Preview

Reading happens in every part of your life. Sometimes it is small, such as reading text messages, social media posts and emails, or larger, such as stories and articles. In your day-to-day life, consider all the different ways you read. Reading is not an unfamiliar skill, but reading for college may be.

Reading for college and academics in general requires you to dig deeper into a text. It involves understanding HOW to read effectively, HOW to analyze and critically evaluate what you are reading, and HOW to share that through reflection and writing. This chapter looks at the various skills you will use when reading texts in degree programs.

To start, one of the words you will see a lot in this chapter is text. Text just means written material. It is a catch-all term to discuss any form of writing. Texts can have images in it, but the majority of the work will be written. A text can be any of the things we mentioned above. Most likely, though, the types of texts you will encounter in college will depend on your program and its focus. It can be a mix of both academic and news articles, textbooks, nonfiction or fiction books, research papers, lab reports or case studies, and/or different forms of digital media. By building your reading skills, you will be able to tackle whatever TEXT comes your way.