Chapter 3: Critical Reading Strategies

CRITICAL READING STRATEGIES

POST-SECONDARY VS. HIGH SCHOOL

In a post-secondary environment, academic expectations change from what you may have experienced in the past. The quantity of work you are expected to do is increased. When instructors expect you to read pages upon pages or study hours and hours for one particular course, managing your workload can be challenging.

The quality of the work you do also changes. It is not enough to understand course material and summarize it on an exam. You will also be expected to seriously engage with new ideas by reflecting on them, analyzing them, critiquing them, making connections, drawing conclusions, or finding new ways of thinking about a given subject. Educationally, you are moving into deeper waters. A good introductory writing course will help you swim.

High School versus Post-Secondary Assignments

High School

Post-Secondary

Reading assignments are moderately long. Teachers may set aside some class time for reading and reviewing the material in depth. Some reading assignments may be very long. You will be expected to come to class with a basic understanding of the material.
Teachers often provide study guides and other aids to help you prepare for exams. Reviewing for exams is primarily your responsibility.
Your grade is determined by your performance on a wide variety of assessments, including minor and major assignments. Not all assessments are writing based. Your grade may depend on just a few major assessments. Most assessments are writing based.
Writing assignments include personal writing and creative writing in addition to expository writing. Outside of creative writing courses, most writing assignments are expository.
The structure and format of writing assignments is generally stable over the high school years. Depending on the course, you may be asked to master new forms of writing and follow standards within a particular professional field.
Teachers often go out of their way to identify and try to help students who are performing poorly on exams, missing classes, not turning in assignments, or just struggling with the course. Often teachers will give students many “second chances.” Although teachers want their students to succeed, they may not always realize when students are struggling. They also expect you to be proactive and take steps to help yourself. “Second chances” are less common.

This chapter covers the types of reading and writing assignments you will encounter as a post-secondary student. You will also learn a variety of strategies for mastering these new challenges—and becoming a more confident student and writer.

Setting Goals

To do well in the post-secondary environment, it is important to stay focused on how your day-to-day actions determine your long-term success. You may not have defined your career goals or chosen a major yet. Even so, you surely have some overarching goals for what you want out of your studies to expand your career options, to increase your earning power, or just to learn something new. In time, you will define your long-term goals more explicitly. Doing solid, steady work, day by day and week by week, will help you meet those goals.


Video source: https://youtu.be/5eipUK1N160


ACTIVITY: Practice Discussion

In a group, discuss the following issues and questions:

  • Introduce yourself: Who are you? Why are you taking the course? Where are you living now?
  • How do you feel about writing in general? (You will not be judged on this.)
  • Identify one long-term goal you would like to have achieved by the time you complete your diploma or degree. For instance, you might want a particular job in your field.
  • Identify one semester goal that will help you fulfill the long-term goal you just set.

Reading Strategies

Your post-secondary courses will sharpen both your reading and your writing skills. Most of your writing assignments—from brief response papers to in-depth research projects—will depend on your understanding of course reading assignments or related readings you do on your own. And it is difficult, if not impossible, to write effectively about a text that you have not understood. Even when you do understand the reading, it can be hard to write about it if you do not feel personally engaged with the ideas discussed.

This section discusses strategies you can use to get the most out of your reading assignments. These strategies fall into three broad categories:

  1. Planning strategies  to help you manage your reading assignments
  2. Comprehension strategies  to help you understand the material
  3. Active reading strategies  to take your understanding to a higher and deeper level

 

Planning Your Reading

Have you ever stayed up all night cramming just before an exam? Or found yourself skimming a detailed memo from your boss five minutes before a crucial meeting? The first step in handling your reading successfully is planning. This involves both managing your time and setting a clear purpose for your reading.

Managing Your Reading Time

Reading can be a difficult task for many people for many reasons: difficulty with focus, lack of interest, learning challenges, and a lack of time are just a few examples.  So how do you make your reading load manageable?  Focus on setting aside enough time for reading and breaking your assignments into manageable chunks. For example, if you are assigned a 70-page chapter to read for next week’s class, try not to wait until the night before to get started. Give yourself at least a few days and tackle one section at a time.

Your method for breaking up the assignment will depend on the type of reading. If the text is very dense and packed with unfamiliar terms and concepts, you may need to read no more than 5 or 10 pages in one sitting so that you can truly understand and process the information. With more user-friendly texts, you will be able to handle longer sections—20 to 40 pages, for instance. And if you have a highly engaging reading assignment, such as a novel you cannot put down, you may be able to read lengthy passages in one sitting.

As you learn more about your field of study, certain key terms, concepts, theories, etc. will continue to come up in what you read.  Learning the language of your field and how other authors communicate will help to speed up your reading.  As your knowledge base develops, you will develop a better sense of how much time you need to allow for the reading assignments in different subjects. It also makes sense to preview each assignment well in advance to assess its difficulty level and to determine how much reading time to set aside.


