READING SKILLS FOR ACADEMIC STUDY

Introduction
When you start a university course in the United Kingdom, you will have the same problem as every other student: how to get
through the vast amount of reading given for each course. There is not enough time to read everything line by line. You need to be
able to read efficiently. The way you read something will depend on your purpose. You need to read quickly to find relevant sections,
then read carefully when you have found what you want. General efficient reading strategies such as scanning to find the book or
chapter, skimming to get the gist and careful reading of important passages (Wallace, 1980, pp. 9-51) are necessary as well as
vocabulary building exercises in your own area. Learning about how texts are structured can also help you to read more efficiently.
When you pick up a book for the first time, use the index, the preface, the blurb (publisher's comments on the cover), the table of
contents and glance through it rapidly in order to identify the relevant sections. Look at the chapter titles. If the chapter seems
useful, look at the headings and sub-headings. Quickly survey any useful chapters by reading the first few lines of each paragraph or
by reading the first and last paragraphs.
When you think you have identified relevant sections, skim through them, read the conclusion perhaps, to be sure they are relevant.
Many students still rely on painstakingly slow word by word reading. It soon becomes clear to them, however, that they cannot read
every word in the library.
You will need to practice:
 Understanding meaning: deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words and word groups; relations within the
sentence/complex sentences; implications - information not explicitly stated, conceptual meaning, e.g. comparison,
purpose, cause, effect.
 Understanding relationships in the text: - text structure; the communicative value of sentences; relations between the parts
of a text through lexical and grammatical cohesion devices and indicators in discourse.
 Understanding important points; distinguishing the main ideas from supporting detail; recognizing unsupported claims and
claims supported by evidence - fact from opinion; extracting salient points to summarize; following an argument; reading
critically/evaluating the text.
 Reading efficiently: surveying the text, chapter/article, paragraphs, skimming for gist/general impression; scanning to locate
specifically required information; reading quickly.
 Note taking.
READING TO WRITE
For most people involved in the academic world, reading will be strongly connected to your writing. Most of what you write will be
linked to what you read.
You will need to:
 Make notes on what you read
 Paraphrase, summarize and synthesize what you read;
 Cite what you read;
 Comment on and evaluate what you read;
 Compare what you read;
 Use what you read to support your own writing;
 Differentiate your views from those of the texts you read;
Summarising and note-taking
Purposeful
Reading is purposeful. The way you read something will depend on your purpose. You read different texts in different ways. In
everyday life, you usually know why you are reading. You have a question and you read to find the answer. You usually know your
way around your favorite newspaper, so if you want to know the sports results, you go straight to the correct page, or if you want to
know what is on television tonight, you go straight to the television page. You do not start on the first page. When you read a novel,
it is different. You start at the beginning and slowly move towards the end. In academic reading, you need to be flexible when you
read - you may need to read quickly to find relevant sections, then read carefully when you have found what you want. General
efficient reading strategies such as scanning to find the book or chapter, skimming to get the gist and careful reading of important
passages are necessary as well as learning about how texts are structured in your subject.
Interactive
Reading is an interactive process - it is a two-way process. As a reader you are not passive but active. This means you have to work at
constructing the meaning from the marks on the paper, which you use as necessary. You construct the meaning using your
knowledge of the language, your subject and the world, continually predicting and assessing. You need to be active all the time when
you are reading. It is useful, therefore, before you start reading to try to actively remember what you know, and do not know, about
the subject and as you are reading to formulate questions based on the information you have. Title, sub-titles and section heading
can help you formulate question to keep you interacting.
Useful skills are:
 Scanning to locate specifically required information.
 Surveying a text.
 Using the title. Sometimes you have to make quick decisions based on the title.
 Skimming a text to get an overall impression. Skimming is useful when you want to survey a text to get a general idea of
what it is about.
Summarizing
One of the most important aspects of reading for academic study is reading so you can make use of the ideas of other people. This is
important as you need to show that you have understood the materials you have read and that you can use their ideas and findings
in your own way. In fact, this is an essential skill for every student. Spack (1988, p. 42) has pointed out that the most important skill a
student can engage in is "the complex activity to write from other texts", which is "a major part of their academic experience." It is
very important when you do this to make sure you use your own words, unless you are quoting. You must make it clear when the
words or ideas that you are using are your own and when they are taken from another writer. You must not use another person's
words or ideas as if they were your own: this is Plagiarism and plagiarism is regarded as a very serious offence.
A summary is a shortened version of a text. It contains the main points in the text and is written in your own words. It is a mixture of
reducing a long text to a short text and selecting relevant information. A good summary shows that you have understood the text.
Look at this example:
Source

The amphibia, which is the animal class to which our

frogs and toads belong, were the first animals to
crawl from the sea and inhabit the earth.

