1. Reading Strategies
for Academic Reading

2. Types of Reading
For Pleasure
For Information
Critical Reading

3. Why Critically Read? So you better engage with the text So you aren’t
fooled by text
Because colleges
want you to
develop skills.

4. 1. Reading Strategically
Know Why You Are Reading
New Vocabulary and Concepts
Assumptions of Author
Know How You Will Read
Know different texts require different effort
Match Pace to Difficulty of Text
Skim and Reread

5. 2. Preview a Text Title Headings First and Last Paragraphs
First and Last Sentences
Study visuals
Not time to look up words!

6. 3. Consider the Rhetorical Situation
Purpose =Stance, Context, Occasion
Audience
Constraints: Genre,
Media/Design, Style,
Knowledge

7. 4. Track Your Reading Initial Response Annotations
What are your initial reactions?
What accounts for your reaction?
Depends on Your purpose
Thesis Statement
Reasons and Evidence
Ask Your Questions
4. Track Your Reading

8. 5. Playing the Believing/Doubting Game
Agree List
Disagree List
Try to find every flaw
Try to see it from writer’s side

9. 6. Thinking about How the Text Works: Outlining
What it says
What it does
content
Write a sentence for each paragraph
Look for patterns, gaps, order.
format
Identify function of paragraph
Introduce, build background, describe, define, entice?
6. Thinking about How the Text Works: Outlining

10. 7. Summarize 8. Consider Larger Context Relationships between ideas
Comprehension
8. Consider Larger Context
Who else cares about this topic?
What was going on when this was written?
Citations

11. 9. Identifying Patterns What to Look For How to Look Color code
Particular writing strategies
Writing style
Type of evidence and citations: Quotes, statistics, paraphrase, summary
What it reveals about author beliefs
Color code
Count Up the Parts
Count words
Count sentences
Count paragraphs
Count images
9. Identifying Patterns

12. No one can really know what their lives were like
No one can really know what their lives were like. They had no novelists - and would not have permitted anyone to read a novel if one were handy. Their creed forbade anything resembling a theater or “vain enjoyment.” They did not celebrate Christmas, and a holiday from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer.
Which is not to say that nothing broke into this strict and somber way of life. When a new farmhouse was built, friends assembled to “raise the roof,” and there would be special foods cooked and probably some potent cider passed around. There was a good supply of ne’er-do-wells in Salem, who dallied at the shovelboard in Bridget Bishop’s tavern. Probably more than the creed, hard work kept the morals of the place from spoiling, for the people were forced to fight the land like heroes for every grain of corn, and no man had very much time for fooling around.

13. 10. Analyze the Argument What is the claim? What support?
How evenhanded?
What sources? What authority?
How does writer address reader?
Check for fallacies: propaganda

14. Reading Strategies Read Strategically Preview Text
Consider Rhetorical Situation
Track Your Reading
Play Believe/Disbelieve
Outline Text
Summarize
Identify Larger Context
Identify Patterns
Analyze Argument