ENGAGE WITH THE TEXT TO GET THE MOST OUT OF IT.
• Read with a pen or pencil, highlighting key statements, parts, or points – even those you find confusing. Also, make note of words or terms you don’t understand so you can look them up later.
• Note where and how the text relates to lectures or discussions, as well as general or specific questions you might wish to ask your instructor in class or office hours.
• Record your own questions, points of agreement or disagreement, references to related ideas, and points at which ideas match up with each other. In other words, work to enter into a dialogue with the text, mark it up, and make it your own.
ASK YOURSELF IF YOU CAN EXPLAIN BOTH “WHAT THE TEXT SAYS” AND “WHAT IT DOES.”
• In other words, can you both provide a summary of key claims and theses and understand its purpose, what this text seeks to do (to report or state facts, to contest a certain idea, to persuade, to open new inquiries, etc.)?
• Keep in mind that all texts filter reality – distort, persuade, and arrive at different conclusions – and that all texts are trying to change your view in some way.
ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND HOW EACH WRITER’S BACKGROUND AND PURPOSES INFLUENCE WHAT THEY WRITE.
• Reading a text critically requires that you ask questions about the writer’s authority and agenda. You may need to put yourself in the author’s shoes and recognize that those shoes fit a certain way of thinking.
• Work to determine and understand an author’s context, purpose, and intended audience.
WORK TO UNDERSTAND YOUR OWN STRATEGIES AND TO IMPROVE THEM.
• Ask yourself questions about how you read: Do you read too quickly or slowly? Do you tend to lose your focus? Can you scan for key information or ideas?
• Consider the characteristics of effective reading above, in relation to those practices and strategies you already employ, to get a sense of your current reading strategies and how they might be improved.
Adapted from the University of Minnesota’s Student Writ