Summary

The first animals to leave the sea and live on dry land
were the amphibia.
The phrase "which is the animal class to which our frogs and toads belong" is an example, not a main point, and can be deleted. The
rest of the text is rewritten in your own words.
Try this exercise: Exercise.
The following stages may be useful:
1. Read and understand the text carefully.
2. Think about the purpose of the text.
a. Ask what the author's purpose is in writing the text?
b. What is your purpose in writing your summary?
c. Are you summarizing to support your points?
d. Or are you summarizing so you can criticize the work before you introduce your main points?
3. Select the relevant information. This depends on your purpose.
4. Find the main ideas - what is important.
a. They may be found in topic sentences.
b. Distinguish between main and subsidiary information.
c. Delete most details and examples, unimportant information, anecdotes, examples, illustrations, data etc.
d. Find alternative words/synonyms for these words/phrases - do not change specialized vocabulary and common
words.
5. Change the structure of the text.
a. Identify the meaning relationships between the words/ideas - e.g. cause/effect, generalization, contrast. Look
at Paragraphs: Signaling for more information. Express these relationships in a different way.
b. Change the grammar of the text: rearrange words and sentences, change nouns to verbs, adjectives to adverbs,
etc., break up long sentences, combine short sentences.
c. Simplify the text. Reduce complex sentences to simple sentences, simple sentences to phrases, phrases to single
words.
6. Rewrite the main ideas in complete sentences. Combine your notes into a piece of continuous writing. Use conjunctions
and adverbs such as 'therefore', 'however', 'although', 'since', to show the connections between the ideas.
7. Check your work.
a. Make sure your purpose is clear.
b. Make sure the meaning is the same.
c. Make sure the style is your own.
4b/c. Distinguish between main and subsidiary information. Delete most details and examples, unimportant information, anecdotes,
examples, illustrations, data etc. Simplify the text. Reduce complex sentences to simple sentences, simple sentences to phrases,
phrases to single words.
Examples:
a. People whose professional activity lies in the field of politics are not, on the whole, conspicuous for their respect for factual
accuracy.
Politicians often lie.
b. Failure to assimilate an adequate quantity of solid food over an extended period of time is absolutely certain to lead, in due
course, to a fatal conclusion.
If you do not eat, you die.
c. The climatic conditions prevailing in the British Isles show a pattern of alternating and unpredictable periods of dry and wet
weather, accompanied by a similarly irregular cycle of temperature changes.
British weather is changeable.
d. It is undeniable that the large majority of non-native learners of English experience a number of problems in attempting to
master the phonetic patterns of the language.
Many learners find English pronunciation difficult.
e. Tea, whether of the China or Indian variety, is well known to be high on the list of those beverages which are most
frequently drunk by the inhabitants of the British Isles.
The British drink a large amount of tea.
f. It is not uncommon to encounter sentences which, though they contain a great number of words and are constructed in a
highly complex way, none the less turn out on inspection to convey very little meaning of any kind.
Some long and complicated sentences mean very little.
g. One of the most noticeable phenomena in any big city, such as London or Paris, is the steadily increasing number of petrol-
driven vehicles, some in private ownership, others belonging to the public transport system, which congest the roads and
render rapid movement more difficult year by year.
Big cities have growing traffic problems.
Example 1: Volcanic Islands
 Reporting: Summary
Example
As part of an essay, you need to include a section of about 100 words on the formation of volcanic islands. You find the following
text:
Volcanic Islands
Islands have always fascinated the human mind. Perhaps it is the instinctive response of man, the land animal, welcoming a brief
intrusion of earth in the vast, overwhelming expanse of sea. When sailing in a great ocean basin, a thousand miles from the nearest
continent, with miles of water beneath the ship, one may come upon an island which has been formed by a volcanic eruption under
the sea. One's imagination can follow its slopes down through darkening waters to its base on the sea floor. One wonders why and
how it arose there in the midst of the ocean.
The birth of a volcanic island is an event marked by prolonged and violent travail: the forces of the earth striving to create, and all
the forces of the sea opposing. At the place where the formation of such an island begins, the sea floor is probably nowhere more
than about fifty miles thick. In it are deep cracks and fissures, the results of unequal cooling and shrinkage in past ages. Along such
lines of weakness the molten lava from the earth's interior presses up and finally bursts forth into the sea. But a submarine volcano
is different from a terrestrial eruption, where the lava, molten rocks, and gases are hurled into the air from an open crater. Here on
the bottom of the ocean the volcano has resisting it all the weight of the ocean water above it. Despite the immense pressure of, it
may be, two or three miles of sea water, the new volcanic cone builds upwards towards the surface, in flow after flow of lava. Once
within reach of the waves, its soft ash is violently attacked by the motion of the water which continually washes away its upper
surface, so that for a long period the potential island may remain submerged. But eventually, in new eruptions, the cone is pushed
up into the air, where the lava hardens and forms a rampart against the attacks of the waves.
1. Read the passage carefully twice from beginning to end.
2. Remember your purpose: to describe the formation of a volcanic island.
3. Select the relevant information
4. Mark all the points which should come into your answer. Do this very carefully, and be sure not to miss anything.
The birth of a volcanic island is an event marked by prolonged and violent travail: the forces of the earth striving to create, and all
the forces of the sea opposing. At the place where the formation of such an island begins, the sea floor is probably nowhere more
than about fifty miles thick. In it are deep cracks and fissures, the results of unequal cooling and shrinkage in past ages. Along such
lines of weakness the molten lava from the earth's interior presses up and finally bursts forth into the sea. But a submarine volcano
is different from a terrestrial eruption, where the lava, molten rocks, and gases are hurled into the air from an open crater. Here on
the bottom of the ocean the volcano has resisting it all the weight of the ocean water above it. Despite the  immense pressure of, it
may be, two or three miles of sea water, the new volcanic cone builds upwards towards the surface, in flow after flow of lava. Once
within reach of the waves, its soft ash is violently attacked by the motion of the water which continually washes away its upper
surface, so that for a long period the potential island may remain submerged. But eventually, in new eruptions, the cone is pushed
up into the air, where the lava hardens and forms a rampart against the attacks of the waves.
5. Make notes
o island formation: earth versus sea.
o where? sea bed, not more 50 miles thick, cracked and uneven.
o weak   lava bursts through.
o c.f. land volcano: no sea pressure
o how? lava cone pushes upwards
o surface - washed away by waves   submerged
o lava hardens   island.
6. Using this list of points, write your rough draft, referring to the original only when you want to make sure of some point.
A volcanic island comes into being after a long and violent struggle has taken place between the forces of the earth and the
sea. The island begins to form when hot lava breaks through weak points on the sea-bed where the earth's crust is not
more than fifty miles thick and is marked by deep cracks. The volcanic island, unlike a land volcano, has to push up through
the immense pressure of the sea. The cone made up of lava finally reaches the surface, but it does not appear because
waves wash away its upper surface. When the lava hardens it stands up to the waves and the island is formed.
6. After correcting your draft, write an accurate copy of your text.
A volcanic island is born only after a long and violent struggle between the forces of the earth and the sea. It begins to form
when hot lava breaks through a cracked and uneven part of the sea-bed where the earth's crust is weak. Unlike the land
volcano, it has to build upwards despite the immense water-pressure until it finally reaches the surface. Even then it is too
soft to withstand the waves and remains underwater until the cone is pushed into the air from below and the lava hardens.
7. Check your work.
Take care to make your text accurate. Your sentences should be well connected to each other so that your text reads as a
continuous paragraph.
Example and exercise: Progress in Samoa
Reporting: Summary
Exercise 1
As part of an essay, you need to include a section of about 100 words on the advantages and disadvantages of progress from the
Samoans' point of view. You find the following text:
Progress in Samoa
Samoa Sasa sat cross-legged in his one-room, open-air home, shooing away chickens that strutted across the floor mats. Bananas
cooked on the wood stove. Naked children cried in nearby huts. From one hut came the voice of Sinatra singing 'Strangers in the
Night' on a local radio station.
The sound of progress frightened Sasa. For most of his 50 years time has stood still. Now small European-styled homes are springing
up around his village in Western Samoa and the young men are leaving for New Zealand. In the town there are experts from all over
the world advising the Samoan Government on many development projects that Sasa does not understand.
The people of Luatuanuu Village - including his eight children - have always worked the banana plantations and respected the
custom that the Matais (family chiefs) like Sasa represented absolute authority.
They owned all the land communally, they elected a parliament and they administered justice in each village, thus leaving few duties
for the nation's 219-man police force. Would all that, too, change? Sasa wondered.
'We are a poor country and change must come,' Sasa said through a translator. 'But I do not want it so fast. I do not want my
children to go to New Zealand to look for big money. I want them to stay here in Luatuanuu and work our plantations as we always
have done.'
The confusion Sasa feels is shared by many of the 150,000 Western Samoans - and undoubtedly by the peoples of other newly
independent, developing nations as well. The capital, Apia, is teeming with people wanting to help: an 80-member US Peace Corps
headquarters, experts from the United Nations, investors from Japan, analysts from the Asian Development Bank and civil engineers
from New Zealand.
Already streets are being torn up for a new road system. The hospital is being rebuilt with a loan from New Zealand. A new $1
million Government hotel has opened to promote tourism - an industry the country is not quite sure it wants. A loan from the Asian
Development Bank will modernise the communications system. Japanese investors have opened a sawmill and are building houses.
When these and many other development schemes are completed and Western Samoa, one of the world's poorest nations in cash
terms, is forced into the twentieth century, what is to become of its culture?
'Most Samoans want the modern amenities, but they don't want to throw away our culture to get them,' said Felise Va'a, editor of
the Samoan Times. 'There is no easy answer because in many ways our culture retards development. The question people are asking
is, what is a balance between the past and the future?'

