Introduction
When you conduct research, it’s very likely that, no matter how well-refined your search terms are, you’re going to wind up with a long list of sources to work through. In many cases, the time constraints placed upon you will make it impossible to get through them all. A clear approach to identifying and critiquing resources is therefore vital.
The first step is to evaluate these sources and eliminate less promising material whilst identifying key material that you need to cover.
Once you’ve narrowed down your list of sources, the key is to read these sources actively rather than passively. We’ll look at some ways of doing that in the remainder of this article.
Reading with a purpose
To manage the reading workload effectively and efficiently, you need to take an active approach to that reading. Reading actively means thinking about what you want to get out of a particular source and then seeking out that information, rather than reading passively and hoping the important information jumps out at you.
Start with what you already know. There is little sense in reading over and over, in different sources, something you already know or understand.
This should help you to identify what it is you’re looking for in the source in question. Ask yourself:
- What do I already know about this topic?
- Where are the gaps in my knowledge?
- What questions do I want to find the answers to in this text?
- Why do I think this source is important/relevant?
By taking this approach, you approach the source with a completely different mindset – instead of passively reading the text, you are interrogating it, looking for specific answers to specific questions.
Reading Journal Articles
When reading journal articles there are a number of things you can do to cut down on the amount of time you waste on irrelevant sources or information.
Begin by reading the abstract. This should give you an overall summary of the article, including key findings. Quite often you can come to realise a source isn’t going to be relevant simply from reading the abstract. And if it is relevant, often the abstract will guide you to the specific section(s) you need to read.
It pays to understand how journal articles are structured. This is particularly true in the sciences, where most articles will follow a predictable structure of introduction, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. This may allow you to go quickly to the section you need rather than reading the whole thing.
Things are a little less predictable in the non-science subjects, but even then the abstract should give you a sense of how a specific article is put together and may allow you to quickly find the relevant parts.
Another useful technique is to begin by reading introduction and conclusion. Again this may allow you to identify key sections or to eliminate a source as irrelevant to your current research topic. But even if you need to read the whole article, having a sense of the conclusion you’re heading towards can help you make more sense of the content in the main body.
Finally, when you do identify the content you want to read in depth, make sure you take a critical approach. You can read more about that in our article on being critical.
Reading books or chapters
There are also a number of things you can do when reading a book or chapter to take a more active and interrogative approach.
Most books will come with a contents page and an index. It makes sense then to start with these sections. the contents page will give you a sense of the structure of the book and may allow you to quickly identify relevant chapters or sections. You can use the index to scan for key words (perhaps related to the questions you’ve identified – see Reading with a purpose above). You may notice for example that your key words are clustered around a particular section of the book.
If it’s a chapter you’re focused on rather than the whole book, you may wish to start by reading the introduction and conclusion. As mentioned when we looked at journal articles, this can help you better understand the main body content, and may also allow you to focus on specific sections rather than the whole chapter.
Headings and subheadings are another useful way both of understanding the structure of the article (section headings are likely to identify key themes) and identifying specific sections which may be of relevance. You can scan these subheadings quickly before delving into any deeper reading.
If you do decide to focus on a specific chapter or section, reading just the topic sentences can also give you a good overview before you get into deeper reading. If the writing is well constructed, reading the first sentence of each paragraph will again help you to understand the general structure and themes, and to identify particularly relevant sections of the text.
Finally, when you’ve identified a chapter or section you need to read, you can scan or skim the text, looking for some of the key words or phrases you’ve identified. You may still need to read the whole chapter/section in more depth, but this approach may again save you some time in helping you to focus on the most relevant information.
Summing Up
It’s important to remember that reading for academic purposes is not the same as reading for leisure. You simply don’t have the luxury of reading everything from cover to cover.
By taking an active, critical approach to your reading you can learn to manage the workload and to find and extract information quickly and efficiently.
