1:20
When you have previewed the text and gained a general overview of what it
contains, it can begin interacting with academic texts.
It'll most careful intense of reading, and
requires you to read the majority of information in the text.
You may not understand everything you read the first time.
You often have to go back and read the text, or parts of the text.
Looking up words in a dictionary, or
checking on definitions to obtain background information,
find specific facts, identify the structure of a writer's argument.
Understand a difficult concept, recall information for
assessment purposes, find information to challenge an argument.
William Gray, a researcher and a reading practitioner provided us with
a useful definition of different levels of comprehension which includes
reading the lines, reading between the lines and reading beyond the lines.
2:18
While reading the lines,
we focus on ideas an information directly stated in the text.
While reading between the lines, we analyse and
infer meaning not directly stated in the text.
When we infer meaning from a text,
we go beyond the directly stated ideas and look for hidden meanings.
Such reading involves creating personal meaning
by combining what is read with relevant prior knowledge.
For example, when a friend tells you,
I cannot come to your party, you can interpret this literally
to mean that she is unable to come to the party because she has another arrangement.
Or you can infer that she does not want to come to your party
because she doesn't like you.
When you read beyond the lines, we apply ideas in the text
to new situations and draw generalizations.
This type of reading involves the persons
of bringing together a number of different sources and
connecting background knowledge with the ideas presented by the author in the text.
As a scholar, you're required to go beyond basic comprehension of the text.
When you read a scientific article, you do not only need to
understand the information explicitly stated in the texts, but
also how to be able to interpret, generalize and draw your own conclusions.
Once you have read to text carefully,
you need to ensure that you have correctly understood what you had read,
there are a number of useful techniques for testing your comprehension.
This techniques include the folding, annotating texts,
when you read making notes helps concentration in order to make notes,
you must understand the text.
Annotating a text helps you reflect on and react to ideas in the text
by understanding important points, or scribbling comments in the margins.
You begin to use interpretive strategies that give
insight into the what you make meaning out of the text.
4:24
Writing summaries, by focusing on the main features and primary focuses of the text,
summaries provide you with a useful way of testing your understanding,
as well as reducing massive reading loads to manageable proportions.
You need to be concise when condensing text,
forces you to make choices as to what is important in a text.
The summary is usually a long and
more detailed a thorough discussion of the main points of a text.
The summary is more likely to contain quotes and various phrases of the text
along with sub arguments and sub-claim creating graphic displays.
Mapping ideas using mind map, a flow chart, an organigram or a classification
table will help you understand the complex relationships among text elements.
Self questioning, it is a very useful strategy
to ensure that you have understood what you have read.
Questioning strategies can help you interact with the text and
techniques is a way of setting up a conversation with the author.
Thinking up questions that focus on the main ideas in the texts, can help you
remember what you have read and improve your information-processing ability.
5:49
When you read the text, you engage actively with the ideas of a writer
even if you do not have direct contact with the writer, you're actually involved
in a kind of mental conversation and the way you respond to the writer's ideas.
And you ask questions, you jot down interesting ideas,
you underline unsimilar terminology or unfamiliar terminology, and
you decide whether you agree with what the writer has to say.
Since academic texts usually contain a lot of information which can be unfamiliar and
difficult to understand, it is useful to train yourself to make notes
in the margins of your study material.
A good test of whether you have understood what you have read
is to write up your notes in a summary format using your own words.
Good notes should be accurate, clear and concise and you should share with
the organization of the text and the relationship between ideas.
Elena BazanovaDirector of the Language Training and Testing Center
