The Assignment of Academic Writing III De Ipan Abdul Rahman/ PBI A 2008

READING TO WRITE Reading effectively seems to have been the demand for university students. Not only class presentations, the idea gained from readings also are needed for accomplishing academic writing task which requires lots of authentic ideas to be developed. For this reason, it is not impossible if three literatures or more are to be learnt by the students. However this demand may give students pressures particularly when the deadline of assignment is short while the literatures to be read are a lot. There seems no way out, but to do reading as effective as possible. Concerning with this issue, learning a technique of effective reading could be one of the solutions in facing with difficulty of effective reading numerous literatures. And learning SQ3R (Ferdinand in Soeadarso, 2002) could be the solution to be taken into account. SQ3R stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review. This technique is first found by Ferdinand Souza. Today, there have been many reading trainers who adopt this technique, including two Indonesian reading trainers, Soedarso and Noer. Through SQ3R, reading activities are made into simultaneous activities that overall lead readers to be a purposeful reader. To be more specific, those activities include Survey that is aimed at preparing reading focus, about what and which literatures to be read; Question that is used as the reading map; Read, the activity of focused comprehension; Recite, the reflection and internalization insights found during reading to answer the questions; last, Review, the strengthening process of understanding idea. Furthermore, in order to draw greater understanding of this technique, below is provided more detail explanation on each reading step. Survey The primary objective of this step is to inquire literatures whether or not those have the ideas that are needed. To fulfill this objective, Soedarso suggests two major surveys in book (non-fiction) Literature that are Whole Book Survey and Chapter Survey. In the whole book survey is more addressed to select the appropriate book Is this the right book? There are at least five points to be checked during this first inquiry including (i). Table of Content which covers the organization of ideas; (ii). Preface that usually explains the limitation of discussion. According to Soedarso, this part can be referred to differentiate between literatures with the similar topics; (iii) Facts, Figures, or Legends, which have relevant details of idea just like (iv) Appendix and (v) Index.

Furthermore, having found the appropriate book to be read, chapter survey is suggested to do to discover to what extent the literature parts should be read. To perform this survey, Reading first and last paragraph, Summary and Sub-Heading are considered helpful. Particularly this is since either first and last paragraph or summary usually sumps up what ideas to be developed on the chapter. Similarly, Sub-Heading also is seen beneficial in chapter survey for its part as the detail of main points of ideas presented in the chapter. In addition, although Survey takes starting point in performing SQ3R, the reader is suggested only to spend few minutes with this. This is since the aim of Survey is to figure out the organization of idea presented as well as to make a decision whether or not the book is right to be read not to comprehend the ideas in detail. Question Question could be said as the map or reading activity. This means that the questions made will guide reading activity in seeking the answer. There is no rule demanding to create question in particular ways, however, commonly, the questions are the result of survey reflection. That is from the ideas that are unfamiliar or wants to be comprehended more. Therefore the form of question may not far between six question formulae such as What, Who, Where, When, What, or How (Noer, 2011). To illustrate, in survey, the reader found Heading entitled Indonesian English Accent which attracts the reader to discover it further. Furthermore, from this heading, the reader can formulate a question asking What is Indonesian English Accent like? which becomes the aim of reading activity. Read After the purpose of reading is known and the idea organization is already learnt, the reader can start to read the literature. The process of reading in SQ3R is not like reading a novel which flows as the story runs. Instead, reading should be performed critically with question as the map (Soedarso, 2002). To do this efficiently, focus should be addressed to the main point of paragraph before detail. The understanding of main point can help readers to understand how idea is developed in detail. In addition to maintain the focus, Soedarso suggests not to take notes or to underline pieces of writings on the literature while reading. Too many marks will probably confuse the readers (2009). However, instead of making underline, mark on the side of important piece of writing will be more beneficial which can be referred to later after reading (Lipson, 2005). Recite

Recite in SQ3R more or less is similar to recall. This means that in this step, the readers attempt to recall the insights already found from reading to answer the question posed. This step purpose is focused on drawing the readers understanding of the materials learnt from the literatures. Elsewhere, reciting is also said as the time for reader to internalize readers perspective over the idea as well as the authors perspective on the literature (Dave, 2009). Although Soedarso says that recitation process is usually done in oral, this does not mean that recitation cannot be performed in written. Creating a summary could be one of ways to do this. In order to make an effective summary, Lipson suggests the reader write it with the own words to demonstrate to what extent they have understood the ideas (2005). However although the summary is composed with th readers own words, citation is still needed to avoid plagiarism. In order to do this well, Lipson recommends the reader write the literature identity such as page and chapter summarized, author, title of book, year of publication, and publisher. Furthermore, citation also applies to the verbatimed piece of writing taken from the literature. In case of this citation, symbol is obligatorly used in order not to get interchanged with the statements written by the readers (2005). Review In 24 hours or more, things that the readers have read are most likely to get disappeared. Therefore an attempt to recall is encouraged. Recalling process that is meant here is review activity. To review well, Soedarso suggests the readers re-learn the main point of literature already read. In addition, in order to strengthen the memory endurance of literatures read, review is recommended to do within 24 hours after reading and further as often as possible. Apart from that, review also can be done through written summary (Lipson, 2005). Consequently, above has been described the procedure of SQ3R reading technique. Preparing what to be read, Reading critically, and Strengthening the understanding have seemed to cover what this technique wants the readers to achieve in their academic reading activity. It is for the reason, SQ3R is seen worthy to be learnt by readers particularly by university students who deal with tight reading activity for the purpose of academic reading as well as academic presentation. Bibliography Soedarso. Speed Reading Jakarta:Gramedia, 2002. Sistem membaca Cepat dan Efektif.

Noer, Muhamad. Speed Reading for Beginners. Jakarta. 2002. Ellis, Dave. Becoming a Master Student Concise Special Twelfth Edition for Iowa State University. Ohio: Cengage Learning, 2009. Lipson, Charles. How to Write BA Thesis. Chicago: Univeristy of Chicago Press, 2005. Note: Most materials of this article are taken from Speed Reading Sistem membaca Cepat dan Effective written by Soedarso.