...How to Read a Book, v4.0 Paul N. Edwards School of Information University of Michigan www.si.umich.edu/~pne/ This article may be freely distributed for any non-‐commercial purpose, provided that nothing is added or removed, including this copyright notice. Commercial use of this material is expressly prohibited . Quasi-‐permanent URL: pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/howtoread.pdf COPYRIGHT 2000-‐2008 PAUL N. EDWARDS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. How can you learn the most from a book — or any other piece of writing — when you're reading for information, rather than for pleasure? It’s satisfying to start at the beginning and read straight through to the end. Some books, such as novels, have to be read this way, since a basic principle of fiction is to hold the reader in suspense. Your whole purpose in reading fiction is to follow the writer’s lead, allowing him or her to ...
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...Looking back on my childhood and teen years, I found they’re not many literature works that resonated towards me. For the most part, the adolescent me wanted adventure and fast paced action. I tended to stay up nights watching films that reveled in both. Naturally, I wanted what I saw on the big screen to pop out from the books. As I grew older my taste grew, never really abandoning what I liked, but rather expanding on it. Surprisingly, I had never notice how the life that surrounded me shaped my preference in writing, it just happened. Starting with the graphic novels that caught my eyes to the works that shattered my mind, it as you would expect happened like an act of randomness. The more I look back, the more ages 7 through 10 tend to...
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...Learning how to read and write is a big milestone in a child's life. Being able to read and get involved in a book is the best feeling ever. Growing up, I could remember from a young age my mother reading all different types of Disney books to me. I loved the Disney books that had a princess in it because when I was younger, I thought I was going to become a princess when I grew up, of course, that didn’t happen. For most of my life, up to age seven, my mom or teachers read to me because I had a speech delay and a learning disability that made it difficult for me to read alone. I would pretend to a read a book by myself, but I never really got the concept of reading and understanding what I was reading till age seven. At age seven is when I...
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...How To Read University Texts or Journal Articles Choose a section preferrably not longer than 25 or 30 pages - perhaps one chapter, or a section of a chapter - that you can handle at one sitting. Step 1. Read the title, the introduction, and the conclusion (5 minutes). Step 2. Read the title, the introduction again, all sub-headings, and the conclusion, again. (5-10 minutes). Step 3. Read the title, the introduction one more time, sub-headings, the Topic Sentence of each paragraph - usually the first or second sentence, (you may read the last sentence as well, if you have time), any italicized or boldfaced words, lists (you can skim these), and the conclusion (10 minutes). (Force yourself to do steps 1 to 3 in less than 25 minutes.) Step 4. Close your textbook. Step 5. Make a Mind-Map of all you can remember in the chapter. Do not stop until at least half an hour is up, even if you feel that you can't possibly remember any more--more will surface if you give yourself the time. DO NOT REFER TO THE TEXT WHILE YOU ARE DOING THIS. If you come to a dead end, try alternative memory techniques to the ones you have been using: associating ideas, either from within the section itself or from other related material; visualizing pages, pictures, graphs etc.; recalling personal associations that may have come to mind; staring out the window and blanking out your thoughts; and so on. This is strenuous, but it is rewarding. It will show you exactly how much you have learned...
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...The third day of observation, the children received coloring pages if their work was done and colored while I took turns reading with the supervisor. I would read one book and then my supervisor would read another. During this time, I was reading The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. The children really seemed interested in the interesting illustrations of the book and the fun rhyming and rhythm of the story. Before I read the book, I asked the children how many of them have seen the animated movie. Almost every single one of their hands shot up in the air. The few that didn’t raise their hand, their peers were shocked because they thought it was one of the greatest movies they have ever seen. I was worried that since most of the children have seen the...
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...“The Scream” by Edvard Munch has a lot of detail that catches your eye. All the detail impacted my opinion as what I think is going on in the painters mind while he was painting this. A detail that catches my eye is the detail put into the sunset. In the background, the sunset looks like stripes of dried blood stains from a victim. Almost as if the person was hurt severely and were left to die. The blood from this victim was left to stream across the ground. This impacted the painting because I can infer what time of day this painting takes place. Another detail that catches my eye is the black swirl like thing. To me it looks like a giant loch ness monster that came up from the ocean. The monster is swallowing people one by one that were...
