Choosing a reading speed
As a student you cannot afford to read at just whatever speed comes naturally. If you are trying to keep abreast of a course, you have to push yourself. However, reading speeds range from a lightning skim through a whole book to intense concentration on a difficult paragraph. You need to become skilled at working at speeds right across the range. How quickly you need to read will depend on:
- What you already know about the subject.
- How difficult the text is.
- How thoroughly you need to understand it.
Underlining and highlighting
To be able to make sense of what you are reading, you need to read actively. One method that can help is to use a pen.
Try this
Print out this page and read this paragraph, in a minute you will be asked to identify the main points made in the extract.
It is true that, within any particular society at any particular moment, rich people are on average happier than poorer ones. For example, 41 per cent of people in the top quarter of incomes are 'very happy', compared with only 26 per cent of those in the bottom quarter of incomes. The problem is that, over the years, the proportions in each group who are very happy have not changed at all although the real incomes in each group have risen hugely. This is true of all the main western countries.
Think about this
Did you underline or highlight any words as you read the Layard article? If not, go back over the first three paragraphs and use a biro or a highlighter pen to mark important words. Try not to mark too many words; pick out just enough, so that you still get the main points if you read only those words.
I chose to underline rather than highlight. You can see my underlining below. Does it look anything like yours? Why do you think I used double underlining in several places?
There is no 'correct' way to underline. You may have had excellent reasons for marking quite different words. It depends what your mind focuses on as you read.
To me it seemed that the first sentence was telling me that the paragraph was about happiness in a society, rather than the happiness of individuals, so I double-underlined 'within' and 'society'. The focus of the paragraph then stood out clearly. I also underlined 'any' to remind me that we were not just talking about the UK. I then tried to pick out words that I would be able to read more or less as abbreviated sentences. Here are all the words I underlined:
Within any society - rich happier than poorer - 41 per cent top quarter very happy - 26 per cent bottom. Over years proportions not changed - though real incomes risen hugely - all western countries.
On reaching the end of the paragraph I decided that the main point was about the proportions of happy people not having changed, so I double-underlined those words.
Now when I look at the paragraph, its meaning seems to come out to meet me halfway. The thinking I did while reading is visible to me in the underlining, and I quickly connect back to those thoughts when I read the underlined words. If that doesn't work, I can go back to the original words.
We all work differently. Some people prefer to highlight rather than underline, because they feel it looks nicer and has a less intrusive effect. Experiment with different approaches to find out what works for you.
To find out more about active reading go to What is Active Reading?