Reading for Results 12th Edition
Reading Tips
CHAPTER 1
Strategies for Learning from Textbooks
1. Be a flexible reader who consciously adapts reading strategies to the text. If, for instance,
reading your history and health texts at the same rate of speed leaves you feeling confused,
adapt to the more difficult material by slowing down your reading rate.
2. A willingness to re-read is critical to understanding a difficult textbook. But just as
important is a willingness to re-read in a different way. If a first reading left you confused,
do the second reading at a slower rate. You might also try reading aloud. If the text
describes a physical event or process, try visualizing. Again, be flexible and adapt to the
material.
3. Using a variety of page-marking techniques will keep you focused on what’s important.
Marking pages as you read them will also help you remember what you read.
4. If the chapter you are ready to read has an unfamiliar name or date in the heading, do a quick
Web search for background knowledge before you start to read.
CHAPTER 2
Using Word Power
1. If you are a student of English as a second language (ESL), pronunciation of new words is
especially important to you. Anytime you can access an online dictionary you should use it.
Hit the audio link , which will allow you to hear the words pronounced, over and over
again if need be.
2. Next time you turn to a dictionary to look up an unfamiliar word and find several definitions,
quickly eliminate any meanings that have no bearing on the word’s context. Then look for
the meaning that makes the most sense within the context of the sentence or passage.
3. Web-based definitions fall under the same rule as those in print. Turn to the Web only when
you can’t continue reading without determining the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
4. If possible, try to have access to the Web while you read. When an unfamiliar, general
vocabulary word appears and you feel you can’t understand the sentence without its meaning,
type the command “define” plus a colon ( followed by the word, for instance, “define:
sensory.” You’ll get a brief definition that will let you finish your assignment without having
to turn to the dictionary.
CHAPTER 3
General and Specific Sentences Work Together
1. (1) Be alert to general sentences that are further clarified by specific sentences. General
sentences sum up the point of a paragraph and therefore deserve extra attention. Above
all, make sure you understand how the more specific sentences clarify the general one.
(2) Writers of business textbooks are particularly fond of making the first sentence of a
paragraph the most general one. That first sentence sums up the point or message,
leaving the rest of the sentence to explain it.
2. (1) If you are reading a business text, then more often than not, the first sentence is the most
general sentence in the paragraph, and it will be explained by the more specific sentences
that follow.
(2) But if you are reading a history textbook, then you have to retool your expectations. Yes,
the first sentence might introduce the general point of the paragraph, but so might the
last.
3. To quickly locate topic sentences in paragraphs, pay close attention to the relationships
between sentences. If the author opens with a general sentence and then illustrates or further
explains it in more specific language, that first sentence is the topic sentence summing up the
main idea.
4. (1) If the second sentence in a paragraph explains the first, the opening sentence is probably
the topic sentence expressing the main idea.
(2) If the second sentence in the paragraph does not follow up on the idea introduced in the
first sentence, check to see if the remaining sentences explain the second sentence. If
they do, the second sentence is the topic sentence.
(3) If the specific sentences in a paragraph seem to be piling up, look closely at the last
sentence. It might well be the topic sentence.
CHAPTER 4
Getting to the Point of Paragraphs
1. Anytime you think you’ve found the topic sentence, you can confirm your guess by checking
out how the remaining sentences relate to your presumed topic sentence. Do they explain
more precisely? Do they give reasons why it’s true or provide examples to make it clearer?
If the answers to questions like these is yes, then you’ve found the topic sentence. If the
answer is consistently no, it’s time to re-think your topic sentence.
2. (1) To check that you have truly identified the topic sentence of a paragraph, turn the topic
sentence into a question, e.g., What mistakes do lie detectors make? If the supporting
details provide an answer, you have correctly identified the topic sentence.
3. If the writer opens a paragraph with a question, chances are good that the answer is also the
main idea. However, if the author provides an answer but doesn’t develop it with more
specific supporting details, then he or she has varied the pattern, making both question and
answer part of the introduction. That means you need to be a flexible reader and keep
looking for the main idea.
4. (1) Texts are made up of words. But some words are more important than others.
Identifying chains of repetition and reference is a quick way to identify the most
important words in a paragraph.
(2) Sometimes topics are suggested even more than stated, so think on two levels while
reading. What do the words mean and what do they suggest?
5. (1) If a passage is particularly hard to understand, re-read it to make sure you can match
every pronoun to its antecedent.
(2) Especially important in this context are pronouns such as what, this, and that. They often
refer to entire ideas rather than single words. That’s why misunderstanding, or
misinterpreting, them can interfere with your comprehension. It pays to give them
special attention.
6. (1) Remember what you learned in Chapter 1. Good readers are flexible readers. When one
strategy doesn’t work, then try another.
(2) Check your comprehension regularly when you read, right after you finish a difficult
paragraph and at the end of chapter sections. If you can’t paraphrase, you need to mark
the passage for a second reading.
CHAPTER 5
Getting to the Point of Longer Readings
1. (1) Whether they introduce the topic or the main idea, titles and subheadings in chapter
sections are important clues. They help readers make the right connections between the
overall main idea of the reading and the supporting details that serve to explain it.
