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Enhance your reading skills

The key skill in wading through all the information we have in this information age is to know what not to read! You don't always have to read everything or every word! You need to become very good at sorting and prioritising your readings.

The Reading section of Language and Learning Online has broader information on reading skills for your university study.

Click the highlighted headings to find out more about these reading tips.

• Plan your reading for each semester

Get organised!

• It's good to plan your reading ahead of the semester, if it takes you longer to get through reading.
• If you need your reading materials converted into an alternative format then it's essential to contact the Disability Liaison Unitas early as possible to arrange this.
• Prioritise your readings and take notes

Discussing your readings is a good idea.

• Using the subject outline, establish a reading priority list for each subject.
• Lecturers will outline what is essential or optional reading. Choose the essential readings to do first.
• If you want a summary of a text book, look for the summary pages – usually at the end of a chapter. Find these to get an overview first.
• Always note or record your reading summaries and include the reference source. Develop your own annotation techniques. Here is a summary of reading annotation tips by Scott McLemee that may be helpful.
• Use annotation abbreviation symbols that are meaningful for you, these may be helpful as starting examples.

A reader's annotation symbols

| vertical mark in the side margin to highlight a section or paragraph

_ underscore to mark a significant sentence

# hash mark in the margins to note a striking or unfamiliar word

NB (short for nota bene which means 'note well') to give a passage or an element more attention

CK check for fact or citation

Q for a quote you might use in your writing

def for a definition

Σ the Greek letter sigma used in maths to mean 'sum' next to the passage that sums it all up

? question mark to indicate surprise

! exclamation mark to indicate surprise

Adapted from an article by Scott McLemee .

• Reading aloud to hear the material can be helpful, or you can have the material read to you to help you process it.
• When you're reading in hard copy, it's useful to run your finger down the centre of the page and scan downwards.
• For a first impression, skim read.
• When you're looking for something, use the Index pages and the Table of Contents.
• A useful technique is using coloured indent tabs to mark your readings.
• Use different colours to mark specific aspects such as main points, examples, alternative views and so on, depending on your purpose.
• Discuss your readings

One of the best things I did during my uni studies was set up a weekly reading group. We'd meet every week, about 5 of us and we'd go through our readings and we'd have specific questions and you know sort of help each other out too.

— Simon

• Bring your readings and understandings to life. Why not form or join a subject reading group with other students to discuss your weekly subject readings. It's a great way to learn collectively.
• You can also discuss your readings on electronic discussion groups if you have them in your subject in MUSO (Monash University Studies Online).
• Read according to your purpose
Before you attempt any reading decide on your purpose:
• Are you looking for an overview?
• Are you looking for a definition?
• Are you reading to prepare for a lecture?
• Are you looking for evidence?
• Are you reading for alternative viewpoints?
• Are you looking for statistical back-up?
• Are you reading for a definition?
• Are you reading for a literature review?
• What type of genre or format are you reading (is it a case study, book, journal article, web page, textbook or poem)?
• Focus your reading
To engage in the task of reading and to focus your reading attention, use Wh-questions to tune your mind into the reading.

I have six friends that serve me true
Their names are What and Where and When
And Why and How and Who.

Add to this which and to what extent and you are on your way to generating great ideas.

• Use the onion reading technique
• If you're reading for an overview then a technique that you may find useful is to imagine the reading text as an onion.
• Try using 'The Onion Reading Technique' (by Reem Al-Mahmood) without the tears. This works for anything that isn't a story or poem. Think of the sentences in a text (book or journal) as equivalent to onion ring layers. After an initial overview, use the technique to locate sections to read in detail – depending on your purpose. As you read ask yourself the Wh - questions, 'what, where, when, why, how, who, which, to what extent'.

The Onion Reading Technique or Onion Reading Technique without the Tears!

You can think of a text as a series of layers (unless you're reading a novel or poem!). You can think of it as pulling out the essential onion ring layers! This can help you decide what to read first and what you need rather than just starting from the beginning to end of a text.

• Title
• Abstract
• Headings
• Introduction
• Conclusion
• Summary or Study Questions
• Diagrams and Charts
• First and last sentences of paragraphs

You may also like to have a look at the section on Reading strategies in Education in the Language and Learning Online site for a specific example of this kind of approach.

• Use the 'Beginner guides' series for a warm-up overview of your topic

Another useful technique for gaining an overview and as a warm-up to a totally new topic, theory or theoretician, is to have a look at the short overviews in the 'For Beginners' book series.

For example, Cultural Studies for Beginners or Derrida for Beginners or Quantum Theory for Beginners and so on.

These tend to provide a more informal overview with images before you delve into the deeper, more academic books and resources.

• Understand how to read a poem

Here are some tips summarised from A checklist of things to consider when reading poetry from the Writing Centre of George Mason University.

• Read the poem aloud all the way through first. Read it slowly and get a sense of what it's about.
• Ask yourself the questions: Who's the speaker of the poem? What's the context or situation? Where is it being said? To whom? When was it written? What does it ask you to consider? This helps provide a perspective on the poem.
• Ask yourself what your expectations are of the poem through its title. Poems can have twists and turns to surprise you, knowing what your initial impressions are can be useful.
• Poems can shift suddenly so be aware of the changes and movement shifts and when they occur.
• Ask yourself what the verse and metrical pattern purposes are and what they tell you about the poem's traditions.
• Look up new words, or place names or mythical ideas, symbols and any aspect of the poem with which you're unfamiliar, or it may be that words are used in different ways and with different nuances or 'double entendres', or there might be colloquial expressions that you need to fully grasp.
• Listen with an 'open ear' to the poem, even if you don't like its content or rhythm or style.
• Discuss the poem with others to get different perspectives.
• Look at punctuation and capitalisation in the poem and see how it's used and for what purposes.
• You may also like to record the poem to hear it a number of times, or in some cases, you may even be able to find the poem in audio format by the original poet on a library recording in video or audio or on the Internet. For examples, you can hear poems of Wallace Stevens as read by him with his intended intonations. Go to historic recordings at Poetry archive for more examples.

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