Transcript Reading for academic purposes

Chapter 1
Effective reading for
academic purposes
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-1
Learning objectives
On completion of this chapter students will know
how to:
 identify individual reading styles and recognise
their strengths and weaknesses
 understand the role of critical reading in the
Australian academic context
 develop a range of strategies to improve
reading capability, including speed and
comprehension
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-2
Learning objectives (cont.)
 adapt reading styles to suit the requirements of
different texts
 recognise the integrated nature of reading and
note-taking.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-3
Why focus on reading?
 Tertiary studies require you to read very widely
and in-depth across a range of subject areas.
 You will encounter new vocabulary and
concepts.
 You will begin to notice that writers use
different styles and structures of writing
depending on the subject area.
 You might find that the reading strategies you
have been using successfully are no longer
adequate.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-4
Your own reading style
 In groups of three or four, discuss your own
reading ability.
– What makes a ‘good’ reader?
– Are you a good reader?
– What is your main problem when reading?
– What strategies have you developed for reading?
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-5
Your own reading style (cont.)
 Also consider the following questions:
– What sorts of reading material do you enjoy most?
–
–
–
–
–
Why?
What attracts you to start reading a book or other
text (e.g. cover, pictures, font size, topic, etc.)?
What are the best conditions for your reading?
Do you use the same place?
Do you need to be alone?
Do you read at the same time each day?
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-6
Reading (English) quiz
For each of the following items, indicate whether the statement
is true or false.
1. I never read (in English) for pleasure.
 True  False
2. Reading is a tedious task that I do only because I have to.
 True  False
3. The best way to read academic texts is to just read the
abstract or summary and then pretend to have read the
whole thing.
 True  False
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-7
Reading (English) quiz (cont.)
4.
A good strategy to understand difficult vocabulary is to use
an electronic translator.
 True  False
5.
If I could read faster I would be a ‘good’ reader.
 True  False
6.
I know I can’t read all the material assigned to me in my
program, so I don’t even try.
 True  False
7.
I have some well-developed reading strategies which have
worked very well in my study experience to date.
 True  False
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-8
Reading (English) quiz (cont.)
8.
I find that talking about the main points of a difficult text
with a classmate really helps my comprehension.
 True  False
9.
I never write notes as I read. I just keep the information in
my head.
 True  False
10. I always use a highlighter or pencil when reading
academic texts.
 True  False
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-9
Critical reading
 Students need to take individual responsibility
for learning.
 Much more reading is needed than just the
lecture notes or course guide.
 Developing your reading skills is of paramount
importance.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-10
Critical reading (cont.)
 ‘…it is not simply what you read or how much
you read but how you read that will crucially
affect your level of reading skill’ (Boddington
and Clanchy 1999, p. 1).
 How you read will impact on your
understanding of source material and the way
you incorporate these sources into your own
writing on a topic.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-11
Critical reading (cont.)
 Critical reading involves making judgments
about the value of what you are reading
(Boddington & Clanchy 1999).
 Instead of simply consuming information you
are expected to become a producer of
information.
 You need to carefully assess what you read
while constantly asking yourself whether the
information you are reading is useful for the
particular assignment you are working on.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-12
Critical reading (cont.)
 To develop critical thinking and reading you
need to interrogate both the writer and the text.
Use the following questions to help you gain a
critical perspective:
– What is this document about?
– Is it accurate? How do you know?
– Who wrote it? Is the writer an authority in this field?
– Is the writer trying to persuade you of a particular
position?
– Is this argument based on a broad or narrow view of
the issue?
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-13
Critical reading (cont.)
 More questions:
– What evidence is offered to support the argument?
– What hasn’t been included in the argument?
– What would a totally opposite point of view look
–
–
–
–
–
like?
Do you agree/disagree with the position presented
by the writer?
How did you come to this view?
What do other writers have to say about this topic?
Does this text add anything ‘new’ to the topic?
Is this document useful for your present research?
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-14
Reading activity
 Read and critically evaluate the following two
short texts using the critical reading dot points
on the last slide.
 Which text would be most appropriate for the
essay topic ‘Compare and contrast two brands
of similar products available internationally’?
 How might you incorporate information from
Text 2?
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-15
Text 1 (Baker 1999)
 ‘Successful brands are those which create [an] image
or personality. They do it by encouraging customers to
perceive the attributes they aspire to as being strongly
associated with the brand. These attributes may be
real and objective (e.g. quality, value for money) or
abstract and emotional (e.g. status, youthfulness). The
personality of the brand is a function of the rational
characteristics but this has to be augmented and
communicated to consumers through advertising,
design, packaging and effective distribution and
display. These position the brand’s personality in a
consumer’s mind, generate confidence and create the
purchasing environment.’
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-16
Text 2 (Coca-Cola 2005)
 ‘The Coca-Cola Company exists to benefit and
refresh everyone it touches. Founded in 1886,
our Company is the world‘s leading
manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of
nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and
syrups, used to produce nearly 400 beverage
brands. Our corporate headquarters are in
Atlanta, with local operations in over 200
countries around the world.’
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-17
Effective reading
 There are four inter-related elements involved
in effective reading for academic purposes
(Boddington & Clanchy 1999):
– context
– purpose
– text
– strategy.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-18
Context
 The context for your reading is tertiary study at an
Australian/New Zealand university.
 This context determines the attitude you bring to
your reading. You should have a genuine desire to
learn rather than simply to ‘get the job done’.
 All texts read within your learning environment
need to be approached with a sincere desire to
understand.
 Without this basic attitude you are unlikely to gain
the full benefit of your reading while studying at
university.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-19
Activity 1
 Write down the five main reasons you decided
to enroll in your current program of study.
 Consider your career aspirations, what you
hope to achieve in your particular degree or
program, how your study will affect your future
life and so on.
 Now consider how the reasons for embarking
on your current course of study might impact
on the attitude that you bring to your reading,
which in turn will result in more or less effective
reading practices.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-20
Purpose
 Before you begin reading you need to define
your purpose.
 If researching for an assignment, are you
looking for an explanation, evidence for a
critique, or to fill gaps in your own knowledge
of the topic?
 To ascertain the purpose of your reading:
– pay careful attention to your lecturer’s instructions,
both oral and written
– ensure that you fully understand the requirements of
the assignment
– use the marking criteria provided to guide your
reading.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-21
80/20 principle
 Piscitelli (2004) recommends the ‘80/20