The tradition of communal land ownership stultifies individual incentive and has resulted in neglect of the land. The system of
permitting only the nation's 15,000 Matais to elect 45 of the 47 MPs destroys political involvement. The exodus to New Zealand -
and the money the emigrants send home - creates a false economy and results in thousands of Samoan families ignoring the land
and living off the earnings of their expatriate children.
New Zealand permits 1,500 Western Samoan immigrants a year and each year 1,500 - one per cent of the population - go. They,
together with thousands of other Samoans in New Zealand on temporary work visas, send home about $3 millions a year. The
money provides a boost to Western Samoa's agricultural economy, but it also is inflationary, and the inflation rate has been 35 per
cent in two years.
Western Samoa has travelled a long way in the 12 years since independence. It has political stability and a people who are 90 per
cent literate. It offers investors a cheap labour force, and a land that is 80 per cent uncultivated. It offers visitors the most
uncorrupted Polynesian culture left anywhere today.
(From an article in The Guardian by David Lamb)
How do you go about it?
One possible approach is to go through the following steps:
1. Read through the text from beginning to end.
2. Remember your purpose: to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of progress from the Samoans' point of view.
3. Select the relevant information
4. Mark all the points which should come into your answer. Do this very carefully, and be sure not to miss anything.
5. Change the structure. You should now have a brief list in your own words of all the points you marked in 4.
o Sasa frightened by progress
o doesn't understand development
o Samoa poor country, needs change
o Sasa doesn't want change fast
o doesn't want young people to emigrate
o many other Samoans confused
o Samoans want benefits of progress
o but don't want to lose traditional culture
o they want balance past and future
o system of land ownership inefficient
o electoral system undemocratic
o money sent by emigrants good for economy
o but causes inflation and neglect of land
6. Without looking at the original text, join these points together into a paragraph. Change the order of the points if
necessary, to make the construction more logical. Use conjunctions and adverbs such as 'therefore', 'however', 'although',
'since', to show the connections between the ideas.
Here is a possible paragraph:
Samoa is a very poor country with an inefficient system of land ownership and an undemocratic electoral system. Change is
necessary; however, many Samoans, like Samoa Sasa, are worried about the speed of development. They want the benefits of
progress, but find it difficult to understand what is happening, and are frightened of losing their traditional way of life. They do not
want their young people to leave for New Zealand, and although the emigrants send money home, the increased wealth is causing
neglect of the land and inflation. Samoa's problem is to find a compromise between past and future.
Look again at the text, just to check that you have not changed the meaning of anything; make corrections or rewrite the paragraph
if necessary.
Now try this question yourself: As part of the same essay, you need to include a paragraph of not more than 100 words describing
the changes that are taking place in Samoa. Write the paragraph.