Video source: https://youtu.be/tgVjmFSx7rg



Setting a Purpose

The other key component of planning is setting a purpose. Knowing what you want to get out of a reading assignment helps you determine how to approach it and how much time to spend on it. It also helps you stay focused during those occasional moments when it is late, you are tired, and when relaxing in front of the television sounds far more appealing than curling up with a stack of journal articles.

Sometimes your purpose is simple. You might just need to understand the reading material well enough to discuss it intelligently in class the next day. However, your purpose will often go beyond that. For instance, you might also read to compare two texts, to formulate a personal response to a text, or to gather ideas for future research. Here are some questions to ask to help determine your purpose:

  • How did my instructor frame the assignment? Often instructors will tell you what they expect you to get out of the reading. For example:
    • Read Chapter 2 and come to class prepared to discuss current theories related to conducting risk assessments.
    • Read these two articles and compare Smith’s and Jones’s perspectives on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982).
    • Read Chapter 5 and think about how you could apply these guidelines to the first stages of onsite patient assessment.
  • How deeply do I need to understand the reading? If you are majoring in emergency management and you are assigned to read Chapter 1, “Introduction to Emergency Management,” it is safe to assume the chapter presents fundamental concepts that you will be expected to master. However, for some reading assignments, you may be expected to form a general understanding but not necessarily master the content. Again, pay attention to how your instructor presents the assignment.
  • How does this assignment relate to other course readings or to concepts discussed in class? Your instructor may make some of these connections explicitly, but if not, try to draw connections on your own. (Needless to say, it helps to take detailed notes both when in class and when you read.)
  • How might I use this text again in the future? If you are assigned to read about a topic that has always interested you, your reading assignment might help you develop ideas for a future research paper. Some reading assignments provide valuable tips or summaries worth bookmarking for future reference. Think about what you can take from the reading that will stay with you.


Improving Your Comprehension

You have blocked out time for your reading assignments and set a purpose for reading. Now comes the challenge: making sure you actually understand all the information you are expected to process. Some of your reading assignments will be fairly straightforward. Others, however, will be longer or more complex, so you will need a plan for how to handle them.

For any expository writing—that is, nonfiction, informative writing—your first comprehension goal is to identify the main points and relate any details to those main points. Because post-secondary-level texts can be challenging, you will also need to monitor your reading comprehension. That is, you will need to stop periodically and assess how well you understand what you are reading. Finally, you can improve comprehension by taking time to determine which strategies work best for you and putting those strategies into practice.

Identifying the Main Points

In your courses, you may encounter a wide variety of materials, including the following:

  • Textbooks. These usually include summaries, glossaries, comprehension questions, and other study aids.
  • Nonfiction trade books. These are less likely to include the study features found in textbooks.
  • Popular magazines, newspapers, or web articles. These are usually written for a general audience.
  • Scholarly books and journal articles. These are written for an audience of specialists in a given field.

Regardless of what type of text you are assigned to read, your primary comprehension goal is to identify the main point: the most important idea that the writer wants to communicate and often states early on. Finding the main point gives you a framework to organize the details presented in the reading and relate the reading to concepts you have learned in class or through other reading assignments. After identifying the main point, you will find the supporting points, details, facts, and explanations that develop and clarify the main point.

Some texts make that task relatively easy. Textbooks, for instance, often include the aforementioned features as well as headings and subheadings intended to make it easier for students to identify core concepts. Graphic features such as sidebars, diagrams, and charts help students understand complex information and distinguish between essential and inessential points. When you are assigned to read from a textbook, be sure to use available comprehension aids to help you identify the main points.

Trade books and popular articles may not be written specifically for an educational purpose; nevertheless, they also include features that can help you identify the main ideas.

  • Trade books. Many trade books include an introduction that presents the writer’s main ideas and purpose for writing. Reading chapter titles (and any subtitles within the chapter) will help you get a broad sense of what is covered. It also helps to read the beginning and ending paragraphs of a chapter closely. These paragraphs often sum up the main ideas presented.
  • Popular articles. Reading the headings and introductory paragraphs carefully is crucial. In magazine articles, these features (along with the closing paragraphs) present the main concepts. Hard news articles in newspapers present the gist of the news story in the lead paragraph, while subsequent paragraphs present increasingly general details.

At the far end of the reading difficulty scale are scholarly books and journal articles.  We will come to these later in this book. Because these texts are aimed at a specialized, highly educated audience, the authors presume their readers are already familiar with the topic. The language and writing style is sophisticated and sometimes dense.

When you read scholarly books and journal articles, try to apply the same strategies discussed earlier for other types of text. The introduction usually presents the writer’s thesis—the idea or hypothesis the writer is trying to prove. Headings and subheadings can help you understand how the writer has organized support for the thesis. Additionally, academic journal articles often include a summary at the beginning, called an abstract, and electronic databases include summaries of articles too.

Monitoring Your Comprehension

Finding the main idea and paying attention to text features as you read helps you figure out what you should know. Just as important, however, is being able to figure out what you do not know and developing a strategy to deal with it.

Textbooks often include comprehension questions in the margins or at the end of a section or chapter. As you read, stop occasionally to answer these questions on paper or in your head. Use them to identify sections you may need to reread, read more carefully, or ask your instructor about later.

