This guest post was written by Dr Conner McAleese (ASC Tutor and PhD English)
For most subjects, exam revision will involve reading. This could include re-reading your own lecture notes as well as engaging with new secondary sources. Simply reading notes or papers, however, can easily become a passive form of revision that only wastes time and doesn’t help you learn. To make your revision more active, a structure like the SPE method will help you critically engage with your reading and thoroughly engage with your sources.
This method can either be used in conjunction with the SQ3R Method, or it can be used on its own. This method allows for a flexibility if you have to read a large number of sources in advance of your exam. It’s also a good way to quickly see if a source will be useful before you give it a more thorough reading.
Structure
First, take a wander through the source’s structure. Review the contents page for potential chapters of interest, or scan the abstract for an idea of the source’s argument and how it’s structured. Then, consider what the source’s headings and subheadings are throughout the text and note if the source includes any tables, figures or other visual representations of the information. In understanding the structure of the source you are using, you are prepping your mind to engage with it!
Proposition
This stage is critical for making your source work for you. No author will be familiar with the structure of your module and how your module lead has chosen to lay their material out for you to learn. During the proposition stage, you can read through those portions of the text you believe are relevant to your exam and then collate them in an order that makes sense for you. If you are using the SQ3R Method in conjunction with the SPE Method, then you can do this during either the Recite or Review stages of that method. Summarise the author’s arguments for each section you have read and organise them in a way that makes sense for your learning!
Evaluation
When evaluating a source, don’t be afraid of being harsh. The author will never know, so you won’t hurt their feelings! Do the author’s subheadings truly answer their argument? If not, why not? If they do, how successfully is this done? Be reflective on how you would approach answering the lines of argument the author has introduced and evaluate if this is more, less, or equally as successful as the author themselves. This is step is about retaining information, and this step can help solidify the source as a whole in your mind.
Conclusion
While simpler than the SQ3R Method of reading, the SPE Method can let you review a much larger volume of sources and help you construct wider arguments that engage with the academic discourses around your essay questions more broadly. Depending on your subject, this more straightforward approach to reading might be exactly what you need to prepare for your exams.
