Transcript Slide 1

Making the Most of Your Reading
the First (and Only!) Time
Kevin Schwandt
Dissertation Editor
M. Laurel Walsh
Writing Instructor
Reading is a Skill
• Click to edit Master text styles
– Second level
• Third level
– Fourth level
» Fifth level
And…
• Let’s face it. If you can’t read it, or can’t
remember what you read, or don’t
understand what it means, you can’t write
about it. Which leads to…
Session Objectives
• Review of strategies to improve reading comprehension
and recall.
• Methods for taking more planned and useful notes.
• Examination of paraphrasing and plagiarism.
• Ideas to help you transition from reading into writing.
Increasing your reading comprehension means
moving from memorization to analysis,
evaluation, and synthesis.
It’s tweaking the thinking that goes along with
the reading.
Strategies
• Pre-Reading
• During Reading
Pre-Reading Strategies
• Brain warm-up
Research Says…
“According to Aebersold and Field (1997), during
reading, readers' minds repeatedly engage in a
variety of processes. Using bottom-up
strategies, readers start by processing
information at the sentence level. In other words,
they focus on identification of the meaning and
grammatical category of a word, sentence
syntax, text details, and so forth.”
(As cited in Salataci & Akyel, 2002, para 3)
Pre-Reading Strategies
• Change the processing your mind does by
making a more complex integration (top –
down).
• By making more complex connections, you will
be more likely to recall this information for use at
a later date.
Activating Background Knowledge
• Thinking about what you already
know.
• Triggering your schema.
• Putting the new information into
context.
Why?
Background knowledge is directly and
positively connected to recall regardless of
a student’s IQ or reading ability
(Langer, 1984).
Set a Purpose
• Ask yourself, “What do I need to get
out of this reading?”
Possibilities:
• Background or general
knowledge
• Data
• Evidence for my ideas
Make Predictions
Possibilities for Predictions
•
•
•
•
Title
Headings
Hypothesis
Author’s views
Why?
Make sure you’re getting
specific. You need to engage
your entire mind and schema
with the text.
During Reading Strategies
•Staying engaged
•Choosing what to keep
•Creating connections
•Making it right
Questioning
Why Questions?
(especially if you’re not going to answer them!)
• Questions can help you realize what’s
important.
• Questions activate your prefrontal cortex.
• Questions can help you evaluate research
or literature.
• Questions are possible topics for
discussion postings and reflections.
Knowledge Chains
“Intelligence is an adaptation…it is
essentially an organization and its function
is to structure the universe just as the
organism structures its immediate
environment” (Piaget, 1963, pp. 3-4).
Con
nect
tions
Connections
• Text to Self
• Text to Text
• Text to World
Examples of Connections
• •“This isn’t at all what the other
researcher said!”
•“We tried that approach as a
department. It didn’t work.”
•“If this theory was true, it should work
with other populations.”
Clarifying
• Clarifying is active thinking,
monitoring, and correcting of
whatever confusions we
encounter while reading.
• Common pitfalls to clarify:
vocabulary words, theories
and models, field jargon, new
concepts.
Note Taking
The Problem with Note Taking
If you’ve had problems with note taking in the
past, try writing less. Sometimes less is more.
Common Note Taking
Questions
• What do I write?
• How do I write it?
• What format do I use?
Guiding Ideas
• What are you going to use your notes
for?
• What kinds of assignments will you
reference this reading for?
• What feels right to you?
• What kind of learner are you? (Visual,
auditory, kinesthetic?)
Note Taking for Understanding
•Predicting
•Questioning
•Clarifying
•Connecting
Note Taking for Research
(Also good for a lit review)
• Again, first ask
yourself, “Why am I
reading this?”
• What are some
reasons you read
research?
Note Taking for Writing
• Summarizing
•Comparing & Contrasting
•Evaluating
Examples of Reading Strategies
for Writing
• “The field of nursing is
dramatically changing, so
much that nursing in five
years will barely resemble
its present self. This is all
due to informatics.
Informatics has motivated
stations of nurses to move
at an increasingly rapid
pace, allowing
communication between
staff in different areas to
eventuate and overlap.”
No citation. I made this up.
•Question: Is this really in line with
what I see? Our email lag time is
6 hours because we never have
time to check it.
•This article is written about a
hospital in Minneapolis with 3,000
beds.
•Summary (also paraphrasing):
Informatics caused huge changes
in nursing. It positively affects
communication.
•Also, building on our last topic,
what does “eventuate” mean?
•Include a brief citation in your
notes, so you don’t have to look it
up later.