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...PSY 801: How to Read a Scientific Article Author unknown (variously attributed – most likely James Watson) When Learners in the sciences are first faced with using the primary research literature, the prospect sometimes seems overwhelming. Finding pertinent journal articles often seems to involve a maze of abstracting journals, indifferent librarians, missing volumes, CD-ROMs from the netherworld, and bound periodicals that refuse to flatten themselves for photocopiers (no matter how hard you press on them CPR-style). Even after an article has been located or provided, there is the problem of reading it. The worst way to assimilate a research paper is to read it word for word, title to literature cited, as if it were a textbook. This approach is a waste of time not only because perhaps as few as 1 in 4 articles that find their way into your hands should be committed to your brain, but also because it is deadly boring. Before reading one word of an article, ask yourself what you are looking for in the article. Knowing what you do about the subject, what gaps need to be filled? What knowledge needs to be expanded? What controversial points need to be corroborated? Generate expectations of a journal article before you read it. This will help your analysis of the work in front of you, and it will keep you more interested in the material. Once your initial expectations have been generated, then what? The following steps seem to make sense. 1. Read the authors' names. Where and...
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...How Children Learn To Read Krisy Green Ashford University Author Note This research assignment is being submitted on March 4, 2013 for Professor Lisa Edmunds EDU411 Reading & Cognition course How Children Learn To Read The success of a child’s educational future is dependent upon their ability to read, and without their ability to read, a person cannot enjoy all this world has to offer, such as reading about world history, reading a letter from a friend, or learning a new language. Reading unlocks doors that would otherwise be locked forever. In recent years, there has been a great deal of debates on the methods used to teach our children how to read; parents and teachers need to determine whether the whole language, phonics, or the combination of both methods is the most adequate approach for teaching children how to read. Thomas Hopkins Galluadet first developed the whole language method in the early 1800s. The method was originally developed for deaf mutes because they were completely unaware of phonetic sounds for letters. The whole language method teaches children how to read with complete words, rather than breaking them into parts or syllables. Children are repeatedly drill with simple words until they can recognize the by sight, and then they are introduce to more complicated words. The whole language approach is considered more creative and interesting for a child who is eager to learn. In a whole language learning environment...
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...Have you ever heard a song on the radio and thought, “Hey, it’d be really cool to know how to play that.”? Do you have friends who play musical instruments, and you want to get in on the fun? Do you just want to expand your general artistic knowledge? Well, learning the basics of how to read sheet music can help you achieve all of these, and in a shorter amount of time than you might have thought! At its very simplest, music is a language just like you’d read aloud from a book. The symbols you’ll see on pages of sheet music have been used for hundreds of years. And they represent the pitch, speed and rhythm of the song they convey, as well as expression and techniques used by a musician to play the piece. Think of the notes as the letters, the measures as the words, the phrases as the sentences and so forth. Learning to read music really does open up a whole new world to explore!...
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...How to read an academic article These notes are intended to help you develop your approach to the way that you read an academic article for study purposes, ie as part of your studies for your degree. The notes should be used alongside the example article discussed, Flamholtz, E. (1983) "Accounting, Budgeting and Control Systems in their Organizational Context: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives", in Accounting, Organizations and Society, vol. 8, no 2/3, pp.153-169 (17 pages). This is available on the Web at http://www.mgtsystems.com/media/1476.pdf You should download and print out a copy - it is not really appropriate to attempt to read from a computer screen as you will need to move quickly through the article whilst also following the discussion here. Many students find difficulty in reading academic articles such as the one by Flamholtz. They tend to complain that: "it's too difficult" "I lose track of what the author is saying" "I get so far (1 or 2 pages) then find I can't make any sense of it" "I find I have to keep going back over stuff I've just read because I can't see what the author is saying" "After a couple of pages I lose interest" One major reason for such problems is that students attempt to read the article in the wrong way. They try to read it as if it were a short story, or novel or newspaper report (eg on a soccer match, or about the latest troubles of some celebrity or other). That is, they start at the beginning and try to read through...
