Which Reading or Readings Was Most Beneficial? Why?

Why Evaluate Academic Reading Strategies?

Reading is cardinal to writing and research at University, but often gets overlooked – lecturers assume that students know how to read, and students assume in that location'due south just 1 way to read – merely neither of these things is necessarily true! There are ways to read that tin improve information processing, can help with edifice an argument, and importantly for many students, can save lots of fourth dimension!! — Academic Literacy Workshops, University of Greatcoat Town^[1]

The passage above makes an important point: near of usa assume we know how to read for school. However, methods that may have been fine in the by (skimming, quick reviews, relying upon class lectures or notes) won't hold up well equally nosotros move further into higher education.

Bookish reading is a specific category of reading.  Information technology's helpful to recollect that academic reading is an act of performance. Rather than sitting back and passively receiving information we read in college, we will be asked to directly act upon that data in some fashion. We will exist quizzed or tested. Nosotros will be asked to debate, analyze, or critique what nosotros read. We will need to read closely, remember the text accurately, and compare it to other texts for manner and content.

Purpose of Academic Reading

Casual reading beyond genres, from books and magazines to newspapers and blogs, is something students should be encouraged to do in their free fourth dimension because it can be both educational and fun. In higher, however, instructors generally look students to read resources that have particular value in the context of a form. Why is bookish reading beneficial?

• Information comes from reputable sources: Web sites and blogs tin can be a source of insight and information, simply not all are useful equally academic resource. They may be written by people or companies whose principal purpose is to share an opinion or sell you something. Academic sources such as textbooks and scholarly journal articles, on the other hand, are usually written past experts in the field and have to pass stringent peer review requirements in order to get published.
• Learn how to form arguments: In most college classes except for creating writing, when instructors ask y'all to write a paper, they expect it to be argumentative in style. This ways that the goal of the paper is to research a topic and develop an statement nearly it using testify and facts to support your position. Since many college reading assignments (peculiarly journal articles) are written in a similar style, you'll gain feel studying their strategies and learning to emulate them.
• Exposure to unlike viewpoints: One purpose of assigned academic readings is to give students exposure to different viewpoints and ideas. For example, in an ideals form, you might exist asked to read a series of articles written past medical professionals and religious leaders who are pro-life or pro-choice and consider the validity of their arguments. Such experience tin can help you wrestle with ideas and beliefs in new ways and develop a better understanding of how others' views differ from your own.

Reading Strategies for Academic Texts

Recall from the Active Learning section that effective reading requires more engagement than just reading the words on the page. In order to learn and retain what you read, it's a good thought to do things similar circling key words, writing notes, and reflecting. Actively reading academic texts tin be challenging for students who are used to reading for entertainment alone, but practicing the following steps will go y'all upwards to speed:

• Preview: You can gain insight from an academic text before you lot even begin the reading assignment. For example, if you are assigned a nonfiction book, read the championship, the back of the book, and table of contents. Scanning this data can give yous an initial idea of what you'll be reading and some useful context for thinking nigh it. You can as well start to make connections betwixt the new reading and cognition you already take, which is another strategy for retaining information.
• Read: While yous read an academic text, you should have a pen or pencil in hand. Circle or highlight key concepts. Write questions or comments in the margins or in a notebook.  This will assist you remember what you are reading and as well build a personal connexion with the bailiwick matter.
• Summarize: Afterwards you lot an read academic text, it's worth taking the fourth dimension to write a brusk summary—fifty-fifty if your instructor doesn't require it. The exercise of jotting down a few sentences or a short paragraph capturing the main ideas of the reading is enormously beneficial: information technology not only helps you understand and absorb what you read but gives you lot ready written report and review materials for exams and other writing assignments.
• Review: It always helps to revisit what you've read for a quick refresher. It may non be practical to thoroughly reread assignments from commencement to finish, merely before class discussions or tests, it'south a good idea to skim through them to identify the main points, reread whatsoever notes at the ends of chapters, and review whatever summaries you've written.

The following video covers additional active reading strategies readers can apply earlier, during, and after the reading process.

Reading Strategies for Specialized Texts and Online Resources

In college it'south not uncommon to experience frustration with reading assignments from time to fourth dimension. Because you're doing more reading on your own exterior the classroom, and with less frequent contact with instructors than y'all had in loftier schoolhouse, it's possible you'll run into readings that contain unfamiliar vocabulary or don't readily brand sense. Different disciplines and subjects have different writing conventions and styles, and it can take some practice to get to know them. For example, scientific articles follow a very item format and typically contain the post-obit sections: an abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussions. If y'all are used to reading literary works, such as graphic novels or poetry, information technology can exist disorienting to see these new forms of writing.

Beneath are some strategies for making dissimilar kinds of texts more outgoing.

Go to Know the Conventions

Academic texts, like scientific studies and journal articles, may have sections that are new to you lot. If y'all're not sure what an "abstract" is, inquiry information technology online or enquire your teacher. Understanding the significant and purpose of such conventions is not only helpful for reading comprehension but for writing, too.