Even when a text does not have built-in comprehension features, you can actively monitor your own comprehension. Try these strategies, adapting them as needed to suit different kinds of texts:

  • Summarize:  At the end of each section, pause to summarize the main points in a few sentences. If you have trouble doing so, revisit that section.
  • Ask and answer questions: When you begin reading a section, try to identify two to three questions you should be able to answer after you finish it. Write down your questions and use them to test yourself on the reading. If you cannot answer a question, try to determine why. Is the answer buried in that section of reading but just not coming across to you? Or do you expect to find the answer in another part of the reading?
  • Do not read in a vacuum: Look for opportunities to discuss the reading with your classmates. Many instructors set up online discussion forums or blogs specifically for that purpose. Participating in these discussions can help you determine whether your understanding of the main points is the same as your peers’.

These discussions can also serve as a reality check. If everyone in the class struggled with the reading, it may be exceptionally challenging. If it was easy for everyone but you, you may need to see your instructor for help.

PRO TIP:  Students are often reluctant to seek help. They feel like doing so marks them as slow, weak, or demanding. The truth is, every learner occasionally struggles. If you are sincerely trying to keep up with the course reading but feel like you are in over your head, seek help. Speak up in class, schedule a meeting with your instructor, or visit your college library for assistance. Deal with the problem as early in the semester as you can. Instructors respect students who are proactive about their own learning. Most instructors will work hard to help students who make the effort to help themselves.

 

Self-Practice Exercise

Choose   any   text   that   that   you   have   been   assigned   to   read   for   one   of   your   courses.   In   your   notes,   complete   the  following   tasks:

  1. Summarize   the   main   points   of   the   text   in   two   to   three   sentences.
  2. Write  down  two  to  three  questions   about   the   text   that   you   can   bring   up   during   class   discussion.

Taking It to the Next Level: Active Reading

Now that you have acquainted (or reacquainted) yourself with useful planning and comprehension strategies, your reading assignments may feel more manageable. You know what you need to do to get your reading done and make sure you grasp the main points. However, the most successful students in are not only competent readers but active, engaged readers.

There are two common strategies for active reading:

  • Applying the four reading stages
  • SQ3R

Both will help you look at a text in-depth and help prepare you for when you have to study to use the information on an exam. You should try them both and decide which works better for you.

Four Reading Stages

Everyone reads and retains information in different ways. However, applying the following four stages of reading whenever you pick up new material will not only help you understand what you are reading, but will also increase the changes of your actually remembering what you have read. While it may seem that this strategy of four reading stages takes a lot of time, it becomes more natural for you as you continue applying it. Also, using these four stages will actually save you time because you will already have retained a lot, if not all, of the content, so when it is time to study for your exam, you will find that you already know the material.  This is the difference between memorizing content and learning content.

Effective academic reading and study seeks not only to gain an understanding of the facts, opinions, and beliefs presented in a text, but also of the biases, assumptions, and perspectives underlying the discussion. The aim is to analyze, interpret, and evaluate the text, and then to draw logical inferences and conclusions.

The four reading strategies you will need to sharpen in order to get through your material are:

  1. Survey reading
  2. Close reading
  3. Inquiry reading
  4. Critical reading

These four strategies all stress “reading as thinking.” You will need to read actively to comprehend and remember what you are reading, for both your own and your instructor’s purposes. In order to do that, you need to think about the relevance of ideas to one another and about their usefulness to you personally, professionally, and academically.

Again, this differs from our usual daily reading activities, where interest often determines what we choose to read rather than utility. What happens when we are really not interested in what we are reading or seeing? Our eyes move down the page and our minds are elsewhere. We may read anywhere from one paragraph to several pages and suddenly realize we do not have the foggiest idea what we have just read. Clearly focusing our reading purpose on surveying, reading closely, being inquisitive, and reading critically, means we are reading for specific results: we read faster, know what we want, and read to get it.

Survey reading

Surveying quickly (2 to 10 minutes if it is a long text) allows you to see the overall picture or gist of what the text is sharing with you. Some of the benefits of surveying are listed below:

  • It increases reading rate and attention because you have a road map: a mental picture of the beginning, middle, and end of this journey.
  • In helps you create a mental map, allowing you to organize your travel by highlighting key topics and getting impressions of relevance, which in turn helps in the business or remembering.
  • It aids in budgeting study time because you know the length and difficulty of the material. Usually you read study material to find out what is there in order to go back later and learn it. With surveying you accomplish the same in one-tenth the time.
  • It improves concentration because you know what is ahead and how what you are reading fits into the total picture.

Technique for survey reading – For a text or chapter, look at introductions, summaries, chapter headings, bold print, and graphics to piece together the main theme and its development.

Practical uses – Magazines, journals, books, chapters, sections of dense material, anything that allows for an overview.