Remember…
• Before you write, sit down and look at your
notes. If you took good notes, this will help
you build an outline for your writing.
• Things to look for: summaries,
evaluations, data, gut feelings.
Paraphrasing and Plagiarism
Why talk about paraphrasing in a
reading presentation?
–Because most bad paraphrasing
(which counts as plagiarism) begins
with noncritical reading.
–Because it is a skill almost all
students could improve.
Example: Original Passage
“Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as
a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper.
Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as
directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the
amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes”
(Lester, 1976, pp. 46-47).
From The Writing Lab, The OWL at Purdue, &
Purdue University. (2009). Quoting, paraphrasing,
and summarizing. Retrieved June 8, 2009, from
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/02/
Paraphrase?
Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes,
resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact,
probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly
quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source
material copied while taking notes (Lester, 1976).
Plagiarism
From The Writing Lab, The OWL at Purdue, &
Purdue University. (2009). Quoting, paraphrasing,
and summarizing. Retrieved June 8, 2009, from
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/02/
Paraphrase?
In research papers students often quote excessively,
failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level.
Since the problem usually originates during note taking,
it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim
(Lester, 1976).
From The Writing Lab, The OWL at Purdue, &
Purdue University. (2009). Quoting, paraphrasing,
and summarizing. Retrieved June 8, 2009, from
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/02/
Problem
Ask Yourself:
• Am I really taking the time to understand
this?
• Could I explain it to someone else?
• Are there terms that need to be quoted?
• Use the reading strategies discussed
earlier purposefully in situations like these
to gain a better understand before you
write.
Realistic Example: Marzano (2003)
“Effective feedback is specific and formative in nature.
Certainly feedback once a year from state test or
standardized tests falls well below the minimum
frequency level. At a minimum, students should
receive quarterly feedback on their academic
performance.
Consequently, schools much establish an assessment
system that provides feedback on specific knowledge
and skills at least every nine weeks. This automatically
rules out state-developed tests on standards, off-theshelf standardized tests, or even both working in
tandem” (Marzano, 2003, p. 39).
Try it!
Please try to use your own words to
paraphrase the material (I will flip back to it
in one moment ).
Work quietly for the next 5 minutes, and
when you are done we’ll share our
paraphrases.
“Paraphrase”
According to Marzano (2003), for feedback to be
useful, it must be specific and formative. That
means feedback from state or standardized
tests, which only comes once a year, is not
enough. Students need feedback on their
performance at least four times a year.
Let’s stop there… Do you see the
problem?
Paraphrase Purposefully
• Note the specific ideas that are most helpful.
• Provide context – integrate ideas from the whole
source that will help your reader understand its
importance. Don’t limit yourself to two
sentences.
• If necessary, it’s preferable to directly quote
small phrases rather than entire paragraphs.
Let’s Try Again
Marzano (2003) cited the positive impact of
timely, targeted feedback on student
achievement. In light of the need for timely
feedback, he noted that state and standardized
tests, which produce results months later, are
inappropriate sources. In fact, Marzano
suggested that schools develop an alternative
system that provides feedback quarterly.
Another Strategy: Writing from Questions
If you wrote down your questions while
reading (hint, hint), you may be able to use
these to formulate a thesis, evidence, or
discussion posting topics. Look for:
• Things the author left out
• Things you don’t agree with
• Things that don’t make sense
Examples of Writing Points
from Questions
•Why are there only 25
participants in this
study?
•What does this mean?
“One important weakness in
Verneck’s (1992) study is the
small number of participants.
Incidence of drug side effects
from 25 people cannot be safely
projected onto the entire public.”
“While Frank (2004) thoroughly
explained the use of informatics in
the hospital setting, he did not
explain its importance, or
speculate to the effectiveness of
their use. At Seattle Grace
Hospital…”
To Review:
Increasing your reading
comprehension will make your
academic life easier. (I can’t
make any promises about the
rest of your life, though.)
The First Step to Increasing Your Reading Comprehension is Using
Pre-Reading Strategies:
• Activating background knowledge
• Setting a purpose for reading
• Making predictions
While Reading, Continue
Active Thought:
• Asking questions
• Making connections
• Clarifying
Make a Note Taking Plan.
• Base it on:
• What you need to know
• How you want to write it
• How you are going to use it
Questions?
References
Marzano, R. (2003). What works in schools:
Translating research into action. Alexandria, VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development.
The Writing Lab, The OWL at Purdue, & Purdue
University. (2009). Quoting, paraphrasing, and
summarizing. Retrieved June 8, 2009, from
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/0
2/