experiences that led them to arrive at their conclusions.

As a reader, you will often read passages requiring you to make inferences. The next exercises will help you practice reading for inference. Remember, if your answers are different from the ones given, it means you interpreted the information differently and may have missed the author’s point. When interpreting these passages, you can use a process of elimination and ask yourself which statement best completes the passage.

Practice 2.5

Read each passage. Then choose the answer that best completes the final thought of the passage. As you consider the choices, think about why the other answers would not be as appropriate as the one you chose. Then check your answers.

A. To a manufacturer, the wages paid to employees are a large portion of production expenses. The fact that wages also determine the buying power of the consumer is sometimes overlooked. In times of overproduction, the manufacturer tries to lower operating costs by decreasing the number of employees. This reduces expenditures of money in wages, but it also:
1. 1. maintains the status quo
2. 2. increases population
3. 3. raises costs
4. 4. reduces consumption
B. Totally new cities that will be built in the future may be better planned than the large cities that already exist. Old cities were not properly planned for the great growth in population and industry that they have had, and many are in the process of tearing down and rebuilding large sections. This process is helping to improve some old cities—both large and small ones—but it does not give them the choice of complete city designing that will be available to:
1. 1. richer cities
2. 2. larger cities
3. 3. foreign cities
4. 4. new cities
C. The director of this company believes that there is a growing awareness by management that business corporations are, and should be, guided by policies that are designed to satisfy human needs as well as material needs and that there is nothing inconsistent between this and the making of:
1. 1. educational opportunities for workers
2. 2. good and satisfying profits
3. 3. political enemies in some quarters
4. 4. better opportunities for workers
D. Knowledge and pleasure are inextricably interlocked. It is impossible for us to learn what we do not enjoy, and we cannot enjoy that which does not impart:
1. 1. a lesson
2. 2. a novelty
3. 3. a practical use
4. 4. strong emotion
E. Oratory is to be best estimated on different principles from those that are applied to other productions. Truth is the object of philosophy and history. The merit of poetry is in its truth even though the truth is understood only through the imagination, which is aroused by poetry. The object of oratory is not truth but persuasion. A speaker who exhausts the whole philosophy of a question, who displays every grace of style, yet produces no effect on an audience, may be a great essayist, a great politician, and a great master of composition but:
1. 1. essentially a persuader
2. 2. not a poet
3. 3. essentially an orator
4. 4. not an orator
Exercises taken from “Reading for Comprehension Exercises.” SRA Achievement Series, Science Research Associates, 1978.

Reread any passages for which you didn’t choose the best answer. Consider why you chose the answer you did. Did you miss some clues? Did you focus on something other than the main idea? Did your own ideas or experiences affect your interpretation of the passage?

Monitor Your Comprehension

By finding the main idea and paying attention to text features as you read, you can figure out what you should know. Just as important, however, is being able to figure out what you do not know and developing a strategy to fill the gaps.

Textbooks often include comprehension questions in the margins or at the end of a section or chapter. As you read, stop occasionally to answer these questions. Perhaps write the answers on paper so that you can save them for use later in the course. Use the questions to identify sections you may need to reread, read more carefully, or ask your instructor about later.

Even when a text does not have built-in comprehension features, you can actively monitor your own comprehension. Try these strategies, adapting them as needed to suit different kinds of texts:

Summarize. At the end of each section, pause to summarize the main points in a few sentences. If you have trouble doing so, reread the section. (You will learn more about summarizing in Chapter 15: Summary.)

Ask and answer questions. When you begin reading a section, identify two or three questions you should be able to answer after you finish it. Write down the questions and use them to test yourself on the reading. If you cannot answer a question, determine why. Is the answer buried in the section you just read but just not coming across to you? Or do you expect to find the answer in another part of the reading?

Do not read in a vacuum. Look for opportunities to discuss the reading with classmates or others who are familiar with the subject matter. Many instructors set up forums or groups specifically for that purpose. Participating in these discussions can help you determine whether your understanding of the main points is the same as your peers’. Such a discussion can serve as a reality check. If everyone in the class struggled with the reading, it may be exceptionally challenging. If it was easy for everyone but you, you may need to see your instructor for help.

After a while, you will discover the best time to get your reading done: perhaps in the evening, after the kids are in bed; early in the morning, on the couch with a cup of coffee and pen and paper at hand; or in the afternoon, in the library, right after class. Even after you’ve figured out what time works best for you, you will occasionally have trouble concentrating. When that happens, actively work to summarize the reading and ask and answer questions. These strategies will help you focus better and retain more of what you read.