Close reading

Close reading allows you to concentrate and make decisions now about what is relevant and what is not. Its main purpose is to help ensure that you understand what you are reading and to help you store information in a logical and organized way, so when you need to recall the information, it is easier for you to do so. It is a necessary and critical strategy for academic reading for the following reasons:

  • You read as if you were going to be tested on it immediately upon completion. You read to remember at least 75 to 80 percent of the information.
  • You clearly identify main concepts, key details, and their relationships with one another. Close reading allows you to summarize effectively what you read.
  • Your ability to answer essay questions improves because the concepts are more organized and understood rather than merely memorized.
  • You become more confident because your understanding improves which, in turn, increases your enjoyment.

Technique for survey reading – Survey for overall structure; read, annotating main theme, key points, and essential detail; summarize the important ideas and their development.

Practical uses – Any reading that requires 80 percent comprehension and retention of main points and supporting detail.


Inquiry reading

Inquiry reading tends to be what we do with material we are naturally interested in. We usually do not notice we are doing this because we enjoy learning and thinking about it. Discovery reading is another term that describes this type of reading. Some of its benefits to the study process include:

  • Increased focus: By asking interpretative questions, determining relevance, and searching for your answers, you are involved and less likely to be bored or distracted.
  • Retention: Memory of the material is improved because of increased involvement.
  • Stimulation of creativity: This involvement will raise new questions for you and inspire further research.
  • Matching instructor expectations: Instructors are usually seeking deeper understanding as well as basic memory of concepts.

Technique for survey reading – Increase the volume and depth in questions while reading informational, interpretative, analytical, synthesizing, and evaluating kinds of questions.

Practical uses – Any material that requires both thorough comprehension and needs or inspires examination


Critical reading

Critical reading is necessary in order to determine the salience (or key points) of the concepts presented, their relevance, and the accuracy of arguments. When you read critically, you become even more deeply involved with the material, which will allow you to make better judgments about what is the more important information.

People often read reactively to material—especially debate, controversy, and politics. When readers react, they bring a wealth of personal experience and opinion to the concept to which they are reacting. But critical reading requires thinking—as you would expect—critically about the material. Critical thinking relies on reason, evidence, and open mindedness and recognizes the biases, assumptions, and motives of both the writer and the reader.

Learning to read critically offers these advantages:

  • By substantiating arguments and interpreting, analyzing, and evaluating those supporting the concept moves mere reaction into critical reading and deepens your understanding.
  • By analyzing relationships between the material read and other readings or experience, you can make connections.
  • By making connections, you will increase your concentration and confidence in being able to discuss and evaluate what you read.

Technique for survey reading – Understand and analyze the material in terms of writer’s purpose and results, relevance to readers, and value to the field at large.

Practical uses – Any material that requires evaluation

 

Your memory of facts and concepts will be enhanced by surveying and close reading. Interpretation, relevance, application, and evaluation of presented facts and concepts require deeper questioning and involvement. Inquiry and critical reading are more applicable at these stages. We will be discussing this in the next section: SQ3R.


Video source: https://youtu.be/Xw8KuGD1fJ4


Using the SQ3R Strategy

Another strategy you can use to become a more active, engaged reader is SQ3R, which is a step-by-step process to follow before, during, and after reading. You could use SQ3R for a variety of reading purposes:

  • Getting main concepts only
  • Flushing out key details
  • Organizing concepts
  • Writing a coherent summary of significant points and their development

This process is not a new or unfamiliar; SQ3R is only a new name. It describes surveying various resources (e.g., papers, journals, other relevant sources) for whatever project we are working on; generating questions to shape our understanding of the topic; reading the material; marking, reciting, or, in some way, logging what is critical to our task; and reviewing on what we have read.

You may already use some variation of SQ3R. In essence, the process works like this:

  1. Survey the text in advance.
  2. Form questions before you start reading.
  3. Read the text.
  4. Recite and/or record important points during and after reading.
  5. Review and reflect on the text after you read.

Each of these elements is discussed below.

Survey

Before you read, first survey or preview the text. As noted earlier, reading introductory paragraphs and headings can help you begin to figure out the author’s main point and identify what important topics will be covered. However, surveying does not stop there. Flip through the text and look for any pictures, charts or graphs, the table of contents, index, and glossary. Scan the preface and introduction to each chapter Skim a few paragraphs. Preview any boldfaced or italicized vocabulary terms. This will help you form a first impression of the material and determine the appropriateness of the material.

The final stage of surveying occurs once you have identified which chapters are relevant. Quickly look at any headings as well as the introduction and conclusion to the chapter to confirm the relevance of the information.

Sometimes, this survey step alone may be enough because you may need only a general familiarization with the material. This is also when you will discover whether or not you want to look at the book more deeply.

Question

If you keep the question of why you are reading the material in mind, it will help you focus because you will be actively engaged in the information you are consuming. Also, if there are any visual aids, you will want to examine what they are showing as they probably represent important ideas.

Next, start brainstorming questions about the text. What do you expect to learn from the reading? You may find that some questions come to mind immediately based on your initial survey or based on previous readings and class discussions. If not, try using headings and subheadings in the text to formulate questions. For instance, if one heading in your textbook is Conditional Sentence and another is Conditional Release, you might ask yourself these questions:

  • What are the major differences between these two concepts?
  • These concepts both contain the word conditional – are they connected in some way?
  • Where does each appear in the sentencing process?