principle’.
In most reading assignments, 80% of what you
need to know is in about 20% of the material.
So you usually only need to skim read 80% of
the document and carefully read the relevant
20%.
This will significantly cut down your reading
time.
The purpose for your reading will dictate how
much of the text you have to read carefully.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-22
Refining your purpose
 Your purpose will change as you work through
your research tasks:
– when you first receive an assignment
– when you start to answer the assignment question
– as your ideas start to change
– when you decide you need to read different texts to
fill in any gaps in your emerging understanding.
 Boddington (1999) refers to this process as
‘refining your purpose’ (p. 10).
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-23
Text
A text may be:
 a book
 a textbook
 a newspaper article
 a journal article
 a report
 an online document
 a graphic/table/illustration
 even a comic!
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-24
Text and genre
 Texts in the same genre have similar
characteristics or conventions.
 Recognising the particular features of different
genres helps you to skim a text and determine
if it is appropriate to use for your present
research.
 You need to be able to identify:
– different types of text you will need at university
– the data or information available in each.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-25
Activity 2
 Form groups of three or four students and
discuss how your reading technique differs
depending on the type of text you are reading.
Consider the way you read:
– a dense academic text
– a newspaper
– an advertising brochure
– a recipe book
– a novel
– a comic
– a personal letter.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-26
Activity 2 (cont.)
 Is your reading technique determined by the
type of text, your purpose for reading or a
combination of both?
 List the reading techniques you have
developed in your study so far.
 Does your reading technique change
according to the task (e.g. if you are reading for
an assignment, or reading as part of exam
revision)? How?
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-27
Reading strategies