(2) If a heading is a complete sentence, then it very likely expresses the main idea of the
chapter section or paragraph as well.
(3) The title often provides a clue to the main idea. As you read, look for any references to
words used in the title. References to the title are likely to be central to developing the
overall main idea.
2. Sometimes textbook authors open a chapter section with an anecdote, or story, that illustrates
the main idea. Then the last sentence of the paragraph sums up the point of the anecdote.
The sentence expressing the point of the story is usually both topic sentence and thesis
statement.
3. When it comes to following the author’s train of thought, the opening sentence of each
supporting paragraph is especially important. Much of the time, the first sentence of the
supporting paragraph is where you will find out how the new paragraph links up to what
came before.
4. Writers don’t always answer their opening questions immediately. Sometimes they give a
traditional or commonsense answer only to reverse it before introducing the answer they
really intend to address. Writers who take this approach will usually introduce the real
answer to the question, i.e., the thesis statement, with a reversal transition, so it will be easy
to spot.
CHAPTER 6
Focusing on Supporting Details in Paragraphs
1. Once you think you have identified the topic sentence that sums up the main idea, ask
yourself which of the remaining sentences provide clarification or evidence for that sentence.
If the remaining sentences don’t clarify or prove the sentence you have selected, you need to
rethink your choice of topic sentence.
CHAPTER 7
Focusing on Supporting Details in Longer Readings
1. If you can’t find a thesis statement that matches the main idea you came up with and none of
the paragraphs in the reading support the main idea you were considering, then you know
you have to re-think your first guess about the overall or controlling main idea.
2. (1) If a chapter section does not fit an explanatory pattern you are familiar with, start
thinking about the relationship between general and specific sentences, and be on the
lookout for chains of repetition and reference.
(2) Use the heading of a chapter section to guide your search for the main idea and the
supporting details that explain it.
(3) When you start to get answers to your questions about the heading, you are also zeroing
in on the main idea of the entire reading.
3. To determine the relationship between major and minor details, look carefully at the opening
sentences of each paragraph. The sentence openings are where writers usually link what
came before to what’s coming next. They will give you the best clues to how paragraphs
relate to one another.
4. Even more than in single paragraphs, category words like circumstances, reasons, and
consequences at the beginning of a reading are a clue to the major details.
CHAPTER 8
Focusing on Inferences in Paragraphs
1. (1) Paragraphs that open with a question along with paragraphs that compare and contrast
two topics often imply rather than state the main idea.
(2) In paragraphs that imply the main idea, many of the sentences are likely to be equally
specific.
2. The main idea you infer from the specific details should sum up the paragraph in the same
way a topic sentence does.
3. Writers don’t always identify relationships with specific transitions like however and for
example. It’s up to you, the reader, to keep asking yourself, What does the sentence I am
currently reading have to do with the one that came before?
CHAPTER 9
Understanding the Role of Inferences in Longer
Readings
1. (1) Readings that break apart in the middle with the author moving on to a point different
from the one developed by the opening paragraphs are very likely to imply rather than
state the main idea of the reading.
(2) Writing that (1) compares and contrasts two topics, (2) talks about the difference between
the past and present, and (3) opens with a question but doesn’t follow with an immediate
answer is very likely to imply the main idea of the reading.
2, Look to the beginning of paragraphs for help answering two questions that should always be
on a reader’s mind: Why does this paragraph follow the previous one? What connects them
to one another?
CHAPTER 10 Learning from Organizational Patterns in
Paragraphs
1. (1) Readings accompanied by timelines are likely to include paragraphs tracing a sequence of
dates and events.
(2) Although paragraphs can rely on the dates and events pattern, it’s in longer multiparagraph readings that this pattern really makes its presence felt. This is particularly
true of history texts.
2. In the listing pattern, the topic sentence is most likely to appear at the beginning or end of the
paragraph.
3. Don’t get so caught up identifying similarities and differences that you forget about the idea
they illustrate. Make sure you always know what main idea is developed by the author’s
description of differences and similarities.
CHAPTER 11 Combining Patterns in Paragraphs and Longer
Readings
1. As soon as you see that a reading has numerous references to dates and periods of time, make
sure you understand what events or shifts in thought occurred during the times identified.
2. When organizational patterns combine to develop the main idea, look for the elements typical
of each pattern. Then decide which of those elements are essential to explaining the main
idea. Those are the ones you need to take notes on.
CHAPTER 12 Responding to Persuasive Writing
1. (1) An author’s word choice counts a great deal when it comes to separating fact and
opinion. A single word or phrase can inject a personal opinion into a statement that, at
first glance at least, seems like hard fact.
(2) Be wary of an author (or speaker) who starts a statement with the phrase, “It’s a wellknown fact . . .” Often the claim made in the statement isn’t well known. Much of the
time, it isn’t even a fact.
2. Any time an author gives both sides of an issue an equal amount of space, pointing out the
pluses and minuses of each position, you are dealing with writing meant to inform rather than
persuade.