Although some of your questions may be simple factual questions, try to come up with a few that are more open ended. Asking in-depth questions will help you stay more engaged as you read. Once you have your questions in mind, you can move to the next step of actively reading to see if you can come up with an answer.

Read

The next step is simple: read. As you read, notice whether your first impressions of the text were correct. Are the author’s main points and overall approach about the same as what you predicted—or does the text contain a few surprises? Also, look for answers to your earlier questions and begin forming new ones. Continue to revise your impressions and questions as you read.

Recite

While you are reading, pause occasionally to recite or record important points. It is best to do this at the end of each section or when there is an obvious shift in the writer’s train of thought. Put the book aside for a moment and recite aloud the main points of the section or any important answers you found there. You might also record ideas by jotting down a few brief notes in addition to, or instead of, reciting aloud. Either way, the physical act of articulating information makes you more likely to remember it.

After you have finished reading, set the book aside and briefly answer your initial question by making notes or highlighting/underlining. Try to use your own words as much as possible, but if you find an important quote, you can identify it as well. If there are any diagrams, makes notes from memory on what information they are giving. Then look back at the diagrams to make sure you were accurate.

Repeat this questioning, reading, and reciting process for the rest of the chapter. As you work your way through, occasionally pause and really think about what you have read; it is easy to work through a section or chapter and realize that you have not actually absorbed any of the material.

Review and reflect

Once you have looked at the whole chapter, try to put each section into the context of the bigger picture. Ask yourself if you have really answered each question you set out with and if you have been accurate in your answers. To make sure that you really remember the information, review your notes again after about one week and then again three or four weeks later. Also, if the textbook includes review questions or your instructor has provided a study guide, use these tools to guide your review. You will want to record information in a more detailed format than you used during reading, such as in an outline or a list.

As you review the material, reflect on what you learned. Did anything surprise you, upset you, or make you think? Did you find yourself strongly agreeing or disagreeing with any points in the text? What topics would you like to explore further? Jot down your reflections in your notes. (Instructors sometimes require students to write brief response papers or maintain a reading journal. Use these assignments to help you reflect on what you read.)

TIP:
As you go through your future readings, practice this summary method considering these points:

  • From memory, jot down the key ideas discussed in the section you just read. If you need it, use a separate piece of paper. Look back through the text and check your memory with what you jotted down. How did you do?
  • Choose one section from the chapter and write a summary from memory of what you learned from that section.
  • Now review that section. Identity what corresponds and what you omitted. How are you doing? When you read that section, did you consciously intend to remember it?

Although this process may seem time-consuming, you will find that it will actually save time. Because you have a question in mind while reading, you have more of a purpose while looking for the important information. The notes you take will also be more organized and concise because you are focused, and this will save you time when it comes to writing essays. Also, since you have reviewed throughout the process, you will not need to spend as much time reviewing for exams because it is already stored in your memory.

Self-Practice Exercise

Choose another text that that you have been assigned to read for a class. Use the SQ3R process to complete the reading. (Keep in mind that you may need to spread the reading over more than one session, especially if the text is long.)

Be sure to complete all the steps involved. Then, reflect on how helpful you found this process. On a scale of 1 to 10, how useful did you find it? How does it compare with other study techniques you have used?

Using Other Active Reading Strategies

The SQ3R process encompasses a number of valuable active reading strategies: previewing a text, making predictions, asking and answering questions, and summarizing. You can use the following additional strategies to further deepen your understanding of what you read.

  • Connect what you read to what you already know. Look for ways the reading supports, extends, or challenges concepts you have learned elsewhere.
  • Relate the reading to your own life. What statements, people, or situations relate to your personal experiences?
  • Visualize. For both fiction and nonfiction texts, try to picture what is described. Visualizing is especially helpful when you are reading a narrative text, such as a novel or a historical account, or when you read expository text that describes a process, such as how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
  • Pay attention to graphics as well as text. Photographs, diagrams, flow charts, tables, and other graphics can help make abstract ideas more concrete and understandable.
  • Understand the text in context. Understanding context means thinking about who wrote the text, when and where it was written, the author’s purpose for writing it, and what assumptions or agendas influenced the author’s ideas. For instance, two writers might both address the subject of health care reform, but if one article is an opinion piece and one is a news story, the context is different.
  • Plan to talk or write about what you read. Jot down a few questions or comments in your notebook so you can bring them up in class. (This also gives you a source of topic ideas for papers and presentations later in the semester.) Discuss the reading on a class discussion board or blog about it.
WRITING AT WORK
Many courses require students to participate in interactive online components, such as a discussion forum, a page on a social networking site, or a class blog. These tools are a great way to reinforce learning. Do not be afraid to be the student who starts the discussion. Remember that when you interact with other students and teachers online, you need to project a mature, professional image. You may be able to use an informal, conversational tone, but complaining about the workload, using off-colour language (cursing), or “flaming/trolling” (insulting) other participants is inappropriate.

