Academic reading http://www.canberra.edu.

au/studyskills/learning/reading Always remember:

Academic material is not meant to be read. It is meant to be ransacked and pillaged for essential content. Be selective. Set a realistic time frame for any reading task. Never read without specific questions you want the text to answer. Never start reading at page 1 of the text, but look for the summary, conclusion, subheadings, etc. Read only as much as you need to get the information you are after. Always keep in mind what you need, what is relevant to the question you are asking the text.

How do you remember what you have read? One of the basic principles of memory is that the quality of memory is related to the quality of your interaction with what you are trying to remember. If you have organised, dissected, questioned, reviewed and assessed the material you are reading, it will sit more firmly in your memory. Consider this: why is it so easy to remember the contents of an article about something you are really interested in? It is because you get involved personally in the events and images the text portrays. You can harness some of the same memory potential in academic reading by adopting a particular kind of involved active reading. Learn to use your own cognitive strengthsvisual, oral-aural, systematic, etc.to create memorability in your reading. Imagine, visualise, recite, act out your academic material, get it out of the dry text-on-page (or screen) context and put some real life into it. A final hintdon't take notes whilst you are reading. Instead, try dividing your reading into shortish sections, closing the book when you have read a section, and writing a summary from memory. The things you recall are strengthened in memory by the act of recall, and the correction of things you leave out or get wrong helps fix them in memory as well. There is another bonus: you will find that by reading in anticipation of writing a summary, your reading improves by becoming more analytical and conscious of key points. Try it and see. The Academic Skills Centre runs workshops during semester which will help you develop your reading and memory techniques. THE PROBLEM What is your first reaction when you look at the reading lists for your subjects? Is it something like: How on earth am I going to get through all that?

When you add up the pages of books, chapters, articles, etc., it comes to a raw total which would be difficult to just get through, let alone remember, organise, and synthesise. And of course, there are always problems such as material being unavailablethe article the lecturer says is vital for everyone to read, but there is only one copy of the publication in the library, and it has gone missing SOhow do you manage to get through your reading, and retain what you have read? HOW TO READ ACADEMIC TEXTS A first principle you might consider is: Academic material is not meant to be read. It is meant to be ransacked and pillaged for essential content. This means that you should never just sit down to read academic works as if they were novels or Readers Digest articles. Academic study is not suited to such an approach, and the chances are you could spend hours reading and then not have a clue what you have been reading about (does that sound familiar?). Instead, think about the following:

Dont feel that you must read everything on the reading list. Use the reading list as a guidelinematerial on the list will often cover much the same ground, a list may sometimes have alternative items to cover different interests or library limitations, and some of the items on the list will be optional to the extent that you can pass the subject without reading them. Be selective. Check through the items on your reading list. Which are basic texts, and which are more detailed? (Will you need basic information or more specific information for your assignment?) Which are the most accessible to you? (Texts which are crystal clear to one person may be incomprehensible to another, and vice versathis is not a matter of 'intelligence', but of a preference for a particular presentation and style) Which are reasonably available? (It is no good pinning your hopes on a book if there is one copy in the library and 300 students wanting it.) Set a realistic time frame for any reading task. Do not read any longer than you can concentrate. It doesnt matter if your attention span is short just set your tasks accordingly. Never read without specific questions you want the text to answer. If you want your reading to stay in your memory, you must approach your text with a list of questions about the particular information you are after, and search the text for the answers to those questions. Don't just read with the hope that an answer will appear. Never start reading at page 1 of the text. If there is a summary, a conclusion, a set of sub-headings, or an abstract, read that first, because it will give you a map of what the text contains. You can then deal with the text structurally, looking for particular points, not just reading blind and so easily getting lost.

