Twelve Lesson

Reading as a part of writing

Working with your reading

There seem to be two major difficulties that students have when they are reading academic books and materials. One is struggling with the ways in which things are written. The other is the length of time that things can take to read. 

Many students express surprise at the need to make repeated readings of the same material. Academics themselves find it necessary to 'repeat-read' articles and books. 

The following activity is designed to help you to see the differences between types of text and identify what you might find particularly hard work about an academic text that you have to read. 

Activity Ten: Thinking about reading

Thinking about what kinds of things you normally read ( novel, reports, news-papers, magazines). First, choose a type of reading that is most familiar to you. Second, choose a book or article that you are having to read at the moment for your study. You are going to think about the contrast between these two pieces of text. Take a blank piece of paper and divide it in half. On one side of the paper put the title of the familiar kind of reading, for example a novel; on the other side of the paper put the title of the academic text. 

Now make a list of some of the ways in which you think the two texts appear to be different from one another.