1. Effective Reading Think about your most recent reading experience
What did you do?
How did you approach your reading?
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Grace Conti

2. Vector of Reader’s Interest
This is about the human attention span.
Source: Sheridan Baker The Practical Stylist 3rd Ed. Thomas Y. Crowell Co. New York
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3. Find your purpose What is important? What is new? What is familiar?
Is my mind prepared?
READ WITH THE QUESTION IN MIND
This leads you to think about your Thesis Statement which you should begin to write within first few minutes of reading.
Find out about Thesis Statement in the Better Essays online program.
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4. Steps in Reading your Assignment Question
IDENTIFY THE TOPIC
The topic states what the assignment is about
IDENTIFY KEY TERMS
Instruction words – Verbs – give the directive
Content words – Nouns – give the topic
Modifiers – Adjectives, adverbs – give the tone/attitude/stance
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5. Look for Cues of Organisation
Sequence
Cause and Effect
Problem/Solution
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6. Turn the Assignment into questions
Example:
Organisms and organisations can survive rapid environmental change if they adopt renewal strategies embodied in living, learning cultures. They must simultaneously adapt to and embrace change, while evolving new ways of operating and allocating resources. In short, they must evolve and devolve to survive and thrive (Peterson, 2009, p. 238).
What are the key words and directives. Think about questions you would be asking mentally to start researching for this assignment.
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7. Read with a question in mind
Discuss this with reference to organisational theories and principles, in light of an organisation with which you are familiar.
This links to the previous slide passage.
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8. Make a list of Information to be Researched
Key terms
Key arguments
Key authors
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9. Thesis Statement Start thinking of what your main message might be
Know the word count requirement – helps the ‘how much do I need to read’ dilemma!
How many key ideas can be developed within the limit?
Read with a purpose – what am I looking for?
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10. Academic Writing requires Critical Thinking and Critical Reading
Start by asking yourself: “What do I think of what I’ve just read?”
Whilst you may have a point of view, this needs to be supported by critical thinking and evidence from texts.
Life experiences are important for critical thinking, but must be supported by researched evidence.
Be mindful of your biases and prejudices. Your argument/point of view must be valid.
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11. Keeping a critical eye Content Evaluate the Evidence
Question surface appearance – figures; tables; charts; diagrams
Theory or model base
Conclusion
Does the evidence support the conclusion?
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12. Where do I start? Course text Course lecture notes Recommended reading
Seminal authors (Who are they? Where can I find them?)
Academic journal articles
See Gathering & Evaluating Information sheet in this Resources section.
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13. 1st Reading - Skimming Title Publication details Abstract
Graphics – images
Sub-Headings
See Reading Techniques sheet in this Resources section.
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14. 2nd Reading - Scanning
Thesis statement or focus (last sentence of Introduction)
Introduction
Conclusion
Sub-Heading and First sentence of every paragraph.
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15. 3rd Reading - Reading for detail
Looking for evidence to support your argument
Highlighting key words & concepts
Note-taking
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16. 4th Reading – Reading for Recall
Read highlighted parts
Read notes
Make more notes
Combine notes from different sources.
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17. The BIG tip!
Do NOT
Do NOT read more than 3 sources before you START WRITING!
You MUST start writing
to enhance your READING
efficiency and effectiveness
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18. Note Taking The Cornell System – also very useful for synthesising.
Recall Column
Main notemaking
See Making Notes (on back of Reading Techniques)
sheet in this Resources section.
See How to make good notes
Summary
Reading using Visualising
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19. Highlighter Trap
Highlighting important information or facts so they can be easily found later, is a helpful strategy.
Highlighting everything you want to remember is not so helpful. Don’t confuse highlighting with active reading. They are not the same thing.
Sometimes students highlight so much information, it is impossible to distinguish what is of value from what is not.
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20. How to Focus Sandy MacGregor’s Technique
Before reading text, take a deep breath and go to peaceful place within your mind using porpoise eye movement
Eye porpoising is done by closing eyes, roll them upwards (2 or 3 seconds), roll them back forward.
Do this 2 or 3 times.
Open eyes, look at text and
Tell yourself “I can’t wait to read this”.
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21. Engage the subconscious
To find your own Peaceful Place in your mind. To assist this, Napping or Meditating is proving to increase memory retention by 20%.
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