Read only as much as you need to get the information you are after. For example, if a piece of information you need is in the abstract of an article, why read the whole article unless you have time to spare? If a point is clear from reading a summary, is there any benefit in reading through the complete text of a chapter? If you are interested in the overall findings of a study, do you really need to read the methodology and results sections? Always keep in mind what you need, what is relevant to the question you are asking the text. There are many tricks of the trade you will either learn or discover for yourself. For example, rather than reading all of a series of articles on a topic, consider whether the literature review in the last article of the series will give you enough to go on with. You can be infinitely creative with your time- and labour-saving strategies. Look for new ways, and talk with other students about how they manage. Dont panic if you cannot get hold of a particular text. Information may be found in various places, and Canberra is better-supplied with libraries than most other places in the country. Think about looking further afield and being creative in your information searches. A WORD ON SPEED READING From time to time outside companies advertise speed reading courses for university students. Some of them are quite expensive, and the level of satisfaction among students is not very high. Speed reading has its uses, but it is certainly not the answer to all the reading needs of university students. Getting through text is only a small part of the reading/remembering task. It doesnt really matter how much stuff you get throughif it doesnt get into your understanding, it is useless. REMEMBERING WHAT YOU'VE READ If you follow the points above, you will find that you take in a lot more than you would if you just dived into the text. One of the basic principles of memory is that the quality of memory is related to the quality of your interaction with what you are trying to remember. Obviously, if you have organised, dissected, questioned, reviewed and assessed the material you are reading, it will sit more firmly in your memory, and be more accessible. There are many memory systems available, some current and commercially promoted, some of great antiquity (the ancient Romans, for example, had some interesting systems). If you want to have a look at some of these, finethey work for some people. However, if you are looking at something which is going to cost you hard-earned cash, think carefully! There are a lot of folk around after an easy dollar .. You might like to consider this: why is it so easy to remember the contents of an article about something you are really interested in, or the even more complex contents of a good novel? The answers might have something to do with interest, not having to read them, etc., but it also has a great deal to do with the sort of interaction the reader has with such material. For example, when you read a novel or story you are not just dealing with textyou are getting involved personally in the events and images the text portrays. You feel sad or happy or outraged at what happens, and you probably see the events and scenes described as clearly as if you were seeing it all on film. The link between recreational reading and a heavy academic text may not be obvious. You may feel like crying over a book on economics or neurophysiology, but the reasons will be very different to

those with a good novel! However, you can harness some of the same memory potential in academic reading by adopting a particular kind of active reading. For example, try envisaging yourself as a professional in the field you are studying, actually using the stuff you are reading to give advice or solve problems. Getting involved with the knowledge you are trying to absorb, making it personal, greatly enhances its memorability (some time ago we had a group of law students enacting Rumpole or The Practice scenarios with the cases they had to study, and apart from being highly amusing, it made the material much easier to come to grips with). Learn to use your own cognitive strengthsvisual, oral-aural, systematic, etc.to create memorability in your reading. Imagine, visualise, recite, act out your academic material, get it out of the dry text-on-page (or screen) context and put some real life into it. Even just applying your growing knowledge to the days news headlines can be enormously helpful, and so can telling people about the understanding you are developing about issues that come up in conversation. Importantly, don't try to memorise everything! You don't have to be a parrot or a recording machine. Make sure you understand the main points of what you are reading. The Academic Skills Centre runs workshops during semester which will help you develop your reading and memory techniques, and we can help you on a one-to-one basis by appointment. We can cover much more than this brief article contains, so get in touch with the ASP! A final hintwhen you are reading, particularly for revision, think about not taking notes. It is easy to fall into a note-taking mode that is almost mechanical transcription, and little of what you are writing gets into memory. Instead, try dividing your reading into shortish sections, closing the book when you have read a section, and writing a summary from memory. The things you recall are strengthened in memory by the act of recall, and the correction of things you leave out or get wrong helps fix them in memory as well. There is another bonus: you will find that by reading in anticipation of writing a summary, your reading improves by becoming more analytical and conscious of key points. Try it and see.

CRITICAK THINKING http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/learning/critical Critical Thinking What do we mean by critical thinking? How does critical thinking differ between disciplines? How does critical thinking apply to academic reading? How does critical thinking apply to academic writing? How can I add quality to my writing? Critical thinking as a generic skill for life WHAT DO WE MEAN BY CRITICAL THINKING? When you are thinking critically, you are not just thinking passively and accepting everything you see and hear. You are thinking actively. You are asking questions about what you see and hear, evaluating, categorising, and finding relationships. Some critical thinking activities are listed below:

SOME OF THE ACTIVITIES INVOLVED IN CRITICAL THINKING Interpreting according to a framework Relating theory to practice Making a claim and supporting it Using appropriate evidence Making links between ideas Asking questions Evaluating Predicting Describing Analysing Synthesising Categorising Establishing cause and effect Comparing and contrasting Identifying problems and solutions

Critical thinking is the essence of tertiary learning. As a university student, you will be expected to apply mental actions such as these to all your academic reading, writing, listening and discussing.

