How to Read Your Assignments
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College readings assignments are not at all like high school readings assignments, and the higher the course level the more readings you find need to be completed before the next class. Let’s help you get to the TLDR of your assignments.
Journal Articles:
Unless you are needing to read them for a thesis/dissertation, there are really only four sections you need to focus on: Abstract, Introduction, Results, Conclusions. Abstracts will give you a summary of what will be discussed in the article. Read the abstract to see if this paper is appropriate to cite in any of your future classes or homework. The introduction will drop big names and the hypothesis of this paper. If this paper is assigned by the professor, focus on the hypothesis. If you found this paper to support an assignment, focus on the other big names. Look up those names (see the references in the back) to pull as additional resources to cite in your class and homework. Results will indicate if what they did worked or not which typically flows right into conclusions. Conclusions will tell the reader what the author(s) or other researchers what we should look for in the future (like what questions were created or left unanswered we should explore next) or how the results can help us improve what is currently being done.
If you are reading for your thesis/dissertation, you will want to read the abstraction first to see if it would appear to answer the questions that you have – the game with thesis is that it’s a quest of questions. If the article seems appropriate for you then jump straight to the introduction and conclusions. Ask yourself if there is still something left to discover here. Is this important? Will this tell you any news for your research? Does their conclusion seem strong or valid? If this article is still looking good, then go to the methods. Was it qualitative or quantitative? What’s the data based on? Could you repeat their work? Now, look at the results. Is the information presented in an unbiased way? Does their analysis agree with their data? Is their data clear? What do you conclude, and does it differ from the author?
Textbooks:
With textbooks you will want to take notes while you are reading, this way you can condense the book into sections more palatable (and have a study material ready to review without having to reread many chapters a night before a big test). Skim through the assigned pages. Write down any headings or subheadings and leave room to add texts. These headings and subheadings will be sections. Read each section and then after you read, close your book, and write down your notes from memory. Open your book up and skim over the section you just read. Are there any important key points you missed from memory? – Jot those down. You don’t have to read the assigned readings/chapter all in one go. Breaking them off into sections and taking notes in this manner can allow you to break up the assignment into pieces so you can complete in smaller segments – 5 mins here, 15 there. This way you don’t have to spend hours on your nights and weekends (unless you want to) to complete the assignment. When you are going to study, read your notes, and then put your notes away and write a summary of what you read. Breaking that information down even further. We recommend keeping these summaries until you are finished with the course entirely. Some people can even sell these summaries as notes at the end of the term – nothing wrong with selling notes, but a lot of things wrong with selling papers or assignments you wrote. Notes that are especially aesthetic (think bullet journal level) can certainly fetch a nice coin. It may make up the difference for the loss of your textbook purchase when the bookstore only pays a fraction of what it originally cost when it buys it back from you.
We aren’t affiliated with any of these sites, but we hear that they offer a platform where you can sell your notes *cough* and also buy them *cough*:
Campus Shift, Course Hero, GradeBuddy, Nexus Notes, Notesgen, Notesmate, Omega Notes, Oxbridge Notes, Quest Notes, StuDocu
You can also check out your campus Resource Center – some students need a note-taker as an accommodation and the university will often pay peer students taking the same course (even if you are indifferent sections) an hourly or weekly rate.
Literature:
Spark Notes might have been your best friend in High School, but your professors aren’t going to buy into your basic understanding of the plot. They are less likely to forgive you even watch that movie or the tv series based on the book. I mean…they went at least three degrees deep to being a professional book/play reader and now they are teaching a course that requires you to read their selections of readings that fits the theme and learning objectives of this course. This area is probably by far where you can’t cut as many corners. BUT this is probably the area where you get to be more creative in your deliverable. You will be reading to find symbols, contexts, and themes, and anytime you want to show you *did the assignment* you are going to pull from those symbols, contexts, and themes to show you read. Hemmingway can tell you sometimes the sea is the sea. There isn’t any context about it. But your professor *still* might want *something* out of it all.
Also, if you take a freshman English class where the required text is How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. You just won the textbook jackpot on how to read anything in the literature realm moving forward in your college career. If you have an Audible account – it often can be found free (no credits)! I know it seems weird to say “read a book” so you don’t have to read other books, but honestly it’s more Spark Notes on how to hack into your literature professor’s brain.
We hope this has been helpful for you. Do you have any tips on how to make dense readings a little lighter? Let us know in the comments.