 

Active reading can benefit you in ways that go beyond just earning good grades in a course; it can help you to build connections between classes and expand your knowledge base in your field of study.  One way to do this is to recognize patterns, which will help you organize your thinking in systematic ways that parallel the presentation in the source. Key terms for such patterns are:

  • Main/controlling ideas (located in topic sentences)
  • Key details (located within paragraphs)
  • Patterns (form the structure of the paragraph or section)
  • Inferences (are not usually written and must be concluded by the reader)

Many people read to remember everything and do not distinguish between key concepts, key supporting details, positions relative to these concepts, and inferences that can be drawn. Creating a road map with these highlights helps you both to understand and to remember what you read.

Reading for Main Ideas and Details

Creating or identifying main ideas is like creating a skeleton that holds all the rest of the information together—creating a body. Key facts are like muscles. The point of view and its implications are like the blood that gives life to the body. Some main ideas are directly stated; others are implied, and you must infer a statement yourself. When you read, you can identify the main idea of a paragraph, section, chapter, or book by asking yourself the following questions:

  • What is the topic or subject matter? What/who is this about?
  • What am I supposed to understand about this? (This is the idea about the topic.)
  • Are there any sentences that help clarify what I am supposed to understand about the topic? (Often the first or last sentence will state the main idea.)
  • How do I know for sure? All the important information in the paragraph is covered by the main idea sentence. Does it help me to understand what is being said about the topic?

Self-Practice Exercise

Read  the  three  passages  below  and  identify  the  main  idea  in  each.  With  the  first  two  examples,  the  controlling  idea  is  directly  stated.  Identify  the  main  idea  in  both  (expressed  in  the  topic  sentence).

In  the  third  passage,  the  main  idea  in  the  third  passage  is  implied:  choose  the  statement  from  the  list  given  that  best  represents  the  entire  paragraph  and  then  explain  why  the  other  three  statements  do  not  work.

Passage  1:  Identify  the  main  idea  in  this  paragraph.  

When  we  think  about  it,  is  there  really  something  that  we  can  call  “the  public”?  The  population  of  communities  is  really  made  up  of a  set  of  publics.  The  needs  and  interests  of  a  population  are  uniform  on  only  the  broadest  matters,  such  as  health  and  the  security of  the  person  and  his  or  her  property.  Beyond  those  very  broad  areas  of  policy,  needs  and  interests  differ,  sometimes  very  markedly, and  sometimes  in  ways  that  cause  conflict  between  competing  interests.  It  is  highly  unlikely  that  diverse  needs  or  interests  of  all groups  or  individuals  can  all  be  satisfied  at  the  same  time.  Thus,  industrial  firms  that  produce  hazardous  wastes  may  need  sites  to dispose  of  such  undesirable  by-‐products.  Such  firms  can  be  thought  of  as  one  “public.”  and  it  is  apparent  that  their  need  will  conflict with  the  interests  of  another  public—the  people  who  live  near  the  proposed  disposal  site.

Main idea: _________________________________________________

Passage  2:  Identify  the  main  idea  in  this  paragraph.  

Marketing  research  is  a  major  component  or  subsystem  within  a  marketing  information  system.  It  is  used  in  a  very  wide  variety  of marketing  situations.  Typically,  in  a  marketing  research  study  the  problem  to  be  solved  is  first  identified.  Then  a  researcher  decides whether  to  use  secondary  or  primary  sources  of  information.  To  gather primary  data,  the  researcher  may  use  the  survey,  observation,  or  experimental  method.  Normally,  primary  data  are  gathered  by  sampling.  Then  the  data  are  analyzed,  and  a  written  report  is  prepared.

Main idea: _________________________________________________

Passage  3:  Identify  the  implied  main  point  in  this  paragraph.  

According  to  psychiatrist  Richard  Moscotti,  the  ability  to  work  well  is  one  key  to  a  balanced  life.  He  feels  both  underworking  and overworking  are  to  be  avoided.  A  second  key  is  the  ability  to  love,  which  requires  a  certain  amount  of  openness.  The  ability  to  be loved  is  the  third  key  to  a  balanced  life.  This  is  difficult  for  those  who  feel  unworthy  of  love.  The  last  key  is  the  ability  to  play,  which involves  knowing  how  to  relax.

Main  idea:  

  1. The  first  key  to  a  balanced  life,  according  to  Moscotti,  is  the  ability  to  work  well.
  2. According  to  Moscotti,  some  people  having  trouble  receiving  love.
  3. The  final  key  to  a  balanced  life,  according  to  Moscotti,  is  the  ability  to  play.
  4. According  to  Moscotti,  there  are  four  keys  to  a  balanced  life.

State  why  the  other  three  answers  are  not  the  unstated  main  idea.  

