FAQS

Some pre-reading activities that you can do to help you better absorb the content include the following:

• Utilize some general, well-known reading strategies like SQ3R
• Assess your own knowledge of the topic before reading
  • What do you already know about this topic?
  • What do you not know about this topic?
  • What might you expect to learn?
  • Make a prediction of what you think the chapter will be about.
• Figure out what you should be looking for while you read (this is called setting the purpose for reading)
  • Why did your instructor ask you to read this?
  • Why is it important?
  • How can it help you in the class?  In your future career?
  • Write down 3 things you would like to have answered from the chapter.
• Make a quick, "in-your-head" preview of your reading material itself...
  • Title
    • What does the title indicate the content might be about?
    • What topics might be covered or not covered based on the title?
  • Author
    • Do you know anything about the author?
    • Is there a bio of the author that tells you additional information about his or her credentials? potential biases?
    • Is the author an expert in the field?
  • Publisher
    • Do you know anything about this publisher?
    • Is this a reliable publisher?
    • Does this publisher tend to publish certain types of materials, present a certain bias or perspective?
  • Date of publication
    • Is this information up-to-date or older?
  • Table of contents
    • Read through titles of chapters...
      • What aspects of the topic indicated in the title will be covered?
      • What areas will be covered more in-depth than others?
      • What is not being covered?
  • Introductions
    • Is there an introduction?
    • What does it say about what the content might be?
  • Summaries/Abstracts
    • Is there a summary or abstract of the text? Normally these are at the beginning.
    • Read any summary or abstract!
  • Conclusion
    • Is there a conclusion that summarizes what the article or chapter or book was about?
    • Read the conclusion before you read the text so you know where you are headed/what you are going to discover or learn.
  • Text and graphical helpers
    • Are there sections in each chapter?  Read the section titles before reading the whole text to get an idea of the structure/organization of the text.
    • Are the sub-sections? Read those, too.
    • Look for words in bold print ahead of time, as they tend to be vocabulary or important terms you should know.
    • Are there graphs or pictures? Look at them and read the captions before reading.
  • Finally... find a quiet, distraction-free spot to read and absorb the material.  This will help you better identify key concepts & terms as you read.  Also, experienced students say that they find it's better to read a chapter or section twice quickly then to read something slowly (with a lot of rereading).  Try this technique too!