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Tom: Reading Skills
Tom shares advice that's helped him with his reading.
Starting your first year at university and not knowing where to start with reading can often feel daunting, especially if at school you weren’t used to reading long essays or reports. I have found that understanding what type of reading to do and developing my reading style has improved my time management and helped in my assignments. In this blog post, I will be sharing some tips and advice that I’ve followed that have helped me.
What to read
Before I start a module, I split the types of reading that I do into three broad categories: reading lists provided by the module leader, suggested readings mentioned during lectures and seminars and additional readings that add to an assignment. This technique helps me organise the notes for each reading. Also, if I need to investigate one part of the module in greater detail, I know which readings are the most important and where to do additional research.
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Reading lists
Reading lists I feel are helpful at all points whilst studying a module. At the start of the module, I will scan over all the books that are recommended and pick a few to read. This is not essential but can always provide a good foundation of knowledge in a lesser-known area of your degree. During the module, it can also be helpful to find specific chapters in the recommended books and make notes on them to add more context to the lecture material. These notes can always be used for an assignment.
Suggested reading
Suggested readings can be from lecture slides, put on Canvas or come up in seminar discussions. I have found that this type of reading can add to the lecture material and make an assignment a lot easier to understand and write. In my experience studying Biology, sometimes the suggested material will include important figures and statistics that I need to use to form the basis of a lab report.
Additional reading
Additional reading can come from sources such as Google Scholar and Pub Med and consist of things like articles and reports. I use additional reading when I am writing a report to help me go into greater detail about the subject and find different viewpoints or more detailed explanations of processes. If I am reading a scientific report, I will start with the abstract and conclusion and note any graphs or tables that are included to judge if the additional information is relevant.
How to read
When I start each reading, I try and set an objective of what I want to get out of the essay or report. I have often found that I either need facts or specific trends to support an argument, general information around the subject or the ability to analyse contrasting opinions. A technique that I’ve tried is to scan when I read for the first time and then make notes on the second time of reading. This has stopped me from missing some of the key points. ‘Control F’ and then typing a key word will allow you to see every time the key word is mentioned which can often save time when reading overviews of broad subject areas.
Remember to reference your reading
One of the most important things to do is to make sure that you reference any content you use correctly. Something I often forget to include is the page number I found the information on which is needed in the bibliography.
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Overall, developing reading skills and habits can be tough but also one of the most rewarding skills to have. It is important to remember it’s okay for you and your friends might be at different stages of reading. The tips and information I have shared in this blog have helped me understand reading and hopefully some if not all will help. Remember your lecturers and tutor will also be happy to help and be able to point you in the right direction for topic specific additional reading.
Written by Tom, a BSc Biology student
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