[MUSIC] 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. 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. 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. 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.