Progress in Samoa
Suggested answer.
Samoa is rapidly being modernised. Improvements include new roads, an up-to-date communications system, a big new tourist
hotel, a radio station and a sawmill. These changes are bringing foreign investors and advisers flooding into Samoa, and European-
style houses are appearing everywhere. On the other hand, many young Samoans are leaving for New Zealand. The money they
send home is changing the country's economy, causing neglect of agriculture and inflation. Economic changes seem likely to be
followed by political changes.
Exercises: Exercises
Reporting: Summary
Exercise 7
Why, in the writer's view, do people seek personal possessions?
Freedom and selfishness
It is always the problem of how to change an ideal into reality that gets in the way of both the leaders and the people. A thought is
not a deed and never will be.
We are not magic men. We cannot imagine something into existence - especially a change of behaviour. Just as we have been
conditioned to be what we are now - greedy, competitive, stingy, mean - so we need to learn to love, to learn to be free.
Freedom is a difficult thing to handle. How many people given the complete freedom to do whatever they like would die of
boredom? No structure, no rules, no compulsion to work from nine to five, no one telling us when to do this, do that - it sounds
great until we try it. We've learned to be directed by so many others - by mommy, daddy, teacher, principal, boss, policeman,
politician, bureaucrat, etc. - that freedom from all this could be overwhelming. Imagine: making love, eating, sleeping, playing ...
and ... ho, hum, now what? Where do you go and what do you do when the trip ends?
Give people freedom and they'll do all the things they thought they never had a chance to do. But that won't take very long. And
after that? After that, my friend, it'll be time to make your life meaningful.

Can you do it if you're free? Can you do it if others no longer require you to do what they say is best? Authority is only necessary for
those who need it. Most of us need it because we've been taught to believe that we have to be concerned about others. For
instance: 'You're selfish if you think of yourself,' or even: 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your
country.'
Sorry friends, but that's all Christian, authoritarian, manipulative bullshit. You've got to get in touch with what your real needs are
before you can begin to be of value to others. The other-directedness of Americans that is promoted by mom, God, and the flag has
pushed us to the precipice of Fascism in this country. We are no longer able to think for ourselves, we think for the 'good' of others.
'Who am I?', 'What do I really want out of life?' These are considered selfish questions. So a whole society goes down the drain. So it
is with communes, whose members are too eager to help their curious 'brothers,' who find it remarkably easy to create all kinds of
physical and figurative mess and then leave it for the members to clean up.

Challenges to this traditional, other-directed, do-gooder mystique are met with admonitions and scoldings: 'Why are you so selfish,
all the time thinking only about yourself? Don't you have any regard for the rights of others?' (The intent and frequent effect of such
a question is to make one feel guilty and consequently willing to conform to the 'altruistic' wishes of others.) And because we have
become so confused about what is really important to us as individuals, we believe these admonitions - and with good reason. Our
demands are indeed 'selfish'. As we are no longer capable of knowing who we really are, we are compelled and desire to be like
someone (everyone) else. We feel we must have money, a new car, power, position, prestige, and an all too material sense of
personal worth.
Freedom and selfishness
Suggested answer.
People seek personal possessions to make themselves feel valuable and important, and to be like other people.
Synthesis
A synthesis is a combination, usually a shortened version, of several texts made into one. It contains the important points in the text
and is written in your own words.
To make a synthesis you need to find suitable sources, and then to select the relevant parts in those sources. You will then use your
paraphrase and summary skills to write the information in your own words. The information from all the sources has to fit together
into one continuous text.
The following stages may be useful:
1. Find texts that are suitable for your assignment.
2. Read and understand the texts.
3. Find the relevant ideas in the texts. Mark them in some way - write them down, underline them or highlight them.
4. Make sure you identify the meaning relationships between the words/ideas.
5. Read what you have marked very carefully.
6. Organise the information you have. You could give all similar ideas in different texts the same number or letter or colour.
7. Transfer all the information on to one piece of paper. Write down all similar information together.
8. Paraphrase and summarise as necessary.
9. Check your notes with your original texts for accuracy and relevance.
10. Combine your notes into one continuous text.
Example 1: Protecting Rainforests
 Taking notes
Summarizing & note-taking
Taking notes
Taking notes is an important part of the life of every student. There are two main reasons why note-taking is important:
1. When you are reading or listening, taking notes helps you concentrate. In order to take notes - to write something sensible -
you must understand the text. As listening and reading are interactive tasks, taking notes help you make sense of the text.
Taking notes does not mean writing down every word you hear; you need to actively decide what is important and how is
related to what you have already written.
2. Notes help you to maintain a permanent record of what you have read or listened to. This is useful when revising in the
future for examinations or other reasons.
Good notes should be accurate, clear and concise. They should show the organization of the text, and this should show the
relationship between the ideas.
How to take notes.
When you're reading, first survey the text to find the main points and how they are related. Then read for the subsidiary points; see
how they are related to the main points and to each other. Then, reduce the points to notes. Make sure links and relationships
between the ideas are shown.
Good notes need to be organised appropriately. There are two main methods for this:
1. List
The topic is summarised one point after another, using numbers and letters and indentation to organise information in order of
importance. The numbers and letters can be used by themselves or in combination.
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X,
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,8,9,10,
(i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v), (vi), (vii), (viii), (ix), (x),
a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i,
Or using decimals:
1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3
For example:
I. XXXX 1. XXXX 1. XXXX
II. XXXX 2. XXXX 2. XXXX 
A. XXXX a. XXXX 2.1. XXXX
B. XXXX b. XXXX 2.2. XXXX
C. XXXX c. XXXX 2.3. XXXX
III. XXXX 3. XXXX 3. XXXX 
A. XXXX a. XXXX 3.1. XXXX
B. XXXX b. XXXX 3.2. XXXX 
1. XXXX i. XXXX 3.2.1. XXXX
2. XXXX ii. XXXX 3.2.2. XXXX
3. XXXX iii. XXXX 3.2.3. XXXX
C. XXXX c. XXXX 3.3. XXXX 
1. XXXX i. XXXX 3.3.1. XXXX
2. XXXX ii. XXXX 3.3.2. XXXX
IV. XXXX 4. XXXX 4. XXXX 
A. XXXX a. XXXX 4.1. XXXX
B. XXXX b. XXXX 4.2. XXXX
C. XXXX c. XXXX 4.3. XXXX
V. XXXX 5. XXXX 5. XXXX
Example
Example 1,
Reading skills for academic study: Note-taking
Example 1
Read the following text and study the notes below:
Oils
There are three main groups of oils: animal, vegetable and mineral. Great quantities of animal oil come from whales, those
enormous creatures of the sea which are the largest remaining animals in the world. To protect the whale from the cold of the Arctic
seas, nature has provided it with a thick covering of fat called blubber. When the whale is killed, the blubber is stripped off and
boiled down, either on board ship or on shore. It produces a great quantity of oil which can be made into food for human
consumption. A few other creatures yield oil, but none so much as the whale. The livers of the cod and the halibut, two kinds of fish,
yield nourishing oil. Both cod liver oil and halibut liver oil are given to sick children and other invalids who need certain vitamins.
These oils may be bought at any chemist's.
Vegetable oil has been known from antiquity. No household can get on without it, for it is used in cooking. Perfumes may be made
from the oils of certain flowers. Soaps are made from vegetable and animal oils.
To the ordinary man, one kind of oil may be as important as another. But when the politician or the engineer refers to oil, he almost
always means mineral oil, the oil that drives tanks, aeroplanes and warships, motor-cars and diesel locomotives; the oil that is used
to lubricate all kinds of machinery. This is the oil that has changed the life of the common man. When it is refined into petrol it is
used to drive the internal combustion engine. To it we owe the existence of the motorcar, which has replaced the private carriage
drawn by the horse. To it we owe the possibility of flying. It has changed the methods of warfare on land and sea. This kind of oil
comes out of the earth. Because it burns well, it is used as fuel and in some ways it is superior to coal in this respect. Many big ships
now burn oil instead of coal. Because it burns brightly, it is used for illumination; countless homes are still illuminated with oil-
burning lamps. Because it is very slippery, it is used for lubrication. Two metal surfaces rubbing together cause friction and heat; but
if they are separated by a thin film of oil, the friction and heat are reduced. No machine would work for long if it were not properly
lubricated. The oil used for this purpose must be of the correct thickness; if it is too thin it will not give sufficient lubrication, and if it
is too thick it will not reach all parts that must be lubricated.
(From Power and Progress by G. C. Thornley (Longman))
Notes
  Oils
I. animal A. from
  1. mainly whales - fat called blubber   protect from cold
2. also livers of cod and halibut
  B. use 1. given to e.g. sick children etc. who need vitamins.
 
