About academic reading

Academic reading is an important yet sometimes difficult skill to learn; however, if you approach it strategically you will find it much easier to master!

This workshop:

About academic reading Identify your purpose for reading Some reading techniques Effective reading Making notes Overcoming reading difficulties More information

Key words: scan, skim, pre-reading, preview

About academic reading

When you get to university, you'll find you need to get through a lot of readings either from your reading list, or for wider reading in preparation for an assignment. These may be journal articles, chapters in edited books or chapters in textbooks. Many of these academic texts will seem quite difficult, especially to begin with. Don't despair! You may not have to read every article on your reading list. If you learn how to preview your readings first, you can select those readings or sections of a reading that are most relevant to your needs. There are a range of strategies that you can use to make the task less overwhelming.

Identify your purpose for reading

Your Unit Handbook or Study Guide will have a reading list. This list will usually be divided into required readings and recommended readings. Always begin with the required readings. Ideally, these will be general texts that can give you an overview of the topic. Once you have a general idea of the course content, more specific or detailed texts will be easier to understand. You will be required to read for a number of situations. For example, you may need to read for: (click to see hidden text)

Lectures Tutorials Assignments

To make the most of your reading, you need to be able to identify your purpose. In many cases, this purpose will be identified in questions included in the Unit Handbook or Study Guide. These questions will make it easier to understand what you are reading. If there are no questions, you need to identify more specific purposes for reading because why you are reading will determine how you read. The way you read a novel, a newspaper, a telephone book and an academic article will be different because your purpose for reading will be different each time. There are three main types of reading that people do:

Reading for quick reference - when you need to find particular information

Reading for pleasure - to relax, for fun, because you like the writer's style

Critical reading - to understand/analyse ideas or concepts

Some reasons for reading might be:

to locate names or numbers to find a description of an event to find details of an experiment to gain an overall impression to identify the main theme to identify the structure of an argument to identify main points to evaluate the style to evaluate the author's point of view

Exercise 1: What's your purpose? How you read a text will depend on why you are reading the text. Drag the descriptions of how you will read into the correct cell to complete the table:

Some reading techniques

Because there is so much to read when you're studying at university, you need to read selectively. The pre-reading stage is an important step in the reading process.

Pre-reading

Before you begin to read, preview the text. What is the title? Who is the author? When was it published? Who is the publisher? When you need to find specific information such as a name or a date, you can scan the text. When you scan, you do not actually read the text; instead you search for a particular item. You can also scan a text to identify the sections that are important for you. To gain an overall impression of a text, you can skim the text. The technique involves reading the title, the first paragraph, the first sentence of each of the body paragraphs and the last paragraph. Also look at any graphics in the text. By skimming a text you can decide if it's relevant and you can prepare yourself for a more detailed reading of the text. Since you have already gained an overall impression, your detailed reading will be more meaningful. Exercise 2: Which technique? Read the description and decide which reading technique will be best to use: 1. You've downloaded an article from a database but you are not sure whether it is relevant or not. scan skim 2. You are searching for possible answers to exam questions in your textbook. scan skim 3. You want to know the results of an experiment in a scientific report. scan skim 4. You want an overview of an experiment in a scientific report. scan skim 5. You have started a new unit and have just

bought the textbook. scan skim Exercise 3: Scanning You are looking for the following information in the text. When you are ready, click on the icon. You will have 20 seconds to locate the information before the text disappears. Note that to do this exercise successfully, you cannot read the whole text, but must look only for the particular information. You can check your answers once you have read the text: 1. How much more slowly do people read a web page than a printed text? 2. What per cent of people read a web page word for word? 3. What per cent of people scan a web page?
Show me the text

Scan the table of contents and then answer the questions that follow. You will have 20 seconds before the text disappears. You can check your answers once you have read the text: 1. In which chapter(s) will you find information on reading? 2. In which section will you find information on referencing? 3. To which page should you turn to read about preparing for exams?
Show me the text

Effective reading
There is a range of strategies that you can use to ensure you get the most out of your reading. Be active while you read. You can do this is by asking questions, making notes and keeping a vocabulary list. Asking questions These may be about the purpose:

or about the content and argument:

Making notes
When you read a text in detail, you should make notes. Many students indiscriminately highlight material as they read. If you do use a highlighter, use it only on key words and phrases, and always follow up with some sort of written note or summary. Making notes is much better than underlining and highlighting. You are not only summarising the text, but you will also be more likely to remember what you have read. You don't need to stick to writing words when you make your notes. Be creative. Draw diagrams and pictures if these help. What to note:

Key elements, such as the theme/thesis/argument, central ideas, major characters or crucial information. The author's purposes and assumptions (explicit and implicit).

