Tag: reading

Active reading for social scientists

Melanie RimmerLeave a comment
A young women wearing a black hat sits crosslegged on a leather sofa reading a book.
Photo by Seven Shooter on Unsplash

Guest blog by Dr Alan Sennett, Open University arts and social science tutor.

How many of us have had the experience of reading module materials without really taking anything in?  After a while you become conscious that you are just sitting there staring blankly at the text.  Nothing is sticking.  Or perhaps you are taking notes from the materials but realise you are just rewriting them.  But to what purpose?  You may end up with pages of detailed notes but only a vague notion of their significance for your studies.  Or maybe your study technique is to use coloured highlighters.  You find that you are marking almost everything as relevant.  The short explanation for this is that you have not planned how you are going to read.  You do not have a strategy for actively reading and critically processing text.

Active reading

It is evident that reading for academic purposes is quite different from reading for enjoyment where there are no stakes.  Students need to understand, extract, and evaluate information and arguments for quite specific purposes.  At some point we are going to use some of this material in written assignments.  To read efficiently and effectively, we must first have some sense of what we want to get out of the text.  We must also have techniques for engaging critically with the materials.  Here is one tried and tested method you might find helpful.

When faced with new materials to comprehend, one active reading method is the following:

  1. Skim read the text to get a general sense of the nature of the material.  Possibly read the introduction and conclusion and skim through the unit, chapter, article, or webpage.  But don’t take notes yet.
  2. If you are reading towards an assignment, ask in what ways this text might help.  This means already having a sense of what the assignment is asking you to do. There may be guidance notes. Use them.  Sketch out some questions to ask of the text that relate directly to the one you have been asked.
  3. Now read the text in a more intensive way.  Perhaps in bursts of 15 minutes (set a timer and take breaks).  Don’t take detailed notes yet but you might annotate the text.  I use pencil to make marginal notes on key thinkers, concepts, and theories that relate to the question.  Also mark out some key sections that may be crucial.
  4. Now close the text and write down what you recall, especially the aspects that relate to your purpose (the assignment question).  One variation here is to do this after each 15-minute burst.
  5. Finally, review the text in more detail.  You will probably now see what is most relevant for your purposes.  You may not need to read it all now, just sections.  But what you do read will mean more to you and you can now take more effective notes.  Aim for brevity in note-taking.

After working on ways to read more actively and, hence, effectively, you might want to reflect upon how you can engage more critically with the texts.  The following resources include thoughts on both active and critical reading that you may find helpful.

Some online resources

Critical reading techniques: Active reading | Help Centre | The Open University

https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/undergraduates/resources/resource-library/active-reading-strategies

What Is Critical Reading? A Definition For Learning

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe-writing-centre/critical-reading-and-writing

How to identify themes in a module/chapter/study block, using a form of thematic analysis

Melanie RimmerLeave a comment

This is a useful study activity that gives you an overview of a block of study material such as a chapter or a study week. It’s a critical, analytical approach to identifying overarching, cross-cutting themes. It will help your deeper understanding of the material you are studying. It can help your reading by focusing your intention on the important recurring ideas and avoid getting lost in the nitty-gritty details. It can help your note-taking, for example you can use the themes as the basis for a mind map or a table. It can help your essay writing by identifying the big picture, and practising the skill of spotting how disparate parts of the module can all relate to the same question. I’ll use Block 2 of the Open University module E232: Exploring Childhood and Youth as an example, but you can use this process on other texts.

First, I cut-and-pasted the Learning Outcomes from the first page of each study week into a document.

Week 8: Space, Place, and Belonging • understand the concepts of ‘space’ and ‘place’ • understand how children make places • consider different ways that children’s geographies can be researched • consider the concept of ‘belonging’ • consider the impact of migration on children and young people’s lives. Week 9: Everyday violence in everyday spaces • recognise the importance of space in children and young people’s lives • critically discuss the idea of everyday violence and its impact on children’s lives in Bangladesh, the UK and elsewhere • critically analyse the idea of children ‘out of place’ • interrogate different understandings and images of children and young people who live or work on the street • explore the links between everyday places and everyday experiences of violence. Week 10 (current week): The politics of play • understand some of the key issues and ideas that surround the concept of play • be able to explain a variety of theoretical lenses which can support a critical examination of play issues for children and young people • be able to critically analyse your own thinking and assumptions about play • have developed an understanding of children and young people’s rights regarding play. Week 11: Critical perspectives on schooling • understand a variety of different perspectives on schooling • appreciate the difference between formal learning and informal learning • understand the concept and importance of ‘children’s voice’ and the role it plays in contemporary education settings in the UK • be able to critically discuss schooling as a diverse practice which is potentially transformational for many children and young people and yet challenging and oppressive for others.

Next, I looked for words, phrases, or ideas (i.e. themes) that occurred in more than one study week. The first one I noticed was “space and/or place”. I highlighted every sentence that included one of those words. I chose green for this theme.

The same text as before, but certain phrases are highlighted in green ie. • understand the concepts of ‘space’ and ‘place’ • understand how children make places • recognise the importance of space in children and young people’s lives • critically analyse the idea of children ‘out of place’ • explore the links between everyday places and everyday experiences of violence.