Read Actively

Now that you have become acquainted with prereading and comprehension strategies, your reading assignments may feel more manageable. You know what you need to do to get your reading done and to ensure you’ve grasped the main points. However, the most successful students are not only competent readers but active, engaged readers. It’s time to take your reading to the next level.

Effective academic reading seeks to gain an understanding not only of the facts, opinions, and beliefs presented in a text but also of the biases, assumptions, and perspectives underlying the discussion. The aim of active reading is to analyze, interpret, and evaluate the text and then draw logical inferences and conclusions.

Active reading emphasizes “reading as thinking.” You will need to read actively to comprehend and remember what you are reading, for both your own and your instructor’s purposes. In order to do that, you’ll need to think about the relevance of ideas to one another and about their usefulness to you personally, academically, and even professionally.

Everyone reads and retains information differently. However, working through the following stages of reading will not only help you understand what you are reading but also increase the likelihood that you will remember what you have read.

While it may seem that this strategy takes a lot of time, working through the stages will actually save you time. For example, after surveying a text that you thought you might use for a research paper, you might realize it’s not appropriate for your project, and because you quickly surveyed the text, you won’t have to waste a lot of time reading it closely. In another example, suppose you closely and critically read a required chapter in your textbook, taking good notes along the way, so when it’s time to study for an exam, you will not need to waste time rereading the entire chapter because you already know the material and have good notes to study from.

The stages of active reading are:

• Survey reading
• Questioning and predicting
• Close reading
• Critical reading
• Reviewing and reflecting

Academic reading differs from our usual daily reading activities, in which interest often determines what we choose to read. What happens when we are really not interested in what we are reading or seeing? Our eyes move down the page and our minds are elsewhere. We may read a paragraph or even several pages and suddenly realize we have no idea what we have just read. To help maintain focus, identify your reading purpose, survey, read closely, be inquisitive, and read critically. By reading for a specific result, you will read faster, you will know what you want from the text, and you will read to get it.

Survey

Before you read, first survey or preview the text. Surveying means skimming quickly. Surveying allows you to see the overall themes or the gist of the text. The goal of surveying is to determine what topics will be covered and to begin to identify the author’s main point(s).

There are many benefits of surveying:

• Surveying helps you determine the appropriateness of the material for your purposes. Thus, you don’t need to spend time closely reading material that isn’t relevant to your assignment, but you do identify material that you want to examine more closely.
• Surveying helps you create a road map: a mental picture of the beginning, middle, and end of the journey through the text.
• Having this road map allows you to organize your travel through the text by highlighting key topics and getting impressions of relevance, which in turn helps with remembering.
• Surveying aids in budgeting study time because you know the length and difficulty of the material.
• Usually, you read study material to find out what is there in order to go back later and learn it. By surveying, you accomplish the same in one-tenth the time.
• Surveying improves concentration because you know what is ahead and how what you are reading will fit into the big picture.

Techniques for Survey Reading

Surveying will help you form a first impression of the material.

To survey an article, read the introductory paragraph and the headings. Look at any boldfaced or italicized vocabulary terms.

To survey a book, look at the table of contents, and scan the preface and the introductory paragraph of each chapter. Flip through the book and look for pictures, charts, graphs, and vocabulary terms. Scan the glossary and the index.

It may take only two minutes to survey a short article or up to ten minutes or more for a longer article or a book.

Sometimes, this survey step alone may be enough because you may need only a general familiarity with the material. However, surveying will also help you determine which parts of the text you want to read closely.

Practice 2.6

Choose any text that you have been assigned this month. Survey the reading, making note of the features listed in Techniques for Survey Reading. Answer these questions:

What are the main themes and topics?
How is the text organized?
Are there illustrations, charts, or graphs? What are the topics?
Are there vocabulary terms or a glossary? What types of words are bolded?
What is your impression of this text?

Question and Predict

After you have surveyed the text but before you read closely, ask questions and make predictions. This step allows you to engage fully with the text you’re going to read.

There are many benefits of questioning and predicting:

• Questioning and predicting help you engage more fully with the text, which will improve your attention and concentration.
• Questioning and predicting help you determine how the material relates to your course or your assignment.
• Questioning and predicting help you make connections between the text and information or experiences outside the course—perhaps creating connections to other courses or to daily life.
• Questioning and predicting help you determine the relevance of the text, which, in turn, helps with retention and remembering.
• Questioning and predicting help generate ideas for further research or study.

Techniques for Questioning and Predicting

After surveying, start brainstorming predictions and questions about the text:

What do you expect to learn from the reading?
What do you think the author’s main idea is?