Speed reading
Scanning by key words and phrases
Skimming by paragraphs
SQ3R method:
– Survey
– Question
– Read
– Recite
– Review
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-28
SQ3R method
 Before you read, SURVEY (SCAN) the text:
– title, headings, subheadings
– captions under pictures, charts, etc.
– introduction and conclusion
– summary or abstract.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-29
SQ3R method (cont.)
 QUESTION while you are surveying:
– Turn the title/headings into questions.
– If reading a textbook, read the questions at the end
of the chapter.
– Ask yourself, ‘What do I already know about this
subject?’
– Ask yourself, ‘What did the lecturer say about this
topic?’
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-30
SQ3R method (cont.)
 When you begin to READ:
– Note all the underlined, bold or italicised words.
– Reduce your reading speed for difficult passages
(but try not to do this all the time).
– Check your dictionary only when you cannot
determine the meaning from the context. DO NOT
check every word.
– Give yourself permission to ‘miss’ the meaning of
some words. Aim for overall comprehension.
– Look for answers to the questions you first raised.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-31
SQ3R method (cont.)
 RECITE after you read each section:
– Orally ask yourself questions about what you have
just read.
– Write a one-sentence summary at the end of each
section.
– Underline/highlight key points.
– Make notes in the margin (or on a separate piece of
paper with the full reference included in your notes).
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-32
SQ3R method (cont.)
 REVIEW your reading:
– After you have finished the whole article or chapter,
write a short summary. Keep this summary with the
text.
– Never finish an article without doing some form of
oral and written review.
– If studying for an exam, go back through the text
and ask yourself questions (flash cards work well).
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-33
Skimming by paragraphs
 This approach is based on the following
understandings:
– The paragraph is an idea unit, coherent in itself but
also part of a whole argument.
– Signposts (single words or phrases) show the
internal connections and the overall development of
an argument and usually occur at the beginning of
paragraphs.
– Opening sentences of each paragraph usually
provide an outline of the argument being presented.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-34
Skimming by paragraphs (cont.)
 Four steps in this approach (Clanchy and
Ballard 1997):
– Step 1: Look for signposts (in the title or section
headings).
– Step 2: Read just the first section in full.
– Step 3: Summarise the key points in this section.
– Step 4: Read the first sentences of each paragraph.
(You will notice that if you put these first sentences
together they will be similar to your summary of the
first section.)
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-35
Reading difficult vocabulary
 If you are constantly checking the meaning of
words, ask yourself the following questions:
– Why are you reading? If it is simply to gain an
overview of a topic, you may not need to know the
meaning of every word.
– Do you need all the detail? Again, a general
impression (remember 80/20) may be all you need.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-36
Reading difficult vocabulary (cont.)
 Some words are more important than others, in
which case you will need to consult a
dictionary:
– Is the word in the title?
– Does it occur often?
– Is it a ‘jargon’ word?
 Try to work out the meaning from the context.
 To understand a process, look up verbs.
 If you want to understand an idea, look up
nouns.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-37
Reading tips
 Reading speed and comprehension depend on





the type of text.
Practice is the best way to improve.
Do not read every word starting from the
beginning.
Read the title: ask yourself what you already
know.
Scan or survey the whole text first.
Read introductory and concluding paragraphs.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-38
Reading tips (cont.)
 Read the first sentence in each paragraph





carefully.
Note headings, titles, diagrams, pictures.
Think while you read. Ask yourself questions.
Underline, highlight, make notes in the margin.
Try to work out the meanings of words from the
context but, if necessary, check your dictionary.
Write a one-sentence summary at the end of
every chapter or section or do a simple oral
review.
Copyright  2007 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd
PPTs t/a Communication Skills for International Students in Business, by Bretag, Crossman and Bordia
1-39