Tips and Tricks to Get Through Academic Readings

Edited by: Lasya Adiraj

This is my third year in college, and yet something that I have not been able to nail so far is reading academic texts. For someone with an attention span as bad as mine, getting through the various readings we are assigned is a huge task. More often than not, I spend my entire weekend trying to read that one text that does not seem to make sense to me even after I’ve finished it.  And let’s face it – reading academic texts isn’t easy. These texts contain multiple ideas within just one line and are filled with heavy words and long sentences that we are advised to avoid in our writing. So, in situations where finishing a difficult reading before class is essential and yet you can’t make head or tail of it, it would be beneficial to know some tips and tricks to make life just a tad bit easier. Listed below are some basic things that help me get through a text, and I’m hoping that you will find them useful as well!

Get a gist of what the reading is about

I know this sounds like a very obvious thing to do, but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve read entire texts and not understood most of it. In such cases, it’s better to have a basic idea of the text before you begin reading it. This way, you will be able to follow the points made by the author more logically, instead of just reading stuff that goes over your head. To get a gist of the reading, what I usually do first is google the name of the text. More often than not, you will end up finding a summary, book review, or (if you’re lucky enough) even an easy explanation of the text. If, however, you’re being made to read an obscure text that no one on the internet has heard about, try and read the first and last paragraph of the text to garner a simple understanding of what the author has talked about in the paper. Once you have an idea about the overarching concept, it will be much easier to pay attention to the individual points and arguments. 

Read up on the author

Reading about the author will give you some context about what kind of work they do, what are the things they write about, etc., which in turn will help you understand their argument better. This will also act as sort of a background information for you while reading, and it’s always good to understand it contextually rather than read it as a standalone. Also, knowing a little about the author may help you make some interesting point in class, so bonus participation grade!

Make notes

I can’t emphasize enough how important this point is. I can visibly notice the difference in my understanding of a text when I make notes versus when I don’t. Even if you’re not actively understanding the text while reading, lifting a couple of lines from the paragraph and noting it down helps you to later connect all the points, and ultimately helps you understand the argument. Making notes is also essential in helping you remember what the text was all about. When a reading is fairly easy, you might think you’re going to remember all the points the author made but trust me, you won’t. So even if you’re just noting down a few phrases to help you remember particular points in the text, do note them down. Otherwise, you might be a little lost when it comes to discussing the text in class, not to mention during assignments/exams. There are various note-taking methods you could try out, and choose what works best for you. Personally, what I usually do is note down the main idea from each paragraph in the form of bullet points.

It’s OKAY if you don’t understand a text!

Yes, I know this isn’t actual advice but it’s very important to understand that it’s okay to not understand! If there is one thing I have learnt over the years of crying about readings and feeling dumb and inferior for not being able to process anything I read, it is that sometimes when academic texts don’t seem to make sense, they’re actually written in a way which make them difficult to understand. This is not to say that we are being taught texts that are only just superficially intellectual, but that they may have been written for an audience who is more equipped to understand them than we, as college students, are. And just keep in mind that a lot of times, texts are written in a certain academic language that makes it inaccessible to most. . Be patient with it and with yourself, seek help from your professors and TAs, and don’t be intimidated by students who seemed to have understood the text. They might have more knowledge about the context of the text than you do, or (more often than not) they might just be bullshitting to get participation grades (we’ve all been there and done that!). Either way, you’re just as smart and the understanding or not understanding of a text does not determine your worth.  

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