KEEPING USEFUL RECORDS OF YOUR READING

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KEEPING USEFUL RECORDS OF YOUR READING

• ROBERT BLAKE
• Effective Learning Programme For International
  Students,
• Student Learning Development Centre

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Keeping Useful Records Of Your Reading
Introduction

• Spend a few moments talking with your neighbours
  about the type of reading you did on your
  previous courses.
• See questions on slide 3

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Keeping Useful Records Of Your Reading
Introduction

• What type of reading did you do before you came
  to study at Lancaster?
• What reading strategies and speeds did you use?
• What note taking strategies did you use?

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Keeping Useful Records Of Your Reading
Introduction

• Spend a few moments discussing your current
  reading load and the type of reading on your
  current course see slide 5

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Keeping Useful Records Of Your Reading
Introduction

• What type of reading do you now do?
• What reading strategies and speeds do you now
  use?
• Has there been any change in how you read?
• How do you take notes?

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Taking notes from reading

• First of all why do we take notes
• from our reading?

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Taking notes from reading why take notes?

• To remember the main points in the text and jog
  your memory later on
• To give you quicker access to important facts
  knowledge in an easier format
• To link new knowledge to what you already know
• To help you understand what an author is saying
• To make a record of points you may use in an
  assignment
• To ensure that you are always clear about the
  source of ideas to avoid plagiarism.
• Adapted slightly From Fairburn. G and Fairburn.
  S. 200198 Reading at University a Guide for
  Students.Buckingham OUP

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Keeping a Record of your reading

• There are two aspects of keeping records of
  reading
• Recording the content of your reading
• Recording where it comes from i.e. keeping a
  full set of bibliographic details of each source
  you read

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Taking notes on the content of reading

• When taking notes
• Do you keep the book open and take notes as you
  read or do you read first take notes on the
  2nd or3rd reading
• Do you take notes with the book closed?
• Fairburn. G and Fairburn. S. 2001101 Reading
  at University a Guide for Students.

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Taking notes on the content of reading

• How do you take the notes?
• Are they linear?
• Do you use your own words or copy bits of the
  original?
• Do you distinguish your comments from the
  authors?
• Do you take pictorial/diagrammatic notes?
• Do you take keyword notes?
• Adapted slightly from Fairburn. G and Fairburn.
  S. 2001101 Reading at University a Guide for
  Students.

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Ways of taking notes from your reading

• Ways of taking notes
• Reading underlining/
  Labelling heading pages
• Linear notes
• Key wording
• Diagrammatic/pictorial notes
• Adapted from Fairburn Fairburn 2002

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Ways of taking notes Reading underlining

• Reading underlining is a quick way of -
  identifying important information.
• Weakness you arent processing the meaning so
  effectively by converting the ideas into keywords
  or rewriting it in your own words.
• Ways of extending underlining writing notes in
  the margins summary, questions, comments,
  identify key bits using asterisks writing
  headings at the top of each page or important
  pages to summarise content

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Ways of taking notes Linear notes

• Linear notes follow the logic of the original
  article use numbering and sub heading to lay
  out the text.
• See Fairburn Fairburn 2002

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Ways of taking notes from your reading Key
wording

• Key wording- write only the key words cut out
  the smaller grammar words articles,
  prepositions, auxiliary verbs
• See Fairburn Fairburn 2002

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Ways of taking notes from your reading

• Diagrammatic/pictorial notes-
  some people think visually prefer to lay out
  notes visually using mind maps or flow charts.
  See the example in slide 16

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Practising Note Taking Strategies- mind map notes
An example of notes in the form of a mind map
Buzan

• Remember to put examples
• See Fairburn Fairburn 2002

http//www.mind-map.com/EN/mindmaps/how_to.html
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Recording your reading what to record

• Dont just copy very lengthy notes, this delays
  the real work of answering specific questions
  from reading until you start writing an
  assignment.
• Your notes should record
• the main points of what the author is saying
• what you think about what the writer is saying
• To ensure this its helpful to use SQ3R to make
  note taking easier more effective.
• See Fairburn Fairburn 200299 See Rowntree
  19xx