Reasons: 

  • _________________________________________________
  • _________________________________________________
  • _________________________________________________

Here  are  the  answers:  
Passage  1  main  idea:  The  population  of  communities  is  really  made  up  of  a  set  of  publics.
Passage  2  main  Idea:  Marketing  research is  a  major  component  or  subsystem  within  a  marketing  information  system.
Passage  3  main  idea  (implied):  According  to  psychiatrist Richard  Moscotti,  the  ability  to  work  well  is  one  key  to  a  balanced  life  (main elements:  psychiatrist,  R.M.,  four  keys,  balanced  life).
D is  the  answer:  The  unstated  main  idea  is  that,  according  to  Moscotti,  there are  four  keys  to  a  balanced  life..    A:    Too  detailed  to  be the  main  idea;  it  expresses  just  one  key  B:    A  detail  of  the  third  key    C:    Too detailed  to  be  the  main  idea;  it  is  only  one  of  four keys

Examples taken from: Langan, J. & Kay, G. (1989). Ten Steps to Building College Reading Skills. Marlton, NJ: Townsend Press.

How did you do? Were you able to identify which were the more general statements from the supporting details? Most of the time, the topic sentence (= the controlling/main idea) is at or near the beginning of the paragraph, but sometimes it is not. Always remember that when identifying the topic sentence, all of the other ideas in that paragraph need to be an example or detail relating to that main point. If one of the ideas does not fit, either you have chosen a statement or idea that is too specific (or the writer did not create a strong topic sentence in the paragraph). When we look at creating paragraphs and topic sentences in the next chapter, you will learn what creates a strong topic sentence, and this will help you with identifying them in the future.

Reading for Patterns

Depending on the writer’s purpose and the information being shared, there are four general groupings by which information is organized:

  • Definitions, details, and illustrations
  • Time sequences, process descriptions, experiment/instructions, and simple listing
  • Comparison and contrast
  • Cause and effect

Reading for Key Details

Some details are more important than others in explaining, supporting, or developing the main idea. Others are further illustrations of details.

The following chart shows key words you can use to help you identify patterns with ideas in relation to the four groupings listed above. Whichever words from whichever group are used, they will help the reader follow the logical organization of the material:

Purpose

Keywords

Definitions, details, and Illustrations

Usually when you see these, a definition or concept preceded it.

  • for example
  • for instance
  • as an illustration
  • to illustrate
  • such as
  • to be specific
  • specifically
  • including one
Time sequence, process description, experiment/instructions, simple listing

Some of these can be used to both show sequence in time and ideas.

Time order

  • first, second, third, etc.
  • then, since, next, before, after, as soon as, now, until, later, while, during, when, finally
Addictive listing

  • also, another, and, in addition, moreover, next, first of all, first, second, furthermore, last of all, finally
Compare and contrast Compare

  • similarly
  • similar to
  • just as
  • within comparison
  • likewise
  • like
  • liken
  • both
  • compared to
  • in the same way
  • in a similar fashion
Contrast

  • on the other hand
  • conversely
  • rather
  • on the contrary
  • but
  • however
  • alternatively
  • differ
  • instead of
  • in contrast to
  • despite
  • nevertheless
Cause and effect
  • thus
  • because
  • because of
  • causes
  • as a result
  • results in
  • result
  • affects
  • therefore
  • since
  • leads to
  • brings about
  • consequently

Categorizing key words can help you identify main and supporting ideas when you are reading. You will also need to apply these throughout the rest of the chapters when developing sentences, paragraphs, and essays.

The next exercises will give you opportunities to practice identifying the main and key ideas in paragraphs.

Self-Practice Exercise

Survey,  read,  and  identify  the  main  points  and  key  details  in  this  paragraph.    

Eidetic imagery is the technical term for what most people know as photographic memory. People with eidetic imagery can recall every detail of a memory as clearly as if they were looking at a photograph. People often wish they had this ability, but it can lead to trouble. For example, a law student with eidetic imagery was accused of cheating on an examination because his test paper contained exactly the words in his textbook. To prove his innocence, he studied an unfamiliar passage for five minutes and then wrote down more than 400 words from it without making a mistake.

Here  are  the  answers:
Main  term:
eidetic  imagery
Definition:  photographic  memory
Details: can  recall  every  detail  of  a  memory  as clearly  as  if  they  were  looking  at  a  paragraph
Example:  a  law  student  with  eidetic  imagery  was  accused  of  cheating  on  an examination because  his  test  paper  contained  exactly  the words  in his  textbook.

Example taken from: Langan, J. & Kay, G. (1989). Ten Steps to Building College Reading Skills. Marlton, NJ: Townsend Press.

Self-Practice Exercise

Highlight  the  several  effects  caused  by  the  condition  described.  

Suffering from debilitating guilt causes many self-defeating behaviours in adulthood. We see adults submitting to the outrageous demands of partners or employers. We see individuals who appear to be constantly angry and then, almost immediately, guilty. We see adults who have felt lifelong depression. The rage felt when shamed in childhood and when suffering from debilitating shame in adulthood is turned against the self because of the dependency on the other for survival. When we are rejected in adulthood by a mate or lover, the feelings we experience are anger at being rejected. Furthermore, if we suffer from debilitating shame, we have not been able to gain autonomy. We continue to feel dependent upon attachment figures. It is from them, from their feelings, attitudes and opinions of us, that we feel worthwhile. To be angry at someone depended upon for survival causes us enormous guilt. Anger is redirected on the vulnerable self. We become trapped in a circular bind of shame, anger, anxiety, guilt, and depression.

