Advance Academic

Reading and Writing

RUQIA MASTOI
 Introduction

Reading and Writing is important because

At university, you are expected to submit written
assignments for some courses in order to succeed
them. For your assignments and researches you
study multiple researches and books, so both reading
and writing are more important part.
In this respect, this class aims to assist you on the
occasions when you want your assignments to look
and sound ‘academic’.
 Academic Reading

 Academic Reading is defined as reading with a

specifically academic and educational purpose.
 Academic reading includes reading more traditional
books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and journal
articles, along with a vast number of resources
available online.
 The advantages of reading include gaining a deeper
understanding of a text,
increasing reading comprehension, expanding your
vocabulary, and improving your own writing skills.
Cont’d

Academic reading involves layers of:

 Asking questions
 Reflecting on relationships among parts of the text
 Interpreting meaning
 Making connections with other readings
 Refining your topic and purpose.
Cont’d

Academic reading requires:

• High levels of language proficiency
• Familiarity with specific vocabulary
• Knowledge to the subject matter
• High levels of concentration
• Capacity to think critically
• Practice
• Time
 Reading styles

There are three different styles of reading academic

texts: skimming, scanning, and in-depth reading.
Each is used for a specific purpose.

Skimming
Skimming means to read a page or handout - skip read
- by reading the headings and first sentences of each
paragraph or section. It usually takes three forms:
Preview, Overview and Review.
Cont’d

Preview skimming
Most often followed by a second skimming or a
thorough reading, preview skimming is used
in selecting a book.
in surveying a chapter before reading or studying.
in finding appropriate material for use in research.
Overview skimming
You use overview skimming to sample the reading
material more thoroughly than you do in a preview,
as you may not intend to read the material at a later
time.
Review skimming
Your purpose with review skimming is to re-
familiarise yourself with material you have
previously read thoroughly or skimmed.
Cont’d

Scanning
Scanning differs from skimming in that you do not deal
with all of the content, but search through the material
for a specific purpose or a specific word (or its synonym):
finding the answer to a question
seeking an appropriate quotation reference or statement
locating names in a directory, words in a dictionary,
prices in a catalogue, etc.
When you scan, you cover only as much of the content as
is necessary to accomplish your purpose.
Cont’d

In-depth reading
In-depth (or detail) reading is the most involved and
essential. The purpose of this style is to understand
the concepts and arguments that the text contains. It
should be done after skimming the text.
Next Class topic:

Academic Reading & its Strategies