2. soap
  II. vegetable A. known from antiquity  
     B. use 1. in cooking

2. oils of certain flowers   perfumes

3. for soap
  III. mineral A. most common - mineral oil
    B. from earth
  C. use 1. for tanks, aeroplanes and warships, motor-cars and diesel locomotives
  2. to lubricate all kinds of machinery
3. owe the existence of the motorcar, possibility of flying
  D. properties
1. burns well   fuel

 
2. burns brightly   illumination

3. slippery   lubrication
Notice how the three main kinds of oil form the three main categories and other aspects are related to these.
2. Diagram
A diagram of the information shows how the main ideas are related and reflects the organisation of the information. You can use
flow charts, tree diagrams, diagrams, mind maps (Buzan, 1974) etc. You can also include circles, arrows, lines, boxes, etc.
Example
Example 2, 
Read the following text and study the notes below:
Grammar
The way we are using the word grammar differs in another way from its most common meaning. In our sense, the grammar includes
everything speakers know about their language - the sound system, called phonology, the system of meanings, called semantics, the
rules of word formation, called morphology, and the rules of sentence formation, called syntax. It also of course includes the
vocabulary of words - the dictionary or lexicon. Many people think of the grammar of a language as referring solely to the syntactic
rules. This latter sense is what students usually mean when they talk about their class in "English grammar.".
(From An introduction to language by Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman (Holt-Saunders))
Notes

Example 3, 
Read the following text and study the notes below:
Tea
Tea is the common name for a family of mostly woody flowering plants, and for one of its important genera. The tea plant itself is a
native of Southeast Asia. The tea brewed from the dried leaves of this plant has been drunk in China since perhaps the 28th century
BC and certainly since the 10th century BC, from which time written records of its use survive. It was first brought to Europe by the
Dutch in the early 17th century AD. After the introduction of tea there in 1657, England became the only European country of tea
drinkers rather than coffee drinkers. Tea was introduced into North America by early settlers but was heavily taxed by the British,
eventually resulting in the well-known Boston Tea Party of 1773, and it has never competed successfully with coffee as the staple
beverage. Tea is drunk by about half of the world's population; China, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Japan are the main producers.
Leaf buds and young leaves are used in making tea, the age of the leaves determining the taste and name of the particular
commercial variety. Thus, orange pekoe is made from the youngest leaves, and souchong from the fourth leaves. After picking, the
leaves either are dried immediately and completely to produce green teas - such as pan-fired, basket-fired, hyson, and gunpowder -
or are partially dried and then allowed to ferment to produce various kinds of black teas, such as orange pekoe, pekoe, congou, and
souchong. Oolong tea is partially fired and then steamed, thus being intermediate between green and black teas. After being sorted,
all grades of tea are packed in foil-lined chests to prevent the absorption of unpleasant odors or the loss of aroma during shipment.
In China, tea is sometimes allowed to absorb the scent from various flowers; jasmine is a particular favorite.
Notes
Tea
native to SE Asia
drunk in China since C10th BC, C28 BC ?,
 
brought to Europe by Dutch C17
intro to USA - Boston Tea party 1773
main producers China, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Japan
  

