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Effective Academic Reading

Dr Adam Gall
Learning Hub

We’ll begin at 11.05am

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Session outline

1. Reading with purpose

2. Making predictions
3. Skimming
4. Blocking and scanning
5. Notetaking

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Reading with purpose

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Purpose: why have I decided to read this text?

General
• Required reading
• Recommended reading
• Identified through an academic database search
• Cited by a text I already know is relevant to my project
• Mentioned by a teacher or colleague
• Seems relevant to a project
• Background on a topic
• Seems interesting

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Purpose: why have I decided to read this text?

More specific
• To get an overview
• To find (more) details
• To find evidence to support your points
• To understand how a concept or method can be applied
• To have a conversation with a friend or colleague
• To answer other, specific questions that I have…

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Purpose: what do I expect to get from this text?

Is it a:
o Primary text or source?
o Secondary academic or scholarly source?
o Tertiary or reference source?
o Non-academic source?

Examples of each…?

As academic readers, we can expect to do different things depending on the role a text
might play for us in our work.

Recommended workshop: From Critical Reading to Critical Writing

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Purpose: which reading strategies will I use?

Techniques
– Predicting and asking questions
– Skimming
– Blocking
– Scanning
– Notetaking*

(*Notetaking can accompany each technique)

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Making Predictions

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Making predictions

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Making predictions

Use title, abstract, first paragraph,

blurb, reader testimony,
acknowledgments, publication details
etc. to predict what you’ll find in a
text

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Using the title and keywords

In most disciplines, the title has been chosen to find an audience of researchers
working on similar topics, using similar methods, or interested in the same
concepts or topics. The title can even work as a kind of summary in its own right.

Many academic journals also use keywords to highlight the topics considered
within particular articles.

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Using the abstract: Activity

Based on the abstract (and title etc.), what kind of text is this?

What do you expect to find in the text?

What reading techniques might you use if:

– You want to use the precise methods in a project of your own?
– If you were writing a literature review on teaching techniques etc.?

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“Teacher–Student Dialogue During Classroom Teaching: Does It Really Impact on Student

Outcomes?”

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Using the abstract: Activity

Based on the abstract (and title

etc.), what kind of text is this?

What do you expect to find in

the text?

What reading techniques might

you use if:
– You want to use the precise
methods in a project of your
own?
– If you were writing a literature
review on teaching techniques
etc.?

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Skimming

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Using the introduction and conclusion

One entry point is to read the introductory and concluding paragraphs of a

text

A typical introduction might include:

– A hook
– Background and broader context
– A brief overview of other scholarship
– A summary of methods or approach
– A thesis statement or argument statement
– An outline of the text to follow

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Using the introduction and conclusion

A typical conclusion might include:

- A restatement of the argument or thesis
- A summary of the stages of argument
- A hypothesis or additional claim
- A call to action
- A statement of significance

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Using headings and explicit structure

Most academic texts explain their own

structure

A classic example of a scientific

article structure is AIMRaD

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Using topic sentences and implicit structure

Example: The Classical Oration

Many academic texts work with creative
labels for different sections
Texts of this kind are diverse, but often
have implicit structures e.g. the classical
oration
1. Introduction (exordium)
2. Context/facts (narratio)
3. Outline/divide the topic (partitio)
4. Support for your claim (confirmatio)
5. Address counterarguments (refutatio)
6. Conclusion (peroratio)

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Using topic sentences and implicit structure

Reading Carrillo, 2015, “Is Reading a Generalizable Skill?” (pp. 15-18).

Topic sentences:
1. My hypothesis may raise some criticism because it depends upon the idea
that reading is a generalizable skill.
2. While context should not be ignored, it is my contention that the dichotomy
between local (i.e. context-bound) and general knowledge is often
misleading.
3. The importance of this combination of general and context-bound
knowledge is supported by Cynthia Shanahan et al.’s “Analysis of Expert
Readers in Three Disciplines” (2011).

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Blocking and Scanning

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Blocking: ‘choose your chunk’

When you’ve got a sense of the structure Example structure (Enoch, 2004):
of the text, blocking can help you to make o Introduction (unlabelled)
sense of some of the detail in a text. o Burke as educator
o Burke’s “Problems of Education” and his
solutions
This technique works when your questions • What equals what
are quite specific and the structure allows • Revising the news
it
• Burkean debate
o Symbol-wisdom today
o Acknowledgments
o Notes

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Scanning

Scanning is used to locate specific information

– Use the explicit structure of the text to locate key sections—this includes
tables of contents, indexes
– Use the ‘Find’ tool to locate references to a topic in a digital text
– Use your prior skimming to identify relevant paragraphs or particular
locations
– Run your eyes over the sections you believe are relevant until you find what
you’re after

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Scanning

Avoid:
- Unfocused or unplanned scanning
- ‘Mining quotes’ without sufficient context or global sense of what the text is
about

Recommended workshop: Reading Strategies

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Notetaking

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Taking good notes: principles

Principles:
– Making notes should be intentional and purposeful
– Make as few notes as you can to meet your purpose
– Develop a system that works for you
– Use symbol or colour coding, a spatial arrangement (e.g. a table), or a
hierarchy of information to make distinctions
– Include your own comments, questions, interpretations, cross-references etc.
(analysis, evaluation)

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Taking good notes: principles

To avoid:
– copying sections of a text directly into your notes (unless you are cautious to
mark them as quotations)
– Taking too many notes
– Taking notes of content without understanding the point or purpose of the
text
– Summarising the writer’s position without including your own ideas

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Some suggestions:

keep it simple; e.g. underlining, highlighting, circling or putting

boxes around important words, phrases, or occasionally sentences
develop a logical, consistent and meaningful system (*)
only mark important points (**)

use margins for

• distinguishing opinions from facts
• distinguishing most important/relevant from least important/relevant
• numbering to indicate chronology or series
• making personal reactions e.g. questions or evaluative comments

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Some suggestions:

use top or bottom of page for further thinking and new

connections, or to flag particular pages/points

Other options:
• use front page of book (inside cover) or head of chapter to construct your own
index that records important themes/ topics and page references
• write brief comments on post-it notes or stick-on labels and attach them to
appropriate pages for quick return to important parts of book or longer
document (virtual versions of this exist for digital texts, too)

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Some suggestions

record bibliographical details of text, chapter headings and page references

as you go (referencing software will make this easy, but the other methods
involve some risk of losing a thread)

keep notes to a minimum – only record main points, ideas, or theories and
occasional detail or examples if you need to

use your own words (i.e. paraphrase don’t copy)

distinguish between your paraphrases of author’s ideas & your own ideas

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Some suggestions

put direct quotes in quotation marks to distinguish them from other notes

record page reference

organise notes by using indenting, space, headings / sub-headings, numbers /

letters, bullet points, symbols or colours etc.

use abbreviations & symbols - invent your own in relation to special

terminology of your subjects (try to be consistent)

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Notetaking methods: using a notebook, note app or referencing

software

Zotero EndNote

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Notetaking methods: using a notebook, note app or referencing

software

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Lesson slides

Effective Academic Reading

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Further resources

https://canvas.sydney.edu.au/courses/40788

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Let us know what you think

https://sydney.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3Oaef
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