Efficient and Flexible Reading 5th Edition Kathleen McWhorter

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Efficient and Flexible Reading5th
EditionKathleen McWhorter

• Chapter 9
• Techniques for Learning Textbook Material
• PowerPoint presentation by Ceil Fillenworth,
• St. Cloud State University, 1999

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In this chapter you will learn how

• To highlight, annotate, and outline text.
• To paraphrase text.
• To summarize information.
• To draw conceptual maps.

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Rereading Vs. Writing as an Effective Learning
Strategy

• Rereading is not an effective strategy when you
  have to learn large amounts of material.

• Writing is much more effective because---
• Writing focuses your attention.
• Writing forces you to think.
• Writing tests your understanding.
• Writing facilitates recall.

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Highlighting as a Learning Strategy

• Read a portion first, then highlight
• Use paragraph structure to guide your
  highlighting
• Use headings to guide your highlighting
• Use a system for highlighting (colors, brackets,
  underscoring)
• Highlight just enough to make the meaning clear
• Is content accurately reflected?

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How much should you highlight?

• Generally, not more than 20-30 percent of the
  passage.
• Be able to define four levels of specificity
• Topic
• Subtopics
• Main Ideas
• Details

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Annotation as a Learning Strategy(Making Notes)

• Use in conjunction with highlighting
• Learn to use symbols
• Annotate ideas about the assignment that come to
  mind as you read
• jot down questions
• note emotionally charged words or ideas with
  which you disagree
• mark places where you need more information
• mark strong or weak sections

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Paraphrasing as a Learning Strategy

• Restate the passages ideas in your own words
• Use synonyms
• Paraphrasing often makes the meaning clearer and
  more concise

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Why Paraphrasing is Useful

• Records information for later use in writing a
  paper
• Helps when exact, detailed comprehension is
  required
• Helpful when you must understand very complicated
  material word by word
• Assists when material is stylistically complex,
  is slanted, or has a strong tone

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How to Paraphrase Effectively

• Read carefully
• Read material completely before writing
• Focus on ideas and relationships among ideas
• Paraphrase sentence by sentence
• Identify core meaning of each sentence
• Do not paraphrase word by word
• Unsure of a words meaning? Check dictionary
• Combine original sentences into a more concise
  paraphrase
• Compare with original for completeness

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Outlining as a Learning Strategy

• Useful for
• organizing information
• discovering relationships among ideas
• selecting important information from each
  paragraph
• understanding and remembering what you have read
• recording information in an orderly and
  sequential manner

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Why Outlining is Useful

• Makes difficult material easier to understand
• Reflects the progression of thought
• Excellent for processing or ordering material
• Excellent in the natural sciences, where
  classifications are important

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Parts of an Outline

• Title
• Topic
• Subtopic
• Main Idea
• Details

• On-Line Tutoring
• Getting Started
• Step One
• Knowing Page Format
• Format simple

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How to Write Effective Outlines(Ask yourself
what you need to know)

• Read a section before writing
• Be brief and concise do not write complete
  sentences
• Use your own words do not copy word for word
  from the text
• Information underneath a heading must support it!
  Check carefully!
• Vertically aligned headings must be of equal
  importance

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Mapping as a Learning Strategy

• Concept Maps
• A visual diagram that shows how ideas within a
  passage are related
• Thought Pattern Maps
• A visual diagram that shows a particular thought
  pattern. Common thought patterns are discussed in
  Chapter 5

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Steps in Drawing a Map
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Summarizing as a Learning Strategy

• A summary is a compact restatement of the key
  points of a passage.
• Unlike a paraphrase, it does not include all of
  the information from the passage.
• Useful where a condensed overview of material is
  needed.

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Steps to Writing a Summary

• Read the entire work first.
• Reread and highlight key points.
• Review highlighting and cross out all but key
  phrases.
• Write sentences to include all remaining
  highlighted information.
• Present summary ideas in the same order as the
  original.
• Revise your summary to make it more concise.

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Summary

• Four ways that writing after reading is effective
• Six factors in effective highlighting
• What is the connection between highlighting and
  annotating?
• What is paraphrasing?

• What are the advantages of an outline?
• What is mapping?
• What is summarizing and how does it differ from
  paraphrasing?

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For additional readings and exercises, visit the
Longman English Skills Web page at

• http//longman.awl.com/englishpages