Critical Reading

Critical Reading And a short comment on note taking

Today we will Think about how we take notes Reconsider ways of taking more effective notes Learn about critical reading Learn strategies for effective reading Practice strategies for critical reading

Taking Notes Skills: listening, decoding and writing

Reconsider Note Taking • Lecture is ONE part of learning: • Check your syllabus to see the content of the lecture • Read your reading before class • Fill in knowledge in lecture • Learn about more examples and concepts in lecture • Review at home

Taking Notes Lecture notes should reflect both what the professor is saying and how you understand it. Downloading PPT slides is not enough! Powerpoint offers you a way of organizing ideas and key ideas, but it is not a replace for notes

Strategies for Note Taking • Develop your own short forms • Listen for cues: • Breaks and transitions • changes of tone (esp. digression) • Opinion vs. info from the text • Recognize summary and repetition (!!) • Use the ppt to your advantage: • Create headings in your notes • Draw any diagrams • Take the time to make the info make sense to you

Sample Note Page Sept. 21, 2010 Effective Note Taking and Critical Reading We should take notes that work for us. Z: they need to make sense in my own words Dr: “for better retention, review notes at home after lecture” Blue book p. 25 on critical thinking, blue book p. 184 on evaluating sources and taking notes

Critical Reading Skills: Critical Thinking, reading, and notetaking

Reading University level readings are not created equally. Consider how long it usually takes you to read. Are you a slow or a fast reader? Double your expected time until you are comfortable reading.

Things to Consider Process what you are reading at a rate that suits its importance (don’t spend 3 hours on one page that is not core course content) Learn key words and phrases for your discipline (words may take on new meanings) Look for literal and implied meanings Figure out what discipline (subject area) the text is from

Reading Strategies • Preview and Predict • Give the text a quick once over and try to guess at what is to come • Specify Purpose • Figure out why you are being asked to read the text • Questioning • Ask questions and develop an inner dialogue with the author

Strategies Reading strategies are ways or modes or approaches to reading and understanding a text. You can use just one or try using a few of them. They are intended to help you not only read, but understand and comprehend the content of any text.

Reading Strategies • Recognizing Topics • Use what you know to find out what the text is about • Classify ideas into main topics and details • Figure out the arguments/ideas and the supporting evidence • Recognize structure and organization • Figure out the outline of the article

Reading Strategies • Guess the meaning of unknown words • Look at the sentence and the paragraph to try to guess the meaning of the word • Read for only keywords • Get a sense of the article by skimming only for keywords • Skimming/Gist • Glance at an article quickly to get a sense of what it is about

Reading Strategies • Paraphrasing • Restate some of the text in your own words to make sure that you are understanding it • Summarizing • Restate some of the text in a shorter version in your own words to make sure that you have understood it • Visualizing • Drawing a picture or flow chart may help to understand the ideas

Reading Articles Reading articles well is a combination of knowing how they are organized and being able to understand what they are saying. Reading is not simply sitting back and letting the author tell you information, but about thinking through the information that they are telling you.

All Reading is Critical Reading Critical reading is about critical thinking. This involves asking questions about what you are reading. To read critically is to look at how the text is written and how the point is argued.

Don’t just read for information, but look for ways of thinking about the topic!

Critical Thinking The ability to discern the validity and authority of an argument through reason and logic • Analysis • being able to take apart and understand ideas • Synthesis • being able to bring together parts of different arguments

Why do we read critically? • It makes our reading active rather than passive • It focuses our attention and energy • It saves time (studying and writing) • It engages us in critical thinking • It helps us to understand argumentation • It draws our attention to the flow and structure of the writing process (good reading, helps with good writing!)

The Organization of Academic Papers Typical University Level Student Paper Typical Research Paper Abstract Introduction Discussion (Literature Review, background knowledge, definition of key terms) Arguments Discussion Implications of findings Conclusions Future research Introduction Arguments Discussion Implications/Conclusion

Reading Academic Articles Look through all the pages before you read. Resist the temptation of reading with a pen or pencil or highlighter Circle, underline, or star only things are important (topic sentence, keyword, conclusion) Each journal is formatted differently, look for things that you recognize

Citation Information Title Author More Citation info

The Abstract gives you an overview of the entire article. It tells you the main points of the article, the method, and the conclusions. What phrases/sentences tell us the purpose of this article? What phrases/sentences tell us the conclusion of this article?

What about figures? • Figures are often tricky to understand • Read the note closely to figure out why the author chose to include that figure. • The figure will ALWAYS be explained in the body of the article • Understand the article is more important than the figure

Practice • 1. Strategy: reading for gist • 2. Strategy: reading for helpful research (is this article useful for my work?) • 1. Read all of the headings. What do you think that this article will tell you? • 2. Read the abstract and the conclusion. What do you think that this article argues?

Wrap Up All reading is critical reading Use strategies to help you read effectively and efficiently Take notes to help you understand ideas in your own way

Critical Reading