To become a predatory reader, focus on the following questions before you start reading (adapted from pages 128-150):
“What am I reading?” Any assigned reading qualifies, especially a text you are tempted to avoid.
“Why am I reading it?” Your simplest, most honest answer may be … because you have to in order to succeed/pass/not fail.
“How can I read it…efficiently?”
Very few texts are intended to be read straight through from beginning to end. Poetry, short stories, and novels are examples, where the writer has chosen specific words in a specific order—often after much revision—to build meaning on multiple levels. Poetry, short stories, and novels deserve to be read in a straight line, sometimes more than once, and discussed at length.
On the other hand, the majority of academic texts are organized to provide several ways of reading them--by chapter titles, by headings, by sub-headings, and ultimately, by paragraphs. Formatting helps a reader navigate a text as an explorer would a foreign territory, scanning the overall environment for the most important information. As Hjortshoj writes, “Analytical scanning is … like examining a topographical map or aerial photograph of a whole area: studying the structure of the landscape and noting high points or centers of importance. Not bound to any linear path, your vision can move in any direction, focus closely, or widen to encompass the whole” (51). To begin your navigation, follow the guidelines below:
- For book-length texts, survey the table of contents and chapter titles.
- Within chapters and article-length texts, survey headings and sub-headings.
- Decide which sections of an assigned text appear to be the most useful for your required agenda (classroom discussion, essay exam, research paper).
- Focusing on ONLY one useful section at a time, first read the introduction, next read only the first significant sentence (topic sentence) and the last sentence (concluding sentence) of each body paragraph, and then read the conclusion.
- What do you understand about your subject now?
- Which sections are still pertinent to your agenda?
- Within the pertinent sections, which paragraphs promise useful information?
- Read the useful paragraphs in full, word by word. Look up unfamiliar words in your favorite online dictionary* and apply their meaning to the current context.
- What do you know now?
- What, if anything, do you need to read further?
*Useful online general dictionaries include dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster.com. Ask your instructor(s) for recommendations on discipline-specific dictionaries.