In both ways, you can use headings, underlining, colours, and white space to make the relationships clear. There is no generally best
layout - it depends on what you like and your purpose. Some ways of taking notes are more appropriate for some topics. A
description of a process suits a flow chart and a classification is shown clearly using a tree diagram. It is important to show how the
ideas are the connected and how the information is organised.
Make sure you write down where your notes have been taken from. It will save you time when you need to check your facts or write
a bibliography. In lecture notes, make sure you write down the name of anyone quoted and where the quote has been taken from.
You can then find it if you want to make more detailed use of the information.
Exercise
Try these exercise: Exercise 1, 
Read the following text and make notes.
COFFEE AND ITS PROCESSING
The coffee plant, an evergreen shrub or small tree of African origin, begins to produce fruit 3 or 4 years after being planted. The fruit
is hand-gathered when it is fully ripe and a reddish purple in colour. The ripened fruits of the coffee shrubs are processed where they
are produced to separate the coffee seeds from their covering and from the pulp. Two different techniques are in use: a wet process
and a dry process.
The wet process First the fresh fruit is pulped by a pulping machine.  Some pulp still clings to the coffee, however, and this residue is
removed by fermentation in tanks. The few remaining traces of pulp are then removed by washing. The coffee seeds are then dried
to a moisture content of about 12 per cent either by exposure to the sun or by hot-air driers. If dried in the sun, they must be turned
by hand several times a day for even drying.
The dry process  In the dry process the fruits are immediately placed to dry either in the sun or in hot-air driers. Considerably more
time and equipment is needed for drying than in the wet process. When the fruits have been dried to a water content of about 12
per cent the seeds are mechanically freed from their coverings.
The characteristic aroma and taste of coffee only appear later and are developed by the high temperatures to which they are
subjected during the course of the process known as roasting. Temperatures are raised progressively to about 220-230°C. This
releases steam, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other volatiles from the beans, resulting in a loss of weight of between 14 and
23 per cent. Internal pressure of gas expands the volume of the coffee seeds from 30 to 100 per cent. The seeds become rich brown
in colour; their texture becomes porous and crumbly under pressure. But the most important phenomenon of roasting is the
appearance of the characteristic aroma of coffee, which arises from very complex chemical transformations within the beans. The
coffee, on leaving the industrial roasters, is rapidly cooled in a vat where it is stirred and subjected to cold air propelled by a blower.
Good quality coffees are then sorted by electronic sorters to eliminate the seeds that roasted badly. The presence of seeds which
are either too light or too dark depreciates the quality.
From : 'Coffee Production' in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition (1974).

Exercise 1 - Suggested answer.

  COFFEE AND ITS PROCESSING
coffee plant  evergreen shrub / small tree  

   from Africa  

   fruits after 3/4 years  

   fruit - red/purple  

gathered by hand    
     
processed to separate    
seeds from covering
- two processes used 1. wet process  fruit pulped by machine
+ fermentation in tanks
+ washing
     seeds dried to 12% moisture
by sun or hot air driers
need to be turned by hand
  2. dry process  dried immediately in sun or
with driers
     when dried to 12% seeds freed
from coverings
 roasting at 220-230 oC  releases gases etc - loss of weight, increases  
volume, aroma and taste develop
 become rich brown in colour, texture
becomes porous

finally sorted    

Exercise 2.
Read the following text and make notes.
HOW CHILDREN FAIL
Most children in school fail.
For a great many this failure is avowed and absolute. Close to forty per cent of those who begin high school drop out before they
finish. For college the figure is one in three.
Many others fail in fact if not in name. They complete their schooling only because we have agreed to push them up through the
grades and out of the schools, whether they know anything or not. There are many more such children than we think. If we 'raise
our standards' much higher, as some would have us do, we will find out very soon just how many there are. Our classrooms will
bulge with kids who can't pass the test to get into the next class.
But there is a more important sense in which almost all children fail: except for a handful, who may or may not be good students,
they fail to develop more than a tiny part of the tremendous capacity for learning, understanding, and creating with which they were
born and of which they made full use during the first two or three years of their lives.
Why do they fail?
They fail because they are afraid, bored, and confused.
They are afraid, above all else, of failing, of disappointing or displeasing the many anxious adults around them, whose limitless hopes
and expectations for them hang over their heads like a cloud.
They are bored because the things they are given and told to do in school are so trivial, so dull, and make such limited and narrow
demands on the wide spectrum of their intelligence, capabilities, and talents.
They are confused because most of the torrent of words that pours over them in school makes little or no sense. It
often flatly contradicts other things they have been told, and hardly ever has any relation to what they really know - to the rough
model of reality that they carry around in their minds.
How does this mass failure take place? What really goes on in the classroom? What are these children who fail doing? What goes on
in their heads? Why don't they make use of more of their capacity?
This book is the rough and partial record of a search for answers to these questions. It began as a series of memos written in the
evenings to my colleague and friend Bill Hull, whose fifth-grade class I observed and taught in during the day. Later these memos
were sent to other interested teachers and parents. A small number of these memos make up this book. They have not been much
rewritten, but they have been edited and rearranged under four major topics: Strategy; Fear and Failure; Real Learning; and How
Schools Fail. Strategy  deals with the ways in which children try to meet, or dodge, the demands that adults make on them in
school. Fear and Failure deals with the interaction in children of fear and failure, and the effect of this on strategy and learning.  Real
Learning deals with the difference between what children appear to know or are expected to know, and what they really know. How
Schools Fail  analyses the ways in which schools foster bad strategies, raise children's fears, produce learning which is usually
fragmentary, distorted, and short-lived, and generally fail to meet the real needs of children.
These four topics are clearly not exclusive. They tend to overlap and blend into each other. They are, at most, different ways of
looking at and thinking about the thinking and behaviour of children.
It must be made clear that the book is not about unusually bad schools or backward children. The schools in which the experiences
described here took place are private schools of the highest standards and reputation. With very few exceptions, the children whose
work is described are well above the average in intelligence and are, to all outward appearances, successful, and on their way to
'good' secondary schools and colleges. Friends and colleagues, who understand what I am trying to say about the harmful effect of
today's schooling on the character and intellect of children, and who have visited many more schools than I have, tell me that the
schools I have not seen are not a bit better than those I have, and very often are worse.
How children fail by John Holt, Pitman, 1965
Exercise 2 - Suggested answer.
HOW CHILDREN FAIL
Most children in school fail.
o High School - forty per cent
o College - thirty three per cent.
o Others in fact if not name - complete  because pushed,  know anything???
o But, more importantly,  fail to develop full capacity for learning.
Why ? Fail because: afraid, bored, and confused.
o afraid of failing, disappointing adults
o bored because  they given  trivial, dull, things to do
 