Then I looked for more recurring words, phrases, or ideas i.e. themes. I gave each theme its own colour. Some sentences contained more than one theme. Because I know that all of these sentences have been identified as important by members of the course team, I made sure every sentence was coded with at least one theme.

The same text as before, but now every bullet point is highlighted in a variety of colours. E.g. the following phrases are highlighted in pink: • consider the impact of migration on children and young people’s lives. • critically discuss the idea of everyday violence and its impact on children’s lives in Bangladesh, the UK and elsewhere • have developed an understanding of children and young people’s rights regarding play. • understand the concept and importance of ‘children’s voice’ and the role it plays in contemporary education settings in the UK

Finally, I made a list of each theme and associated ideas, drawn only from the text of the learning outcomes

This text highlighted in green "Space/place, places are made, importance to children’s lives, being in and out of place, links between places and violence" This text highlighted in dark blue: "Children as active agents, children’s voices, the diversity of children’s experiences" This text highlighted in red: "Critical thinking" This text highlighted in light blue: "Research, methods, theoretical lenses" This text highlighted in pink: "Applications, migration, rights, pedagogical practices"

This isn’t the only possible set of themes that can be identified from this list of learning outcomes. Different people doing the same analysis will probably identify different themes. That’s OK. There may be other important themes in the learning material that aren’t mentioned in the learning outcomes. The point of this process is to identify some themes, not to identify the themes. This is because there isn’t one true and correct answer to “what are the themes in this study block”?

If this article didn’t answer your question, click here

Writing In Your Own Words

Melanie Rimmer1 Comment
Close up photo of a page of handwritten writing, with the tip of a ballpoint pen and a glimpse of fingers holding it, in the process of writing. The writing is upside down and not meant to be read but appears to be in German.
“diary writing” by Fredrik Rubensson is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

It’s normal to find writing in your own words hard at first. One thing that makes it much harder is when you read one sentence from the textbook, and then try to put that sentence in your own words, and then you read another sentence from the textbook and try to put that into your own words. It’s almost impossible to do that without just paraphrasing, which is a form of plagiarism. What you should do instead is to read a whole paragraph or section of the textbook and then close the textbook and try to explain the key ideas from that section in your own words. When I say “in your own words” I mean in the way you normally talk. You could use a voice recorder app on your phone to record yourself while you explain in words what you just read. Don’t try to sound “academic”, just use your normal way of talking as though you were describing something to a friend. It might sound something like this:

“Ummm, so there was this guy Booth and he did some research in London and he went round people’s houses in every street and made notes about who was living there and their ages and occupations. And he also made some notes about their ummmm I guess, like, their social class or status. And they seemed sort of judgmental calling people some people dirty  and vicious and other people he called respectable. And he coloured in a map with different colours for the different social classes so you can see where the rich people lived and where the poor people lived. It’s important because, erm,  because he was sort of inventing social science, how to do social science”

Then you can write that up into notes, tidying it up a little bit (removing the umms and errs for example) and maybe looking up the odd important detail, such as Booth’s first name and the date:

“Charles Booth did some research in London between 1886 and 1903. He went round people’s houses in every street and made notes about who was living there and their ages and occupations. He also made notes about their social class or status. These notes were sometimes judgmental, for example he called some people dirty  and vicious, and other people he described as respectable. Booth used these notes to make a map with different colours for the different social classes. The map made it so you can see where the rich people lived and where the poor people lived. Booth’s work was important because he was inventing how to do social science. (Book 1, Chapter 1, pages 9-11)”

Now those are your notes, written up in your own words. None of these sentences are the same as the sentences in the textbook. It’s all your words.

When it comes to writing an assignment, you should use your notes as the primary resource and only refer to the textbook for references and to pick up additional details. For example if you were answering a question such as “How does social science differ from other ways of investigating social life, for example journalism or art?” and you wanted to write a paragraph about Booth you might write something like:

“One way that social science differs from other ways of investigating social life is that it attempts to be systematic. For example, one of the first systematic studies of social life in London was a survey done by Charles Booth between 1886 and 1903 (Blakeley and Staples, 2014). By visiting the houses in every street and making notes about who was living there and their social status, Booth produced a colour coded map of the city which showed where the rich people lived and where the poor people lived. This differs from a journalist or an artist because they might only talk to a few people and ask them different questions each time. But Booth visited every house and collected data about the same things in each one i.e. he was systematic. In some ways though Booth’s research was more like journalism or art because he also made moral judgements about people. For example he called some people dirty  and vicious, and other people he described as respectable. Modern social scientists are supposed to avoid making moral judgments like this.”

After some practice you’ll be able to skip the voice recording part and write notes in your own words after reading a paragraph or section.

Step by step guide to writing in your own words

  • DON’T read a sentence from your textbook then try to write that sentence in your own words.
  • DO read a whole paragraph or section of your textbook at a time
  • THEN close your textbook and record yourself explaining the main points of that section in your own words
  • WRITE UP your spoken notes, tidying up the “umms” and “errs” and adding in important details checked from the textbook
  • BASE YOUR ESSAY mainly on your notes, using your textbook for additional details

If this article didn’t answer your question, click here

Related articles

Tease Apart a Quotation Free Download