Here are the answers: 

  1. childhood   shame
  2. rage
  3. anger  turned   against   self   out   of   guilt
  4. dependence  on   others   opinions   of   us   for   worth
  5. rejection   or   outrageous   demands   from   partners   or   employers
  6. anger
  7. guilt
  8. anger  turned   against   self,   resulting   in   depression

Example taken from: Middleton-Moz, J. (1990). Shame & Guilt: Masters of Disguise. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications Inc., p.62.

Reading for Implications/Inferences: Tracing a Theme to its Conclusion

The methods of recognizing patterns discussed above are concrete and easy to identify. Inferences, on the other hand, are more subtle. When a writer implies something, he or she is giving hints but does not state the point directly. Think about a time, for example, when you had people visiting you at home; it was late, and you wanted them to leave. Did you ask them directly, “Hey, can you leave now”? Probably not, but you may have hinted that you had to wake up early in the morning, or you may have subtly yawned. Hopefully, those people picked up on your cues and inferred it was time to leave: meaning they put the pieces together to arrive at the conclusion you wanted them to leave, yet you did not say it directly.

When a writer does this, the reader may not actually pick up on the hints or maybe even interpret them differently. Sometimes readers make inferences that are based more on their own preferences and experience than on the information provided. This also means that two readers may interpret the same information differently because of differing individual experiences that led them to arrive at their conclusions. For you as a writer, you need to remember that it is your responsibility to give the readers everything they need in order for them to arrive at the conclusions you want them to make. If you are not direct, readers may be left confused or not catch your point.

There are also times that you as a reader will need to read passages requiring you to make inferences. The next exercises will help you to practice reading for inference. Remember, if your answers are different than the ones given, it means you interpreted the information differently and may have missed the author’s point. In these passages, you can also use a process of elimination and ask yourself statement best completes the passage.

Self-Practice Exercise

Read each passage and choose the answer that best completes the thought of the passage. Think about why the other answers would not be a correct conclusion to the passage.

Check your answers against the key at the bottom of the exercise. If you missed an answer, look back and try to figure out why. What clues did you focus on? What did you miss?

  • To a manufacturer, the wages paid to employees are a large portion of production expenses. The fact that wages also determine the buying power of the consumer is sometimes overlooked. In times of overproduction, the manufacturer tries to lower operating costs by decreasing the number of employees. This reduces expenditures of money in wages, but it also:
    1. maintains the status quo
    2. increases population
    3. raises costs
    4. reduces consumption
  • Totally  new  cities  that  will  be  built  in  the  future  may  be  better  planned  than  the  large  cities  that  already  exist.  Old  cities  were  not  properly  planned  for  the  great  growth  in  population  and  industry  that  they  have  had,  and  many  are  in  the  process  of  tearing  down  and  rebuilding  large  sections.  This  process  is  helping  to  improve  some  old  cities—both  large  and  small  ones—but  it  does  not  give  them  the  choice  of  complete  city  designing  that  will  be  available  to:
    1. richer cities
    2. larger cities
    3. foreign cities
    4. new cities
  • The  director  of  this  company  believes  that  there  is  a  growing  awareness  by  management  that  business  corporations  are,  and  should  be,  guided  by  policies  that  are  designed  to  satisfy  human  needs  as  well  as  material  needs,  and  that  there  is  nothing  inconsistent  between  this  and  the  making  of:
    1. educational opportunities for workers
    2. good and satisfying profits
    3. political enemies in some quarters
    4. better opportunities for workers
  • Knowledge and pleasure are inextricably interlocked. It is impossible for us to learn what we do not enjoy, and we cannot enjoy that which does not impart:
    1. a lesson
    2. a novelty
    3. a practical use
    4. strong emotion
  • Oratory is to be best estimated on different principles from those that are applied to other productions. Truth is the object of philosophy and history. The merit of poetry is in its truth even though the truth is understood only through the imagination, which is aroused by poetry. The object of oratory is not truth but persuasion. A speaker who exhausts the whole philosophy of a question, who displays every grace of style, yet produces no effect on an audience, may be a great essayist, a great politician, a great master of composition, but:
    1. essentially a persuader
    2. not a poet
    3. essentially an orator
    4. not an orator

Here are the answers:

  1. D
  2. D
  3. B
  4. A
  5. D

Exercises taken from: Science Research Associates. (1978). Reading for Comprehension Exercises. SRA Achievement Series. Chicago: Science Research Associates.

Check back if you missed any of the answers in this self-exercise. In which instances did you read into the passages your ideas when selecting an answer versus what is stated in the passage?

Do none of these strategies seem to work for you?  Check out this following video for some different strategies!


Video source: https://youtu.be/JL0pqJeE4_w


 

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