o confused because most of school makes little or no sense, flatly contradicts other
things , no relation to what they really know
How? Search for answers to questions:
o Strategy  - ways in which children try to meet, or dodge, the demands made on them
o Fear and Failure - interaction in children of fear and failure, + effect on strategy and
learning.
o Real Learning - compares what children appear to know with what really know.
o How Schools Fail - ways: schools foster bad strategies; raise children's fears; produce
fragmentary, distorted & short-lived learning;  fail to meet  real needs
Notes are a summary and should therefore be much shorter than the original. Thus, abbreviations and symbols can be used
whenever possible. The table below shows some conventional English symbols and abbreviations. You will need specific ones for
your own subject.
and &
and others (people) et. al.
and other things etc.
answer A
approximately , approx., c.
at @
because
before example :
centimetre cm
century C
chapter ch.
compare cf.
correct
decreases, falls
degrees �
department dept.
divided by �
east E
equal to =
equivalent to
especially esp.
for example e.g.
government govt.
greater than >
grows, increases
important N.B.
in one year p.a.
information info.
kilogram kg
less than <
maximum max.
minimum min.
minus -
much greater than >>
much less than <<
multiplied by �
north N
not come from
not equal
not lead to
not proportional to
number No. or #
page p.
pages pp.
percent %
plus +
possibly poss.
probably prob.
proportional to
question Q
results from
results in, leads to
same as above "
similar to
that is to say, in other words i.e.
therefore
south S
unlikely ??
uncertain, not sure ?
very v.
with reference to re.
wrong X
west W
year yr.
Reporting - paraphrase, summary & synthesis
One of the most important aspects of academic writing is making use of the ideas of other people. This is important as you need to
show that you have understood the materials and that you can use their ideas and findings in your own way. In fact, this is an
essential skill for every student. Spack (1988, p. 42) has pointed out that the most important skill a student can engage in is "the
complex activity to write from other texts", which is "a major part of their academic experience." It is very important when you do
this to make sure you use your own words, unless you are quoting. You must make it clear when the words or ideas that you are
using are your own and when they are taken from another writer. You must not use another person's words or ideas as if they were
your own: this is Plagiarism and plagiarism is regarded as a very serious offence.
The object of academic writing is for you to say something for yourself using the ideas of the subject, for you to present ideas you
have learned in your own way. You can do this by reporting the works of others in your own words. You can either paraphrase if you
want to keep the length the same, summarize if you want to make the text shorter or synthesize if you need to use information from
several sources. In all cases you need to acknowledge other people's work.
Strategies for reading academic texts
Try this with any text you need to read:
Before reading
1. Think about your reasons for reading the text:
 you are interested because it is about your subject, or it is related to your subject
 you want background information, or detailed information
 you want to know what the writer's views are
 you are going to have a discussion
 you are going to write an essay on this subject later
Each reason will influence the way you read e.g. quickly or slowly, looking for fact or opinion.
2. Look at the title, headline, any sub-headings, photos or illustrations. Use these to predict what the text will be about - the topic.
3. Think about what you already know on this topic.
4. Write down what you would like to find out from the text. You could write actual questions you would like answers to.
5. Make a note of words or phrases connected with the topic that you may find in the text.
READING
1. Survey the text: read the first and last paragraphs and the beginning  and final sentences of the other paragraphs.
How close were your predictions?
Do you have a very general idea of the structure of the text, what the different parts are about?
2. Identify your purpose for reading.
a. If you are looking for specific information, read the part where you think the information will be.
b. If you want a general idea of the whole text, read the whole text.
In both cases ignore words or sections you don't immediately understand.
You should now have a general idea of what the text is about and if it is going to be useful for you. Does it answer the question(s)
you asked?
3. Write down in 1 or 2 sentences:
 what you think the main ideas are
 what your first reaction to the text is. Do you find it interesting, informative, well-argued, boring, illogical, inaccurate?
4. Do a second more careful reading, marking any new words that are important for your understanding.
Check on the main idea and revise what you wrote if necessary.
Decide what the subsidiary ideas are. How do they relate to the main idea? Put all the ideas together in linear notes, or as a mind
map.
VOCABULARY
With the new words which you think are important:
if an approximate meaning is enough,
 try to guess the meaning using word function, context (immediate and wider) and word form
if the exact meaning is needed,
 use a dictionary
 ask another student, or your tutor
Difficult sentences
Divide the sentences where there are connectives or markers.
 What do the connectives mean?
 Underline reference words. What do they refer to?
 Identify complex noun phrases.
  Expand them using verbs and/or relative clauses so that they are easy to understand.
 Find the subjects, verbs and objects which go together, and, if necessary, write the whole sentence out in several sentences
to show the meaning.
After reading
1. Make a list of the new words which you think will be useful for you in the future. Give:
 definitions of the words
 indication of whether they are nouns, verbs, adjectives etc.
 phrases in which the word occurs
 other words with the same meaning
 other forms of the words
e.g. counsellor (noun)=a person who gives help and support to people who have problems, an adviser [counsel (noun), to counsel]
2. Evaluate what you have read:
 How does it fit into what you already think and know?
 Does it confirm your ideas, add to them, conflict with them?