HOW DOES CRITICAL THINKING DIFFER BETWEEN DISCIPLINES? Different disciplines are characterised by particular approaches to critical thinking, and a lage part of studying those disciplines means learning to think like an exponent of that discipline. So, for example, if you are studying geology, you will have to learn to think like a geologist. Geologists typically:

categorise rocks and land formations explain how they evolved predict what can be found in similar circumstances. You need to work out what are the typical ways of thinking in your discipline. Talk to your lecturer or tutor about it; ask questions; copy the style and tone of writing in your discipline. All disciplines will require you to ask questions, relate theory to practice, find and use appropriate evidence, evaluate, find links, and categorise. Science is often concerned with interpreting within a framework, describing, explaining, predicting, and identifying cause and effect. Management is often concerned with identifying problems and solutions, relating theories to practice, and making comparisons and contrasts. IT is often concerned with analysing complex situations into component parts. Literature and History are often concerned with making claims and supporting them, usually in the light of a particular framework of analysis (eg feminism, postmodernism etc). HOW DOES CRITICAL THINKING APPLY TO ACADEMIC READING? In reading academic texts you need to develop a personal (but nevertheless academic and rational) response to the article/ theory/ chapter through:

developing an understanding of the content evaluating and critiquing the article Before reading a text closely, you should read the introduction or abstract and skim read the text (see Reading and Remembering for information about skim reading), to give you a preliminary idea of what it is about. Then read it closely and critically. Some questions to help you read critically

What are the main points of this text?

Can you put them in your own words? What sorts of examples are used? Are they useful? Can you think of others? What factors (ideas, people, things) have been included? Can you think of anything that has been missed out? Is a particular bias or framework apparent? Can you tell what 'school of thought' the author belongs to? Can you work out the steps of the argument being presented? Do all the steps follow logically? Could a different conclusion be drawn from the argument being presented? Are the main ideas in the text supported by reliable evidence (well researched, non-emotive, logical)? Do you agree or disagree with the author? Why? What connections do you see between this and other texts? Where does it differ from other texts on the same subject? What are the wider implicationsfor you, for the discipline? Some techniques to help you read critically

When you take notes, divide your notepad into two columns. Jot down the main ideas in the left hand column, and the supporting comments in the right hand column. Add your own comments in another colour, or in brackets. Talk to other people (anyone who is interested!) about what you have read. Relate this text to others by looking for similar or contrasting themes. Think of how you might explain what the text means to, say, a high school student. What would you have to add to make it intelligible? (This will help you to see the underlying, unstated assumptions.) Ask yourself: 'Is it possible to disagree with any of this?' Ask yourself: 'How can I convince my peers/teachers that I understand what this is about?' HOW DOES CRITICAL THINKING APPLY TO ACADEMIC WRITING? Look at the assignment question, and formulate some questions of your own (See the page on Answering the Question to help you understand how to read assignment questions).

Work out what sort of critical thinking will be involvedcomparing? problem solving? looking for cause and effect? evaluating? What is the lecturer looking for? If you want to say something which is new or unusual, or which your lecturer may disagree with, make sure you have EXTRA evidence and support.

Make sure everything you say is backed up by evidence and references. Link what you are saying into the overall field of the discipline. Think about why this essay topic is worth writing aboutwhat makes it particularly significant. Look at both sides of an argument HOW CAN I ADD QUALITY TO MY WRITING? Your writing needs to be critical in the broadest sense: categorising the factors involved, establishing cause-effect chains, making comparisons and contrasts, pointing out problems and suggesting solutions, evaluating theories and relating them to practice, and so on. Your writing must also be rational, balanced, well-argued, and based on evidence and wide reading. However, really excellent writing is distinguished because it says something substantial. Excellent writing is insightful and thought-provoking; it gives many relevant and interesting examples and other supporting details; and it shows evidence of deep thinking. Your conclusion is particularly important in this regard. Use the conclusion to:

say why this topic is particularly important make a prediction about the future (based on what you have written) make an evaluation (make sure it is not too extreme and is well supported by the body of your text) suggest a solution to the problems you have described restate your central argument in convincing terms (make sure you have supported the argument rigorously through the body of your text). A conclusion should never say Everything is fine and beautiful because nothing is ever perfect. Even the best theory has flaws and is open to criticism. Your writing will be judged as simplistic if you look only at the good points (or only at the bad points, for that matter). CRITICAL THINKING AS A GENERIC SKILL FOR LIFE. The skills that you develop at university in critical thinking will support you in your future professional lives. Professionals constantly need to make decisions based on critical thinking, to evaluate processes and outcomes, and to reflect upon their practice. Good critical thinkers make good professionals. In the end, thats why you are at university.