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...Assignment 1 Instructions: Please select a company that your group would like to analyze throughout the semester. The goals of the assignment are (1) to help you read through the 10K/Q reports issued by US corporations in accordance with SEC regulations and (2) to help familiarize yourselves with the company you plan to study this semester. 10K/Q reports can be found on a company’s website, or on EDGAR, located at www.sec.gov. However, EDGAR can also be accessed through Mergentonline available through Hofstra’s electronic library. You might have to use other sources in the Hofstra Electronic Library to complete a few of these items. You can also go to the company’s website for information. Answer the following questions about your group’s company. Your answers should be written in a REPORT FORMAT, and should be typed. This means that you should use the questions as a guideline for your report, do not just answer them in sequence. Please do not cut and paste from the 10-K/Q report or any other source, and use footnotes when appropriate. Students who do this will not receive credit for the assignment. I would like each person in the group to submit an individual report because I would like everyone to read through an entire 10-K or 10-Q report. 1. Company Name________NIKE__________________ 2. Average number of outstanding shares___ Nike has a Shares Outstanding of 890.35M _ 3. Number of shareholders___ 30,586 (class B), 19 (class A) ____________________ ...
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...I’m aware Paul, that you are thinking about reading the book or watching the movie of the Outsiders. I want you to know of read and watch the movie first and I think you should read the book first. I think you should read the book first because the book gives you more detail about the characters. Like what's the “special ability” of each of the characters. Like Two-bits special ability is shoplifting. It other detail about the characters is there background about who they are, where they have grown up at. It tells you about Ponyboy's history about his family and in the book they really don’t tell you about that or about Dallas Winston history. The other reason why you should read the book first is that the movie skips some parts and doesn’t...
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...How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster Chapter Reflections Introduction: How’d He Do That? * How do memory, symbol, and pattern affect the reading of literature? How does the recognition of patterns make it easier to read complicated literature? Discuss a time when your appreciation of a literary work was enhanced by understanding symbol or pattern. * When reading literature: memory, symbol, and pattern help you understand the text better. If you don’t comprehend literature, then you won’t know the real meaning behind that passage. But that’s why memory, symbol, and pattern come in to help. I think the recognition of patterns make it easier to read complicated literature because then we can analyze what exactly it is that we are reading. It gets readers to look more in depth of the literature itself. I think memory helps the readers connect emotionally and/or physically to that literature. Also, symbols analyze a deeper thought to something. When I read something, I picture it in my head and I would create a scene in my mind. Then by using memory, symbol, and pattern, I’ll try to sort everything out to make it clearer for my understanding. Chapter 1 – Every Trip is a Quest (Except When It’s Not) * List the five aspects of the QUEST and then apply them to something you have read (or viewed) in the form used on pages 3-5. * The quest has five aspects, which includes: (a) a quester, (b) a place to go, (c) a stated reason to go there, (d)...
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...In the ninth chapter of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster explores the symbolic and literal significance weather holds in storytelling. Literally speaking, weather has the power to directly affect a character, whether they become soaked from the rain or sweaty from the heat. Symbolically speaking, weather means much more than a few drops of water, or a thermometer reaching one hundred degrees. Overall, Foster discusses three types of weather throughout this chapter: rain, fog and snow. Firstly, rain, “the principal element of spring”, possess transformative qualities and can symbolically cleanse a character (73). Rain, when mixed with a little sunlight can fashion symbolic, “divine promise[s]” and “peace between heaven and earth” (74). These celestial pacts, known as rainbows, are literally very rare, but commonly hard to miss. Symbolically, rainbows represent miracles and are just as important as they are beautiful. Although rain can demonstrate symbolic rebirth, and is capable of creating miraculous rainbows, a downpour can also form mud and induce a character to become...
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...living with Master Hugh he successfully learned how to read and write. During this time Frederick had many teachers. His mistress had begun to teach him, but her husband advised her to stop. However, she did not stop teaching Frederick immediately. The damage was already done she had taught him the building blocks for words. She had been kind, but slavery had turned her heart to stone. Whenever Frederick was left alone in a room for a length of time, he was suspected of having a book. Frederick began a plan to learn to read and write. He became friends with the white boys he met in the neighborhood. This plan was most successful. When Frederick was sent to run errands he would take his book with him and he would hurry...
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