Chapter 4-Reading Critically

Being an active reader...or reading critically is a good technique to have. For those of you that may not know what this means, being an active reader is someone who isn't JUST reading the text, you are making notes, asking questions, underlining things, reading for meaning, making connections and thinking about how it applies to you and your paper. Reading critically also means reading with an attitude. When you first start out with your topic you may have more of an attitude of wonder and curiosity, but as you continue researching and reading you become more engaged and start thinking of questions and having a more open mind that allows for creative thinking and ideas to think about while reading. 

Some strategies to use to ensure that your are reading actively are things like identifying key information, ideas and arguments, write down questions, take notes, and marking your source. Annotating your sources is another way to do this as well, because you are not only writing down what was important but it is a helpful tool if you ever look back on that source and wonder why you chose it.

Important things to pay attention to as you read are the type of source it is, the main point, things you find hard to understand, reasons and evidence. Knowing these things you can learn a lot more about the source and your topic as well. However you don't want to spend too much time on one source if it doesn't contain the type on information you would include in your paper. It's usually a good idea to just skim through it first and if you catch anything that could be useful go back and make notes next to it and highlight things. 

In my opinion skimming is extremely helpful because it saves you a ton of time when finding sources. You don't have to read the entire source to find out if it's going to be of any use, with skimming you can get the general idea and know if there is anything you would include in your paper. And once you have done that then you can go back and read it thoroughly and actively and pick out what is most important.