 If there are opinions, do you agree or disagree with them?
The Personal Qualities of a Teacher
Here I want to try to give you an answer to the question: What personal qualities are desirable in a teacher? Probably no two people
would draw up exactly similar lists, but I think the following would be generally accepted.
First, the teacher's personality should be pleasantly live and attractive. This does not rule out people who are physically plain, or
even ugly, because many such have great personal charm. But it does rule out such types as the over-excitable, melancholy, frigid,
sarcastic, cynical, frustrated, and over-bearing: I would say too, that it excludes all of dull or purely negative personality. I still stick to
what I said in my earlier book: that school children probably 'suffer more from bores than from brutes'.
Secondly, it is not merely desirable but essential for a teacher to have a genuine capacity for sympathy - in the literal meaning of that
word; a capacity to tune in to the minds and feelings of other people, especially, since most teachers are school teachers, to the
minds and feelings of children. Closely related with this is the capacity to be tolerant - not, indeed, of what is wrong, but of the
frailty and immaturity of human nature which induce people, and again especially children, to make mistakes.
Thirdly, I hold it essential for a teacher to be both intellectually and morally honest. This does not mean being a plaster saint. It
means that he will be aware of his intellectual strengths, and limitations, and will have thought about and decided upon the moral
principles by which his life shall be guided. There is no contradiction in my going on to say that a teacher should be a bit of an actor.
That is part of the technique of teaching, which demands that every now and then a teacher should be able to put on an act - to
enliven a lesson, correct a fault, or award praise. Children, especially young children, live in a world that is rather larger than life.
A teacher must remain mentally alert. He will not get into the profession if of low intelligence, but it is all too easy, even for people
of above-average intelligence, to stagnate intellectually and that means to deteriorate intellectually. A teacher must be quick to
adapt himself to any situation, however improbable (they happen!) and able to improvise, if necessary at less than a moment's
notice. (Here I should stress that I use 'he' and 'his' throughout the book simply as a matter of convention and convenience.)
On the other hand, a teacher must be capable of infinite patience. This, I may say, is largely a matter of self-discipline and self-
training; we are none of us born like that. He must be pretty resilient; teaching makes great demands on nervous energy. And he
should be able to take in his stride the innumerable petty irritations any adult dealing with children has to endure.
Finally, I think a teacher should have the kind of mind which always wants to go on learning. Teaching is a job at which one will never
be perfect; there is always something more to learn about it. There are three principal objects of study: the subject, or subjects,
which the teacher is teaching; the methods by which they can best be taught to the particular pupils in the classes he is teaching;
and - by far the most important - the children, young people, or adults to whom they are to be taught. The two cardinal principles of
British education today are that education is education of the whole person, and that it is best acquired through full and active co-
operation between two persons, the teacher and the learner.
(From Teaching as a Career, by H . C. Dent)
Reading critically
Critical reading
It is important to read critically. Critical reading requires you to evaluate the arguments in the text. You need to distinguish fact from
opinion, and look at arguments given for and against the various claims. This also means being aware of your opinions and
assumptions (positive and negative) of the text you are reading so you can evaluate it honestly. It is also important to be aware of
the writer's background, assumptions and purposes. All writers have a reason for writing and will emphasize details which support
their reason for writing and ignore details that do not.
The following questions may be usefully asked about any text you are reading:
A Purpose and background
1. Why are you reading this text? What is your purpose?
2. What type of text is it: research report, essay, textbook, book review?
3. What do you know about the subject of the text?
4. What else has been written on the subject of the text?
5. What controversies exist in this area? How does this text fit in?
B The author and the text
1. Who is the author? What do you know about the author? What authority does the author have?
2. Who is the intended audience?
3. What is the author's purpose? Why has the text been written?
4. What is the source of the text? Is it reputable? Who is the publisher? What reputation to they have?
5. What is the date of publication? Is it appropriate to the argument?
6. What is the writer's attitude towards the topic?
7. What conclusions are drawn?
C Evidence used
1. Is there a clear distinction between fact and opinion?
2. Is evidence used to support arguments? How good is the evidence? Are all the points supported?
 3. In an experimental study, was the sample size adequate and are the statistics reliable?
4. Are there any unsupported points? Are they well-known facts or generally accepted opinions?
5. How does the writer use other texts and other people's ideas?
6. Are the writer's conclusions reasonable in the light of the evidence presented?
7. How do the conclusions relate to other similar research?
D Assumptions made
1. What assumptions has the writer made? Are they valid?
2. What beliefs or values does the writer hold? Are they explicit?
3. Look at the language that is used, e.g. active/passive verbs, nominalizations, pronouns, ergative verbs, articles, etc. Is it
always possible to identify participants and processes? e.g. compare: the government increased taxes; they increased the
taxes, taxes were increased; taxes increased; the taxes increased, there was an increase in taxes
4. Look for emphatic words such as it is obvious, definitely and of course.
5. Look for hedges: possible, might, perhaps.
6. Look for emotional arguments, use of maximizes: completely, absolutely, entirely, or minimizers: only, just, hardly, simply,
merely.
7. How else could the text have been written?