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Sixstepstoeffectivereading
Success in Academic Writing (BUMN091N0)
Birkbeck, University of London
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Six Steps to Effective Reading Six Steps to Effective Reading University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading SIX STEPS TO EFFECTIVE READING There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing”. (Isaac Disraeli) Developing effective reading management skills is an important part of learning. However, students can experience difficulties at first with the volume of reading for their courses. These difficulties can include time management and with the reading process itself. The time management issues for students can include: Ø finding time to read to get an overall idea about a subject Ø finding time to read in preparation for lectures and tutorials Ø finding time to read to prepare for assignments. The ‘technical’ reading issues encountered by some students, which can slow the reading process, can include: Ø learning in English, which may be a second language for many Ø puzzling over unfamiliar words and jargon Ø repeatedly going back over what has just been read to check understanding Ø reading out aloud or under the breath. This booklet will present six steps to more effective reading for all students. The steps are: 1. Feeling right about reading 2. Develop the 3Rs of reading 3. Become a more selective reader 4. Become a smarter reader 5. Become a more focused (and faster) reader 6. Become a more active reader Effective Learning Service 1 University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT READING Your feelings about reading can affect the way you approach and manage it. People who generally enjoy the experience of reading and read for pleasure have often learned instinctively to manage the process. They know that maintaining and enhancing their enjoyment of reading is often about: • • • • finding the right time and place to read getting into the right mood getting involved actively with what they read …and picking the right text to read. These basic reading practices will serve them well in higher education, work and in their personal lives. However, many students have either mixed feelings about reading, or dislike the experience- and do it because they have to! If you are in this latter category, you could begin to address the issue of managing your reading by trying to increase your enjoyment of reading. If you begin to enjoy reading more, this will help you to develop more effective reading and reading management techniques. If you actively dislike the experience of reading, you will not respond as well as you might to the techniques, as your aversion to reading can act as a barrier to change. Three Ways of Making the Experience of Reading More Enjoyable: 1. Try going once a week to buy something to read that really interests you – a comic, a magazine, anything! The brighter, the lighter, the more frivolous, rude, controversial or humorous the better. Try and look forward to this moment in the week. Read it and enjoy it. Stop when you get bored. 2. Try and encourage a friend or partner to read the same thing you selected and then have a discussion on what you have read. 3. Set yourself strict limits for reading things you have to read. Set yourself, a limit of no more than 40-50 minutes reading at any one stretch. And as you read, try and engage more actively with the text. (see section 6, pages 19-21). Effective Learning Service 3 University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading STEP 2: DEVELOP THE 3Rs of READING It is important to have a purpose for reading before you start. This advice may seem a self-evident and obvious. But when time is limited it is important to consider beforehand why you intend to read a particular text and what you hope to gain from it. Different reading purposes require different levels of engagement with texts: the 3Rs of reading. Ø Reading to Reveal Ø Reading to Review Ø Reading to Remind (1) Reading to prepare for lectures and tutorials – to reveal main points and (2) to reveal new sources and data to add to knowledge gained from lectures and tutorials, in preparation for writing assignments or taking examinations. TO REVEAL Reading Approach: (1) Reading in preparation for a lecture or tutorial will help you to anticipate and understand some of the ideas and practices that the tutor will present and discuss. At this stage, as you do not need a great depth of knowledge, a fairly quick scan and review of the main ideas and practices associated with a particular topic will give you the basic understanding of the key ideas that you need to know to follow the lecture. (2) Reading to reveal new sources and data requires however, a slower more investigative approach to reading and needs more time allocated to it. Effective Learning Service 4 University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading A READING PLAN It is wise to plan ahead each week, but particularly for review reading, which will save you time later when you have to write assignments and revise for exams. Reading Plan A reading plan will encourage you to schedule blocks of time, e. 40-50 minutes per topic, on selected days throughout the week. Monday Time Tuesday Time Topic Topic Time Wednesday Time Thursday Time Friday Time Saturday Time Sunday Time Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Time Time Time Time Time Time Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Time Time Time Time Time Time Time Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Time Time Time Time Time Time Time Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Time Time Time Time Time Time Time Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Time Time Time Time Time Time Time Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Time Time Time Time Time Time Time Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Time Time Time Time Time Time Time Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Time Time Time Time Time Time Time Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Topic Effective Learning Service 6 University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading STEP 3: BECOME A MORE SELECTIVE READER ♦ You are not expected to read set or recommended books from cover-to-cover. You are meant to read with a particular learning purpose in mind and refer to them selectively in your assignments. ♦ Don’t be afraid to deviate from recommended texts. Some books are ‘easier to read’ than others (and it is wort h asking yourself why that is). If you find it hard to grasp ideas presented in one textbook, try looking at another to compare how ideas are presented. If you find a particular text too difficult reading, you could find another more accessible text for you and start with this. You can then return to the recommended text once you have gained confidence from reading another book on the same subject. ♦ You may, for example, prefer books that illustrate ideas with pictures or graphics, to those that are more text based– there is nothing wrong with feeling like that! The important thing is to develop your understanding of theories, ideas and practices in a way that is best for you. ♦ If you are clear about your purpose for reading and what it is you want from a text before you start reading, you can then select the most appropriate source and concentrate on the part of this that will give you the information you seek. The Internet is a very useful tool in being able to focus quickly and specifically on information that you need – providing you go to the right sites! USEFUL INTERNET SITES FOR BUSINESS STUDENTS BIZED (useful site for business studies students) bized.ac/ BIDS (academic publications) bids.ac CAROL (Company Annual Reports Online): Annual report site with direct links for companies in Europe, Asia and USA; news on mergers and acquisitions and links to other sites. carol.co DTI Publications (UK government) dti.gov/publications Economist (magazine) economist Effective Learning Service 7 University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading NISS (news, publications and other information and good links to academic libraries) niss.ac OneLook Dictionaries (this checks over 150 dictionaries. It is very useful for finding definitions or summaries) onelook/ Research-it: (useful for quotations, maps, language translations, definitions and for finding facts and figures on a wide range of subjects) iTools/research-it/ Small Business Portal smallbusinessportal.co/index.php Small Business Service (UK government) sbs.gov Social Sciences Information Gateway (including business, economics and research methods) SOSIG.ac UKOnline (UK government information) ukonline.gov United Nations (news and publications) un WWW Virtual Library (useful links to business related sites) vlib Effective Learning Service 9 University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading STEP 4: BECOME A SMARTER READER You can become a smarter reader by: Ø reading the summaries or conclusions of chapters or articles first to gain an overview of a chapter- or even a book itself! For ‘reveal’ reading purposes (see page 4) sometimes, this may be enough to give you the key point(s) that you need. Ø For other reading purposes, this initial review of summaries or conclusions will help you to gain an overall sense of the main points made by the author. This will help prepare you for the more thorough reading you will need to give to the text, as you will be mentally primed and prepared for the key point(s) that emerge in the text. What are key points? Where do I find them? Most books, articles and other well-written sources are broken up into paragraphs or sections. Within each paragraph or section you can try and identify the key point, which is the sentence or sentences upon which the others are built. If we take, for example, the following extract from an essay: The key point sentence in the paragraph below is … what? The main advantages to employers of using the Internet for recruitment purposes are in the speed of operation, breadth of coverage, particularly if recruiting on a worldwide basis, and cost saving that can occur. Electronic advertising can quickly connect with job seekers in many different places that might not otherwise be contacted by more conventional methods. Small to medium sized enterprises too, find that they can compete effectively electronically with larger companies and can begin to attract high-calibre recruits to their web sites, which might not otherwise be the case with more traditional methods of recruitment. With regards to cost saving, it has been estimated that expenditure on newspaper advertising and ‘head- hunter’ fees dropped in the USA by 20 per cent as Internet expenditure increased (Boehle, 2000). On-line recruiting, if it is used effectively, is also estimated to cut a week off the recruitment process (Capelli, 2001). Large organisations, like L’Oreal and KPMG, use the Internet to recruit staff on both cost-saving grounds, and because they feel it increases their visibility and attracts high-calibre recruits. With KPMG, for example, the Human Resources staff were dealing with 35,000 paper applications a year, but decided to switch all their UK recruitment online from May 2001 to save time and printing costs (Carter, 2001). Effective Learning Service 10 University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading STEP 5: BECOME A MORE FOCUSED (AND FASTER) READER Do you ever do one or more of the following as you read? a. Mouth words or read under your breath? b. Keep going back over words just read to reassure yourself you understood their meanings? c. Stop reading frequently to check unfamiliar words? If ‘Yes’ to any of these, you may find the following ideas helpful to speed the reading process. (a) DO YOU MOUTH WORDS OR READ UNDER YOUR BREATH? If you mouth words you can only read as fast as you speak. If you try to stop doing this you may then find that your reading speed increases. Try the technique below to help train your eyes to follow more quickly a line of reading. (B) DO YOU KEEP GOING BACK OVER WORDS YOU HAVE JUST READ? Anxiety can cause students to re-read sentences to reassure themselves that they have understood. This can slow the reading process down and lead to frustration at the slow progress made. One way out of this problem is to cover the text with an A3 or A4 card or sheet of paper with a rectangle, approx. 