You may find that some questions come to mind immediately based on your initial survey or based on previous readings and class discussions. If not, use the headings and subheadings in the text to formulate questions. For instance, if one heading in your criminology textbook is Conditional Sentence and another is Conditional Release, you might ask yourself these questions:

What are the major differences between these two concepts?
Where does each appear in the sentencing process?

Although some of your questions may be simple factual questions, also come up with a few that are more open-ended. Asking in-depth questions will help you stay engaged as you read.

Practice 2.7

Referring again to the text you chose for Practice 2.6, write down these predictions:

Predict what topic(s) this text might cover.
Predict what the author’s main point will be.
Predict one thing you will learn from this text.
Predict how this text might relate to an upcoming assignment in the course.

Write down these questions:

What is a question that will help you read this text more actively?
What is a question you could take to class to prompt discussion about this text?
What is a question you might still be left with after you read the text?

Can you think of other predictions and questions to add to the list? Once you have asked questions and made predictions, keep them in mind as you move to the next step: close reading, which will help you answer your questions.

Close Reading

Close reading allows you to concentrate and make decisions about what is relevant to your reading purpose and what is not. The goal of close reading is to ensure that you understand what you are reading and to store information in a logical and organized way so when you need to recall the information, it is easier for you to do so.

There are many benefits to close reading:

• You clearly identify main concepts, key details, and their relationships with one another, which is vital for preparing for an exam.
• Your ability to answer essay questions improves because the concepts are organized and understood rather than merely memorized.
• You become more confident because your understanding improves—this, in turn, increases your enjoyment.
• Close reading allows you to summarize effectively what you read.

Techniques for Close Reading

After you have surveyed the text and developed some predictions and questions, read the text slowly and carefully, reading as if you were going to be tested on the material immediately upon completion and you wanted to remember at least 75 to 80 percent of the information. If you keep in mind the question of why you are reading the material, it will help you focus because you will be actively engaged with the information you are consuming.

As you read, notice whether your first impressions of the text were correct. Are the author’s main points and overall approach about the same as you predicted—or does the text contain a few surprises? Also, look for answers to your earlier questions, and begin forming new ones. Continue to revise your impressions and questions as you read.

As you read, annotate the text by identifying the main themes, key points, and essential details. (You might find it helpful to review the sections on how to mark up a text in Reading Strategies earlier in this chapter and Chapter 1: Take Notes Effectively.) Consider the relationships between main concepts and key details.

Look closely at photographs, illustrations, diagrams, flow charts, tables, and other graphics, and think about how they relate to the written text. Do these graphics make abstract ideas more concrete and understandable? As you read, pause occasionally to recite or record important points. It is best to do this at the end of each section or when there is an obvious shift in the writer’s train of thought. Put the book aside for a moment and recite aloud the main points of the section or any important answers you found there. You might also record ideas by jotting down brief notes in addition to or instead of reciting aloud. Either way, the physical act of articulating information makes you more likely to remember it.

After reading the entire text, summarize the important ideas and their development.

After you have finished reading, set the book aside and briefly answer your initial questions by making notes or highlighting/underlining. Use your own words as much as possible, but if you find an important quotation, write it down, enclosing it in quotation marks and jotting down the source page so that you can find it again easily.

If there are any diagrams in the text, make notes from memory that summarize the information they convey. Then look back at the diagrams to make sure the summary is accurate.

Repeat this questioning, reading, and reciting process for the rest of the chapter. As you work your way through, occasionally pause and really think about what you have read; it is easy to work through a section or chapter and realize that you have not actually absorbed any of the material.

Critical Reading

Critical reading is necessary in order to determine the importance of the concepts presented, their relevance, and the accuracy of arguments. When you read critically, you become even more deeply involved with the material, which will allow you to make better judgments about what is the more important information.

People often read reactively to material—especially to debate, controversy, and politics. When readers react, they bring personal experience and opinion to the concept to which they are reacting. A critical reading, however, should not be based on your personal opinion. Instead, critical reading requires thinking critically—as you would expect—about the material. Critical thinking relies on reason, evidence, and open-mindedness and recognizes the biases, assumptions, and motives of both the writer and the reader.

Learning to read critically offers these advantages:

• By substantiating arguments and interpreting, analyzing, and evaluating those supporting the concept, you move from mere reaction into critical reading and deepen your understanding.
• By analyzing relationships between the reading material and other readings or experiences, you make connections.
• By making connections, you will increase your concentration and confidence in being able to discuss and evaluate what you read.

