Reading for University Purposes
Introduction
Much of your learning at university requires reading and making sense of a range of
academic materials. You need to read in conjunction with classes (before and after) and
in developing your ideas and evidence for assignments. You may also at times be asked
to read for “background information”, when the material is helpful but not essential for
your knowledge of a subject area. Many students feel a little overwhelmed by academic
reading, sometimes because of the volume, but also because it appears to be very
different from other kinds of reading. Here are some basic principles that may help you
to manage the demands of academic reading.
Guidelines for academic reading
Remind yourself of the purpose of a particular piece of reading and modify your
reading strategies accordingly.
Examples: You may, for example, be required to read a chapter of a text book before
each lecture in a particular class. The purpose of this kind of reading is to enable you to
familiarize yourself with the key areas that are to be covered in the lecture so that you are
able to follow and engage with the lecture more fully. At this stage and for this purpose,
there is no need to read every detail or example in the textbook. Use all the clues
provided in the chapter to get a basic idea of the shape of the coming lecture. Some
textbooks have excellent end of chapter summaries. It can be useful to start with the
summary to give you a broad picture of the chapter and then try to go back and get a
grasp of key points. Some lecturers make the power point slides available on line before
the lectures. If you have a look at this, it can help you to see which parts of the chapter
are most relevant for the lecture. By contrast, when you return to the chapter after the
lecture, your main purpose is to consolidate the lecture ideas and clarify anything that
you didn’t fully understand.
In some classes, you will be expected to read materials before your tutorials. The purpose
is somewhat different. If you do the pre-tutorial reading it will help you to contribute to
and participate in tutorial discussion. Some lecturers will give you focus questions which
helps you to concentrate on selected parts of the reading. Other lecturers require you to
do some written preparation on the readings. If you are not given any guidelines like this,
try different strategies to enable you to be more focused in your reading. For example,
you may decide to summarise three main ideas you find in the readings. You may write
down a number of questions about the ideas in the reading you need answered to clarify
your understanding. Another useful strategy is to write down some key terms used
frequently in a particular reading and try to find out their meaning before a particular
class. All of these strategies encourage you to be a more active reader and help you to
focus.
Another very common purpose for reading is to prepare for assignments. Again, the word
focus is an important one. Once you have analysed your assignment question, break it
down into a series of sub-questions. You then collect and record information from your
readings in response to these different sub-questions (For clarity, you may want to keep
the information from your reading in separate files based on your sub-questions).
Learn to recognize the different types of academic reading and adjust your strategies
and approaches accordingly.
Examples: There are many different types of material you have to read and the nature of
the material will influence the way you go about working with it. Textbooks are
examples of secondary reading materials where the authors have already read a large
amount about the subject and then compiled it into chapters based on key concepts,
principles or theories. Text books are often the starter reading in an area and provide you
with the key principles and selected examples. Textbooks aimed at students often include
a range of ways to alert you to key points (for example, writing in a different colour or
font, using summaries or lists).
Academic articles are a bit different. These articles are usually based on the research
done by academic scholars or are a discussion of key theoretical ideas or debates in the
disciplines. Often the first intended audience is the community of other scholars in the
discipline. It is important to remember this because it you may have to work harder to
find the main argument and key points. Again, use every available clue to help you get
the main outline of the article. Headings, sub-headings and paragraph starter sentences
help. Also look for intention statements. Examples of intention statements include “In
this article, I argue/discuss/suggest….” “This article describes and discusses research
into….” Many articles based on research have a typical pattern. This pattern consists of
an introduction setting up the context of the research, a brief summary of what other
researchers in the area have said, a description of the research investigation and the
methodology employed, and a description, analysis and discussion of the research
findings. If you know that this is the format of many articles, it gives you a basic
framework for getting an overview of the article.
Always begin by trying to get an overview of a reading and then go back to see where
the different parts of the reading fit into the whole.
Examples:
Always direct your first efforts to trying to find the essence or the gist of piece of a
reading using all the clues that you can find. It is like constructing the frame of a jigsaw
puzzle, before you go back to start filling in the details of the parts. Do not stop to look
up every unfamiliar word. Try to guess word meanings from the context or from their
repeated use in a reading. This first general overview in which you try to extract the
essence of a reading may be enough for many purposes.
If you need to return to a reading a second time, then you start looking in more detail at
each part and see how it contributes to the main idea. Sometimes you will find that you
will adjust your overview of the reading once you go into the details.
Be an active reader and record your understanding as you go along in a form that
makes sense to you.
As a reader you role is not to absorb and remember large amounts of information. Your
role is to make sense of the reading in a way that works for you and you can
communicate to others. When you have a grasp of the main point and sub-points of a
reading, record them in ways that make sense to you such as a summary, a diagram or
flow chart. As you read in more detail, write questions in the margin. Examples include:
“What is the main idea in this paragraph?” “Where is the example to back up this general
idea? “How does this point connect with the previous one?” Try to think of and record
your own examples to illustrate a particular point.
Establish strategies to help you manage the volume of reading – remember you do not
need to read everything.
Many students are fearful that if they do not read every word of every article that they
may miss something important. It is impossible to read everything in detail and trying to
do so may even get in the way of your learning. Develop strategies to help you manage
the readings.
Examples:
As noted above, adjust the way you reading according to the purpose.
If you have a number of readings to prepare for class, read one carefully and just get an
overview of the others and make a note of anything different or additional in the,
Use focus questions, lecture outlines or past exams to alert you to the aspects of a reading
that need careful attention.
Share out readings with a study group, and take turns to do one reading in detail and
explain it to the group. This helps to reduce reading volume, but the need to explain the
reading will also help you to understand the material better.
Trouble-shooting checklist
Here are some questions that may help you to monitor your own practice and develop
your reading skills:
Have I thought about the purpose of a particular reading task and the appropriate
approach for this purpose?
Do I use all the available clues in order to get an overview of a reading?
What strategies do I have for focusing my reading activities?
Can I explain the main ideas of a reading to someone else?
Have I developed a method for documenting and recording my own understanding of
reading material?
Recommended resources