Reading Techniques for grad students (fwd)

[AnHai Doan <anhai@cs.washington.edu>]

================
I am attempting to collect strategies readers use when approaching
technically dense, stylistically difficult, or otherwise challenging
academic material. I am especially interested in ways graduate students
abstract, comprehend, and remember masses of scholarly writings. I wonder if
list members would be willing to share their "tricks of the trade" with me?
Or "how-to" books they have found especially useful?  
Many thanks,
Jan
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From: marko@garnet.berkeley.edu

Since I am in the final phases of grad studenthood and seem to have
survived, I'd be happy to share my "tricks of the trade" about reading
and integrating quantities of turgid prose.  I do not think it is
possible, and if it is possible, I don't think it is very useful, to try to
"retain massive amounts of scholarly text."  The only thing I have ever
retained, and the only thing that has ever done me a lot of good, is to
read (or more often skim) text for what's *interesting*--
relevant to my topic, my theoretical position, my world view, whatever.
Also, I find it helpful to read critically and try to figure out where I
might differ.  You are never going to be able to retain everything, and
frankly most of it is not worth retaining, so you might as well stick to
what's interesting and relevant to your own interests.

The other key, of course, is skimming, as I suspect most people reading
this already know.  I suppose everyone has a slightly different technique.
For those who don't (yet) have a technique, here is mine.

1) Scan the table of contents to find the sections that might be relevant
or interesting.  Skip the rest, or at most skim the paragraph topic
sentences if you think some professor might ask you a question about the
stuff on an exam.

2) Within chapters, try to figure out if a given passage is at all
relevant to your interest.  If not, skip it.

3)If a section, seems remotely relevant, quickly glance at the opening
sentences of each paragraph to find the potentially juicy ones.

4)Spend a little more time looking at potentially juicy paragraphs, maybe
even read them.

5)If something is particularly useful, stop and write it down, including
possibly some notes of your own about how it's relevant for you.

6)In general, I find it really helpful to keep notes on my reading in
which I make sense of the material and record what is interesting or
relevant about it for me.  When the time comes to use the material (for a
qualifying exam or dissertation, for example), I almost invariably find my
own notes much more useful than leafing through the bulky original.

Your time is much too valuable to waste on badly written academic prose.
The less time you spend on it the better.

Happy skimming!

Mark O'Malley

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From: Cathy47@aol.com

Jan - I offer two techniques.   First, for important material that I had to
remember (e.g., for a comprehensive exam), I made notes on index cards.
These are especially useful for lists (5 reasons for this, 6 characteristics
of that, etc.) or associations of authors with topics or theories.  I carried
my pack of index cards (which grew to about 5" thick ) with me as my exams
neared. Then, when I had a few minutes (in line at the grocery store, etc.),
I would pull out my cards and review them.  By the time the exam came, I had
the cards so memorized that I could visualize each one -- makes answering
questions MUCH easier. The second sounds silly but it worked for me:  I
would eat popsicles while I read.  I have determined that it is impossible
to fall asleep when licking a popsicle ---it keeps you awake but not TOO
distracted.  (Plus they are not too fattening!).

Cathy
Ellicott City, MD

[Sunflower seeds are equally effective to keep one awake while reading
turgid prose or driving long distances--rd]

====================

From: Alex Vrenios <vrenios@enuxsa.eas.asu.edu>

   I have not seen any books on this subject myself, but when I try to
read a really difficult paper (assuming I can't just ignore it, which
is usually what stylistically difficult papers deserve, in my opinion)
I use what the author has done for me: the Abstract tells me what to
expect in the paper, the Section headings tell me what might be in it,
and the Conclusion tells me what the paper said. That's three ways to get
a summary of a paper (especially well written ones) that I use. I hope
this helps you.

   As to "masses of scholarly writings" I have noticed that some authors
write a paper, never to be heard from again; some write pretty much the
same paper, over and over again, and a few authors present an interesting
view of the subject to my way of thinking. One view of this "mass" might
be the interesting views and the initial presentations of the repetitious
topics on a time line. That is, make at least a mental time line of the
interesting and/or novel ideas in the literature and ignore the rest. It
gives you an overview of the literature, including who contributed what,
and when. It's easier for me to visualize a "flow" than to try to remember
all the details.

I might add that answering your question helped me crystalize some ideas
that I was mulling over for my dissertation proposal. I was asked to show a
"direction" of the research on my topic that I inferred from the available
literature. Many thanks to you, Jan, for letting me develop an approach!

===============

From: "Ann Martin" <amartin@mscfs.edu>

I have been a marginal reader [I think, because I have always had trouble 
remembering what I just read and also performed poorly on "reading 
comprehension" tests]. The way I got through college and grad school 
30 years ago is the way I am presently navigating my way through it as an 
older PhD student with an even shorter memory. I take notes. As I read, a 
difficult text will still have main ideas...somewhere.... and I write them 
down. Now I work with a laptop and do essentially the same thing, I 
wordprocess the main ideas and as I reflect on the meaning, I may add notes 
to it as I go along. Time consuming, yes, but with wordprocessing, the 
result is more legible notes.

Ann Martin
PhD student in higher education [part-time] at Univ of Minn

================

From: "Robin M. Smith" <Robin.M.Smith@syr.edu>

When I found myself in courses depending on post-modern writings and 
woking without net I found two strategies helpful.
Skrtic "Behind Special Education " was extremely dense.  I made a chart 
of the key conepts and terms that went with them. I still refer to it.
During a radical pedagogy class I started a glossery with quotes and 
sources of the terms, also useful in my writing when I must use them. 
Sometimes a term will have several quotes or variations. A life 
saver.

Harvard Ed review has recently published a book on radical pedagogy 
which includes footnotes in each article and a glossery.  The 
post-modern vocabulary is all in there.

 
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