What is "Active" Reading
Mushtaq BilalWhat is active reading and why you shoud do it.
One of the most challenging aspects of academic writing: getting started.
In this post, you will learn how to get started on piece of academic writing be it a seminar paper, a journal article, or a dissertation.
The most important thing about academic writing is that it's a product of reading.
Reading, reading, and then some more reading.
But it's not any ordinary kind of reading — it's active reading.
Some PhD students struggle because they haven't read enough in their field.
On the other end of the spectrum are students who read to avoid writing. This kind of (over)reading can lead to productive procrastination.
You want to stay somewhere in the middle.
One of the best ways of doing it is to read in a manner that it feeds directly into your writing. How?
Start by reading widely in your field/subfield, especially when you're starting out in graduate school. Try to find a canonical text you vibe with.
Once you've figured it out, read the text closely.
Example: of all the texts I read in graduate school, Benedict Anderson's book Imagined Communities is by far my favorite. I read a few pages from the book almost every day while I was writing my dissertation.
The first few times when you read a canonical text, it may not even make much sense to you. That's okay. Keep at it.
Take a notebook. Imagine having a dialogue with the author.
On the right-hand page, write down what the author is saying.
On the left-hand page, write down your impressions and questions: what do you mean by X? I don't understand Y.
Keep reading the same passages over and over. Keep writing your impressions and questions.
This exercise will do two things: both crucial for any type of academic writing:
- It will teach how to read and process academic prose patiently.
- It will also teach you how to give your take on a given work — in writing.
Repeat the process with another text. And then another.
Do this exercise for a week.
At the end of it, you will have written quite a few pages. Now you may not think of it that way, but you've already started writing.