Expect up and Keep Track of Unfamiliar Terms and Phrases

Have a practiced college dictionary such as Merriam-Webster handy (or discover information technology online) when you lot read complex academic texts, and then you lot can look up the meaning of unfamiliar words and terms. Many textbooks also contain glossaries or "key terms" sections at the ends of chapters or the end of the volume. If you can't find the words you're looking for in a standard lexicon, you may demand one specially written for a detail bailiwick. For case, a medical dictionary would exist a good resources for a class in anatomy and physiology.

If you circle or underline terms and phrases that appear repeatedly, you lot'll have a visual reminder to review and learn them. Repetition helps to lock in these new words and their meaning get them into long-term memory, then the more you review them the more y'all'll understand and feel comfy using them.

Look for Main Ideas and Themes

As a college student, you lot are not expected to understand every single word or idea presented in a reading, especially if y'all oasis't discussed it in form yet. Yet, you lot will get more out of discussions and feel more confident near asking questions if you can identify the master idea or thesis in a reading. The thesis statement can often (just not always) be found in the introductory paragraph, and it may be introduced with a phrase like "In this essay I contend that . . ." Getting a handle on the overall reason an author wrote something ("to evidence X" or "to explore Y," for instance) gives you a framework for understanding more than of the details. Information technology'due south besides useful to keep track of whatsoever themes you discover in the writing. A theme may be a recurring idea, word, or paradigm that strikes you equally interesting or of import: "This story is about men working in a gloomy factory, merely the author keeps mentioning birds and bats and windows. Why is that??"

Get the Nigh of Online Reading

Reading online texts presents unique challenges for some students. For one thing, you can't readily circle or underline central terms or passages on the screen with a pencil. For another, at that place tin exist many tempting distractions—simply a quick visit to amazon.com or Facebook.

While there's no substitute for old-fashioned self-bailiwick, you tin take reward of the post-obit tips to make online reading more efficient and effective:

• Where possible, download the reading as a PDF, Give-and-take document, etc., so you tin read it offline.
• Go one of the apps that allow you lot to disable your social media sites for specified periods of time.
• Adjust your screen to avoid glare and eye strain, and change the text font to be less distracting (for those essays written in Comic Sans).
• Install an note tool in your Spider web browser and then you can highlight and brand notes on online text. One to try is hypothes.is. A low-tech option is to have a notebook handy to write in as you read.

Look for Reputable Online Sources

Professors tend to assign reading from reputable print and online sources, so you can feel comfortable referencing such sources in class and for writing assignments. If you are looking for online sources independently, notwithstanding, devote some time and energy to critically evaluating the quality of the source before spending time reading any resource you lot find in that location. Find out what you can about the author (if ane is listed), the Spider web site, and whatsoever affiliated sponsors information technology may take. Check that the information is electric current and accurate against similar information on other pages. Depending on what you are researching, sites that end in ".edu" (indicating an "education" site such as a college, university, or other academic institution) tend to exist more reliable than ".com" sites.

Pay Attention to Visual Data

Images in textbooks or journals commonly comprise valuable information to assistance you more deeply grasp a topic.  Graphs and charts, for example, help show the relationship between unlike kinds of information or data—how a population changes over time, how a virus spreads through a population, etc.

Data-rich graphics can take longer to "read" than the text effectually them because they nowadays a lot of information in a condensed form.  Requite yourself enough of fourth dimension to study these items, as they often provide new and lasting insights that are easy to call back later (like in the eye of an exam on that topic!).

Vocabulary-Building Techniques

Gaining confidence with unique terminology used in different disciplines can help you lot be more successful in your courses and in college more often than not. In addition to the suggestions described earlier, such as looking upwardly unfamiliar words in dictionaries, the post-obit are boosted vocabulary-building techniques for y'all to try:

Read Everything and Read Oft

Reading frequently both in and out of the classroom will help strengthen your vocabulary. Whenever y'all read a book, magazine, paper, web log, or whatsoever other resource, keep a running listing of words you don't know. Await upwards the words as you encounter them and endeavour to contain them into your own speaking and writing.

Brand Connections to Words You Already Know

Yous may exist familiar with the "looks like . . . sounds similar" saying that applies to words. It ways that you tin can sometimes expect at a new word and judge the definition based on similar words whose meaning you know. For example, if yous are reading a biology book on the human body and come beyond the wordmalignant, you might guess that this discussion means something negative or cleaved if yous already know the wordmalfunction,which share the "mal-" prefix.

Make Index Cards

If you are studying certain words for a test, or you lot know that sure phrases volition be used often in a class or field, try making flashcards for review. For each key term, write the give-and-take on one side of an alphabetize card and the definition on the other. Drill yourself, and then ask your friends to assistance quiz yous.

Developing a strong vocabulary is similar to most hobbies and activities. Even experts in a field continue to encounter and adopt new words. The following video discusses more strategies for improving vocabulary.

Words are sneaky, charming, and intriguing. The more complex our vocabularies, the more complex our thoughts are, too.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-fmcc-english1/chapter/reading-academic-texts/

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