Techniques for Critical Reading

Understand and analyze the material in terms of a writer’s purpose and results, relevance to readers, and value to the field at large.

Think about the text in its context. Understanding context means thinking about who wrote the text, when and where it was written, the author’s purpose for writing it, and what assumptions or agendas influenced the author’s ideas. For instance, two writers might both address the subject of health care reform, but if one article is an opinion piece and one is a news story, the context is different.

Connect what you read to what you already know. Look for ways the reading supports, extends, or challenges concepts you have learned elsewhere.

Relate the reading to your own life. What statements in the text relate to people or situations from your personal experiences? Relate the reading to your personal observations of the ideas, concepts, and theories as they relate to your own life and circumstances.

Review and Reflect

Once you have read the entire text, put each section into the context of the bigger picture. Ask yourself if you have really answered each question you posed in the questioning stage and if the answers are accurate. If the textbook includes review questions or your instructor has provided a study guide, use these tools to guide your review. You may want to record information in a more detailed format than you used during reading, such as in an outline or a list.

There are many ways to review, but here are a few samples:

From memory, jot down the key ideas discussed in the section you just read. Look back through the text and check your memory against what you jotted down. How did you do?

Choose one section from the chapter and write a summary from memory of what you learned from that section. Now review that section. How accurate is your summary? Did you miss anything?

Talk or write about what you read. Jot down questions or comments in your notebook and bring them up. Discuss the reading in a class discussion forum or blog about it.

As you review, reflect on the process of reading, and jot down your reflections.

When you read, did you consciously intend to remember it?
Did anything in the text surprise you, upset you, or make you think?
Did you find yourself strongly agreeing or disagreeing with any points in the text?
What topics would you like to explore further?

Instructors sometimes require students to write brief response papers or maintain a reading journal. Use these assignments to help you reflect on what you read.

To make sure you remember the information, review your notes again after about one week and then again three or four weeks later.

Practice 2.8

Choose a text other than those you have been assigned to read for a class or course. Work through the five stages: surveying, questioning and predicting, close reading, critical reading, and reviewing and reflecting. As you work through the stages, take notes. Keep in mind that you may need to spread the reading out over more than one session, especially if the text is long.

Then reflect on how helpful you found the process. On a scale of 1 to 10, how useful did you find it? How does it compare with other study techniques you have used?

Although the process of reading in stages may seem time-consuming, you will find that it actually saves time. Because you have a question in mind while reading, you have a purpose while looking for the important information. The notes you take will also be more organized and concise because you are focused, and this will save you time when it comes to writing essays. Also, since you have reviewed throughout the process, you will not need to spend as much time reviewing for exams because the material is already stored in your memory.

Keep in mind that you will not need to complete all five stages for every text you encounter. For example:

• If you are searching for sources for a research paper, you may survey an article and then decide that it’s not suitable for your project. No need to go on to the next stage!
• If you are preparing to attend a lecture on a topic that is covered in a chapter in your textbook, but the chapter is not included in the assigned readings for the course, the first two stages—surveying and questioning and predicting—may be sufficient to prepare you for the lecture.
• If you are reading a very factual text in preparation for a multiple-choice exam that emphasizes the memorization of dates and/or key terms, you may only need to complete the first three stages. Close reading (and reviewing your notes) may be all that you need to prepare for the exam.

With that said, if you are preparing to write a term paper or studying for an essay-based exam, you will certainly want to work through all five stages, including critical reading and reviewing and reflecting, in order to ensure you are actively engaging with the material and will be able to question it, evaluate it, and thoughtfully respond to it.

Active reading can benefit you in ways that go beyond just earning good grades. By practicing these strategies, you will find yourself more interested in your courses and be better able to relate your academic work to the rest of your life. Being an interested, engaged student also helps you form lasting connections with your instructors and with other students that can be personally and professionally valuable. In short, active reading helps you get the most out of your education.

This chapter introduced ways to approach reading to help you understand, process, analyze, synthesize, and ultimately remember information better.

Key Takeaways

• Post-secondary-level reading differs from high school assignments not only in quantity but also in quality.
• Managing reading assignments successfully requires you to plan and manage your time, set a purpose for reading, practice effective comprehension strategies, and use active reading abilities to deepen your understanding of the text.
• The five stages of active reading include surveying, questioning and predicting, close reading, critical reading, and reviewing and reflecting.
• Many students find that working their way through the stages of reading allows them to understand readings, to remember the content from readings, to successfully prepare for exams, and to write better research essays.
• Many students find that taking the time to work through the stages of reading saves them time in the long run.

Chapter 3. Introduction to Academic Writing