3” in depth, cut out about a third of the way down (see illustration on next page). The card or sheet is then placed across the item to be read and moved downwards over the text. This will focus your attention on just the text exposed through the rectangular cutting. The remainder of the page will then be covered and this can lower the temptation to look back or jump forward in reading. You can also slowly increase the speed in which the card or sheet is moved over the text. With practise, you will be able to speed your reading considerably. After a while, when your confidence and reading speed has increased, you can stop using this aid. Effective Learning Service 12 University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading Use an A3 or A4 size sheet or piece of card and cut a rectangular piece from it, about a third of the way down. This will allow you to focus and concentrate on a small section of text at a time. Keep the remainder of the text covered, and keep a downward momentum. Resist the temptation to go backwards over something just read. With practise, you can increase the speed you move down the page. This technique, combined with active reading techniques (see Section 5) can really help you increase both reading speed and understanding. This may seem a very ‘low-tech’ idea in a high-tech age, but it does work! Effective Learning Service 13 University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading Exercise 1. First read this piece fairly quickly and try and locate the main point or idea in it. The author, Andrew Northedge, presents some specific strategies for managing time, but what do you think is the main point of these strategies? There is a sentence in the text that highlight what Northedge believes is the overall point of them. Can you find it? 2. Then read the following extract again more slowly and try crossing out words that do not add much to our understanding of what this passage is about. Take the booklists. How many books are students expected to read? How long should a book take? It took me so long to read just a few pages that I felt defeated when I looked ahead. Should I take notes? How many? What would I need them for? I would sit in the library for a whole day, dipping into one book after another, often with glazed-over eyes. What was my purpose? How would I know when I had achieved it? By comparison I went to lectures gratefully – at least I knew when they started and finished. Although my lecture notes weren’t up to much, I could tell myself I had accomplished something, which would bring down my anxiety level. Much later I discovered I could learn a great deal from close reading of selected sections; that taking notes could sometimes be very satisfying and at other times was not necessary. The trick was to take control; to decide what I wanted to find out – something specific – and then work at it until I had taken in enough to think about for the time being. Dividing big jobs into smaller sub-tasks helps to bring work under control, allows you to set targets and check your progress. There is so much pressure to be ambitious – to go for the long dissertation, to read the huge tomes. Yet achievement arises out of quite modest activities undertaken on a small scale. (‘Taken from ‘Schedule for Passing the Test of Time’ by Andrew Northedge, ‘The Guardian’ 24/9/1991, reprinted with permission). (See comments on this exercise on page 22) Effective Learning Service 15 University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading Speed-reading Speed-reading is the purported ability to read as many as 10,000 to 25,000 words a minute. For example, Howard Berg (1998) claims to be able to read 25,000 words a minute by reading- that's about 8090 pages a minute! However, the Woody Allen joke on speed-reading is perhaps an apt comment on such claims: I took a speed reading course, learning to read straight down the middle of the page, and I was able to go through ‘War and Peace’ in twenty minutes. It’s about Russia. (cited by Williams 1989, p) It is one thing to recognise the meanings of words – but another to really understand (and even enjoy or appreciate) the context in which those words are presented. The basic idea of speed-reading however, is that you rapidly scan each line, focusing on the centre of the page, moving your eyes as quickly as possible down the page, never regressing, and picking out verbs and nouns. But success in speed-reading is mainly determined by how fast a reader can recognise the meanings of the words on the page. These tend to be those who have an very good command of the language in which they are studying, and have developed the ability to differentiate between the meanings of same or similar words. Speed-reading techniques have their role though, if: Ø You want or need to skim quickly through a text to isolate something very specific from it and Ø You have already developed a good vocabulary and can differentiate between words spelt the same or in a similar way (for example between ‘their’ and ‘there’, or ‘effect’ and ‘affect’, ‘practise’ and ‘practice’). But, as stressed earlier, a slower, more analytical and critical reading is often required. The speed at which you read for all purposes can certainly be increased, but for success in the academic world, the real trick is to know when to speed up and slow down! (See next page). Effective Learning Service 16 University of Bradford, School of Management Six Steps to Effective Reading STEP 6: BECOME A MORE ACTIVE READER Active reading is about becoming more involved with what you read. One important way of getting involved is by making notes. Making notes is different from taking notes. Note making becomes then a more active experience, when you have to select what you think is relevant and important. This is opposed to note taking, when you just copy down what you read in a book in an unselective way. Note making means summarising or highlighting what you feel is important or relevant to note. Students who make notes will often ask themselves: Ø Do I really need this information, if so, which bit? Ø Will I ever use the notes? If so, when and for what purpose? Whether you make written notes yourself, or highlight what is printed, the principle of effective note taking is the same: look for the main points in the text (an example of a note-making sheet is shown on page 21). Students who make notes often add their own thoughts to the notes made. They may experiment with different note-making formats, including voice notes (see below) or visual forms of note making (see example on next page). Voice Notes Using a voice-recorder/Dictaphone to summarise the key ideas verbally can work well for some students, as it can help them concentrate on the reading and summarise in their own words what they have read. The tapes can also be replayed in many situations away from library or allocated reading areas, e. listen while you exercise, drive or travel on public transport. Effective Learning Service 18
Sixstepstoeffectivereading
Module: Success in Academic Writing (BUMN091N0)
University: Birkbeck, University of London
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