1. And a short comment on note taking
Critical Reading
And a short comment on note taking

2. Today we will Think about how we take notes
Reconsider ways of taking more effective notes
Learn about critical reading
Learn strategies for effective reading
Practice strategies for critical reading

3. Taking Notes
Skills: listening, decoding and writing

4. Reconsider Note Taking
Lecture is ONE part of learning:
Check your syllabus to see the content of the lecture
Read your reading before class
Fill in knowledge in lecture
Learn about more examples and concepts in lecture
Review at home

5. Taking Notes
Lecture notes should reflect both what the professor is saying and how you understand it.
Downloading PPT slides is not enough!
Powerpoint offers you a way of organizing ideas and key ideas, but it is not a replace for notes

6. Strategies for Note Taking
Develop your own short forms
Listen for cues:
Breaks and transitions
changes of tone (esp. digression)
Opinion vs. info from the text
Recognize summary and repetition (!!)
Use the ppt to your advantage:
Create headings in your notes
Draw any diagrams
Take the time to make the info make sense to you

7. Sample Note Page
Sept. 21, 2010 Effective Note Taking and Critical Reading We should take notes that work for us. Z: they need to make sense in my own words Dr: “for better retention, review notes at home after lecture” Blue book p. 25 on critical thinking, blue book p. 184 on evaluating sources and taking notes

8. Critical Reading
Skills: Critical Thinking, reading, and notetaking

9. Reading
University level readings are not created equally. Consider how long it usually takes you to read. Are you a slow or a fast reader? Double your expected time until you are comfortable reading.

10. Things to Consider
Process what you are reading at a rate that suits its importance (don’t spend 3 hours on one page that is not core course content)
Learn key words and phrases for your discipline (words may take on new meanings)
Look for literal and implied meanings
Figure out what discipline (subject area) the text is from

11. Reading Strategies Preview and Predict
Give the text a quick once over and try to guess at what is to come
Specify Purpose
Figure out why you are being asked to read the text
Questioning
Ask questions and develop an inner dialogue with the author

12. Strategies
Reading strategies are ways or modes or approaches to reading and understanding a text. You can use just one or try using a few of them.
They are intended to help you not only read, but understand and comprehend the content of any text.

13. Reading Strategies Recognizing Topics
Use what you know to find out what the text is about
Classify ideas into main topics and details
Figure out the arguments/ideas and the supporting evidence
Recognize structure and organization
Figure out the outline of the article

14. Reading Strategies Guess the meaning of unknown words
Look at the sentence and the paragraph to try to guess the meaning of the word
Read for only keywords
Get a sense of the article by skimming only for keywords
Skimming/Gist
Glance at an article quickly to get a sense of what it is about

15. Reading Strategies Paraphrasing
Restate some of the text in your own words to make sure that you are understanding it
Summarizing
Restate some of the text in a shorter version in your own words to make sure that you have understood it
Visualizing
Drawing a picture or flow chart may help to understand the ideas

16. Reading Articles
Reading articles well is a combination of knowing how they are organized and being able to understand what they are saying.
Reading is not simply sitting back and letting the author tell you information, but about thinking through the information that they are telling you.

17. All Reading is Critical Reading
Critical reading is about critical thinking.
This involves asking questions about what you are reading.
To read critically is to look at how the text is written and how the point is argued.

18. Don’t just read for information, but
look for ways of thinking about the topic!

19. Critical Thinking
The ability to discern the validity and authority of an argument through reason and logic
Analysis
being able to take apart and understand ideas
Synthesis
being able to bring together parts of different arguments

20. Why do we read critically?
It makes our reading active rather than passive
It focuses our attention and energy
It saves time (studying and writing)
It engages us in critical thinking
It helps us to understand argumentation
It draws our attention to the flow and structure of the writing process (good reading, helps with good writing!)

21. The Organization of Academic Papers
Typical University Level Student Paper
Typical Research Paper
Introduction Arguments Discussion Implications/Conclusion
Abstract
Introduction
Discussion
(Literature Review, background knowledge, definition of key terms)
Arguments
Implications of findings
Conclusions
Future research

22. Reading Academic Articles
Look through all the pages before you read.
Resist the temptation of reading with a pen or pencil or highlighter
Circle, underline, or star only things are important (topic sentence, keyword, conclusion)
Each journal is formatted differently, look for things that you recognize

24. Citation Information
Title
Author
More Citation info

25. The Abstract gives you an overview of the entire article. It tells you
the main points of the article, the method, and the conclusions.
What phrases/sentences tell us the purpose of this article?
What phrases/sentences tell us the conclusion of this article?

26. What about figures? Figures are often tricky to understand
Read the note closely to figure out why the author chose to include that figure.
The figure will ALWAYS be explained in the body of the article
Understand the article is more important than the figure

27. Practice 1. Strategy: reading for gist
2. Strategy: reading for helpful research (is this article useful for my work?)
1. Read all of the headings. What do you think that this article will tell you?
2. Read the abstract and the conclusion. What do you think that this article argues?

28. Wrap Up All reading is critical reading
Use strategies to help you read effectively and efficiently
Take notes to help you understand ideas in your own way