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Recording your reading what to record SQ3R

• Surveying- to get a general idea of what it is
  about using headings, diagrams, introductions,
  conclusions/summaries, topic sentences, key words
• Questioning making questions about what you
  want to get from the text
• Reading the text differentially, faster in some
  places which dont deal with your questions, more
  slowly in other places where you need to
  understand material relating to your questions
• Recalling- reflecting on what you have learnt -
  mind maps may be useful here
• Reviewing-i.e. check your knowledge what you
  still dont understand - need to reread

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Recording your reading critical reading

• You can use the Surveying and Questioning from
  SQ3r as a strategy for reading critically and
  making critical questions in reading
• Imagine having a conversation with the writer or
  gently interrogating them
• Read the Web page on Critical Reading for
  Critical Writing as a means of identifying main
  arguments or analysis with supporting facts
  rather than merely noting facts
• http//www.utoronto.ca/writing/critrdg.html

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Keeping Useful Records Of Your Reading using
forms or templates

• Some past students have designed forms on which
  to record their reading. See the 2 examples
  handout
• Example 1 combines
• recording details of the source,
• space for notes space your own comments- space
  for your comments critical feedback questions
• Example 2 shows a similar reading record form
  made for reading for exam revision
• You can design a form to reflect you reading needs

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Practising Note Taking Strategies

• You can use subordination to identify the
  importance of information
• key information on the left hand side
• detailed points in the middle
• comments questions on the right hand side
• Use also headings, colour space

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Keeping Useful Records Of Your Reading

• The most important message about note taking is
  to choose a method that is appropriate for the
  subject you are studying and reflects your
  learning style.
• Work out a method that suits you.

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Note Taking -Practising Strategies

• Abbreviations symbols are invaluable in
  allowing you
• to reduce the time taken on writing notes
• therefore giving you more time to understand
  lecture contents to concentrate on the main
  points of the lecture
• to take notes actively using you own language

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Note Taking - using symbols

• What symbols would you use for these words?
• therefore
• because
• statement/answer is correct
• statement/answer is wrong
• question is the statement correct?
• or (this/that this or that)
• and/plus
• ditto (means the same as the words immediately
  above the ditto marks)
• does not equal, differs from, is the opposite of
• is/are/have/has/equals
• leads to/results in/causes
• does not lead to/result in/cause

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Note Taking -using abbreviations

• e.g. - for example
• i.e. - that is
• etc. - etcetera and so on
• N.B. - Note
• Q. - Question
• no. - Number
• probs.- Problems
• p./pp - page/pages
• 1st   - first
• max. - maximum
• c. -about/approximately
• ref. reference
• thro/thru through

• Imp important
• Sit. Situation
• Eval evaluation
• Analy analysis
• Diff/diff.y difficult/difficulty
• Diff.t different

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Keeping Useful Records Of Your Reading
Distinguishing your voice

• How are you going to distinguish your voice from
  the voice of the author you are reading?
• Use of quotation marks for 100 copying of
  extracts-essential page numbers
• Practise paraphrasing or summarising notes i.e.
  note taking always in you own words, except where
  taking occasional quotations
• Mark your own comments colour or brackets,

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Keeping a record of your sources-bibliographic
details

• Its essential to record the main bibliographic
  details and probably to do so on each page of
  your notes
• Authors
• Year of publication
• Title of book if Journal journal name, article
  name pages edition
• Publisher
• Place of publication
• Page numbers noted
• 
  Card Index/Endnote?

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For further advice on Keeping Useful Records Of
Your Reading

• See the SLDC web pages on effective reading
• http//www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/celt/sldc/materials/r
  eading.htm
• Read Reading at University a Guide for Students
  by Fairburn. G and Fairburn. S. 2001
  Buckingham OUP
• Effective Learning Programme, LU. Feb 05 Critical
  Reading Lecture to be given by Romy Clarke
• See Toronto Universitys Web page on critical
  reading for critical writing
• http//www.utoronto.ca/writing/critrdg.html
• See Andy Gilletts Uefap site Reporting -
  paraphrase, summary synthesis
  http//www.uefap.co.uk/writing/writfram.htm