This document provides strategies for reading academic texts strategically and actively. It recommends annotating texts by highlighting important parts and writing comments or questions in the margins. This forces deeper reading beyond just the surface. It also suggests thinking about how the text is structured by writing a sentence to identify each paragraph and looking for patterns. Summarizing helps understand the relationship between ideas. Analyzing includes looking closely at any arguments made, the claims, and support. Considering the larger context involves thinking about who else cares about the topic and related ideas, terms, and citations.

1. READING
STRATEGIES

2. TAKING STOCK OF
YOUR READING
PGs. 396-397

3. READING
STRATEGICALLY
• Academic reading places several demands
on you at once
• Different texts require different kinds of
effort
• You cannot read in a hurry

4. ANNOTATING
• Highlight key words/phrases/sentences
• Connect ideas with lines or symbols
• Writing comments or questions in the margin
• Noting anything that seems noteworthy or
questionable
• Annotating forces you to read more than just the
surface
• It also creates a record of things you want to say (in
discussion/writing)

5. PG. 402-403
SAMPLE ANNOTATION

6. THINKING ABOUT HOW
THE TEXT WORKS
How does the text’s parts fit together?
What does it say?
Write a sentence that identifies each
paragraph. At the end, look to
patterns.
What does it do?
Identify the function of each
paragraph.

7. SUMMARIZING
Helps the reader understand the text and see the
relationship amongst the text’s ideas

8. IDENTIFYING
PATTERNS
Patterns: Recurring words and their synonyms;
Repeated phrases, metaphors and other types of
sentences.
What is the writing strategy used most often:
Narration? Compare & Contrast? Etc.

9. ANALYZING THE
ARGUMENT
Argument: Claiming something and then offering
reasons and evidence as support for the claim.
Look closely at the argument the text makes.
Recognize all the claims.
Consider the support the text offers for those
claims.
How do you want to respond?

10. CONSIDER THE
LARGER CONTEXT
Who else cares about this topic?
Ideas?
Terms?
Citations?