work efficiently with your recommended literature

 

Can you orientate yourself in a text?

How and how many times do your read a text?

Can you understand the substance and context at the first quick reading?

Can you pick the chief ideas from the text and put them down in the form of surveys, charts or pictures?

Can you synthetise the knowledge again?

Can you explain the subject matter in your own words?

(How would I answer the question during an exam?)

 

If we put aside the later revisions of the subject matter, then it is suitable to read the text twice or three times during the first stage of learning.

 

The first reading should be quick but concentrated; it is aimed at gaining a general idea of the subject matter and at finding out whether the text contains what you need to learn.

 

During the second reading you are already deciding what you are going to deal with thoroughly, what is necessary to know in a general way and what can be left out. Sometimes it is not easy to decide, particularly at the beginning of your study. Teacher´s and more experienced colleagues´ comments can be of some help.

 

The third reading should be slow. It serves you to understand the subject matter, to think it over and to remember it. Get your own judgement on the text based on what you already know from lectures and seminars. In doing so, write your notes and excerpts.

The already underlined text in textbooks you have borrowed may be misleading as the person that worked on the text before you could have had a false idea of what is essential in the text.

 

Zielke has elaborated some principles concerning a correct reading technique (Strnad et al., 1989, Zielke, 1988)