Reading academic texts isn’t the same as reading solely for entertainment. These tips can help you tackle your class reading with less frustration and more effectiveness.
SKIM STRATEGICALLY. Before diving into a chapter, article, or other reading assignment, look at its parts. What are the subheadings? What information gets illustrated or represented with a figure or table? This can give you clues about what is most important in the text.
CONTEXTUALIZE. Why has your instructor assigned this specific reading at this point in the term? Is it building on previously established knowledge? Does it complicate, or give a new perspective on, what the class has been covering? Or is there some other purpose your professor probably has in mind? Knowing why you should read will help you reach that expected purpose.
TALK TO THE TEXT. Reading can be passive, but it shouldn’t be! Instead, actively highlight key terms, write questions in the margins as they occur to you, and make notes about how this reading relates to others in the course, or to course lecture material. You can highlight and annotate both paper texts and PDFs/digital copies.
READ LIKE A SCIENTIST. Are you reading a scientific report or paper? Start with the abstract to gain an overview, and then decide which parts you can skim and which you should read fully.
For example, if your professor is teaching you a new method, a methodology section is very important. But if you should just focus on the results of an experiment, then skim the methodology section and read the results and discussion sections thoroughly. Remember that conclusion sections often contain helpful restatements of key ideas!
WORD SEARCH. When should you look up a word you don’t know? If the word is in the article title, or if it is something the professor has mentioned in class, it’s important enough to look up. But if you understand the main idea of the sentence from context, you likely don’t need to define that term.
However, consider keeping a personal glossary of terms that you encounter for the first time — looking them up can expand your vocabulary salubriously (if you don’t know that word, look it up)!