Single phrases or sentences that encapsulate key elements or the author's purpose and assumptions. Details or facts that appeal to you, such as a useful statistic or a vivid image. Items to follow up, such as a question, an idea that offers further possibilities, a puzzling comment, an unfamiliar word, an explanation you do not understand or an opinion you question.

Keeping a vocabulary list As you read, write down any new or difficult words. Look these up in a dictionary and try to use them in a sentence or explain what they mean in your own words. This will help you to remember the word. Compile a glossary of key terms and concepts in your discipline. SQ3R This means: Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review

Overcoming reading difficulties

As a student, there are times when the reading you need to do makes little sense, even after you have applied various reading techniques. Here are additional ideas to help clear your head and put you back on the road to success.

Read it again Look for essential words Hold a mini-review Read it aloud Contact your lecturer Talk to other students Consult another text Try to explain to someone what it's about Stand up Reading efficiently (University of Wollongong)

Reading critically (University of Wollongong) Test your reading speed (James Cook University) Reading skills (RMIT)

Part 1

Academic Vocabulary

What are the features of academic vocabulary? Why should I learn high-frequency academic words? Is knowing high-frequency academic vocabulary enough?

What are the features of academic vocabulary?

The words we use to communicate information and ideas in academic texts are different from words we use in everyday conversations, newspapers or novels. Some of the words that are used in academic texts, like "hypothesis" and "predict", come from Greek or Latin, and they often express abstract ideas that we cannot see or touch. In English, a relatively small number of words constantly appear in academic texts. These words were identified by Coxhead and appear on her Academic Word List (AWL). Words on this list are called high-frequency academic words and they are essential to understanding the content and core meaning of any academic text. These general academic terms and concepts usually make up between 10% to 15% of words in academic texts in many academic disciplines. A further 10% to 15% of words in academic texts usually consist of discipline-related or subjectspecific terms that appear in a limited number of academic disciplines as well as other infrequently used words, names, places etc. The remaining 70% to 80% of words in academic texts consist of the 2000 most common words in English. See Prof. Nation's website for more information on how Coxhead used computerized analyses of academic texts to build the AWL.

Why should I learn high-frequency academic words?

Research on vocabulary shows that academic vocabulary can act as a barrier that you need to cross in order to move successfully from everyday spoken English to understanding the language of academic textbooks and articles. Knowing the words that often appear in academic texts helps you move ahead faster and frees up more time for focusing on the text's content.

Is knowing high-frequency academic words enough?

Knowing individual words or phrases is only the first step they do not guarantee you will understand the whole text. Remember that learning vocabulary is only one of the roads that lead to more effective academic reading: additional roads include reading comprehension strategies and extensive reading
Part 3

Academic reading
Reading an academic text differs in many ways from reading comics, novels and magazines. Two important differences are:

what we read content and style of academic texts. how we read what readers of academic texts are expected to do.

Content and style of academic texts

Academic texts deal with concepts and ideas related to subjects that are studied at college or university. Authors of academic texts:

raise abstract questions and issues. present facts and evidence to support their claims. use logic to build their arguments and defend their positions. conform to a clearly-defined structure. choose their words carefully to present their arguments as effectively as possible. try to convince us to accept their positions.

What are readers of academic texts expected to do?

When you read an academic text you are expected to do much more than simply understand the words of the text and summarize main ideas. Readers at college or university level are also expected to:

recognize the author's purpose and possible bias. differentiate between facts and author's opinions. challenge questionable assumptions and unsupported claims. think about possible consequences of the author's claims. integrate information across multiple sources. identify rival hypotheses, possible contradictions and competing views. evaluate evidence and draw their own conclusions instead of simply accepting what the author says.

Doing all this isn't easy and becomes almost impossible if you dont know the meaning of the words you read.