Academic reading

• Completing reading assignments


  One of the biggest challenges in academia
• Managing reading efficiently


  Improves comprehension and saves time
• Shannon's process


  • Goes to store and walks through every aisle, decides on spaghetti, revisits aisles, reads many packages, needs to go back to store for forgotten ingredients
• Taylor's process


  • Checks recipes, makes a list of ingredients, skims aisles to find ingredients, chooses products that meet his diet
• Taylor's process was more efficient
• Purpose for reading


  Helps decide how to read and improves comprehension
• Factors that affect how well a reader constructs meaning of a text

  • Background knowledge
  • Linguistic competence
  • Motivation for reading
  • Purpose for reading
  • Expectations
  • Reading strategies applied
  • Text structure
• Stages of Reading


  1. Pre-reading

  2. While reading

  3. Post reading
• Pre-reading activities


  • Establish your purpose for reading
  • Speculate about the author's purpose for writing
  • Review what you already know and want to learn about the topic
  • Preview the text to get an overview of its structure
  • Predict the contents of the text and pose questions about it
  • Note any discussion questions that have been provided
• During reading activities


  • Annotate and mark sections of the text
  • Check your predictions and find answers to posed questions
  • Use headings and transition words to identify relationships in the text
  • Create a vocabulary list of unfamiliar words
  • Infer unfamiliar words' meanings
  • Connect the text to what you already know
  • Take breaks
• After reading activities


  • Summarize the text in your own words
  • Talk to someone about the author's ideas
  • Identify and reread difficult parts of the text
  • Define words on your vocabulary list
  • Evaluate the evidence used to support the claims
  • Identify the main claims/ideas
• University course readings advance student knowledge and prepare them for class discussions
• Only 20-30% of students read the assigned materials
• Students who read independently have greater reading comprehension, verbal fluency and general knowledge than those who do not
• They become better readers, score higher on achievement tests in all subject areas, and have greater content knowledge than their non-reading peers
• Academic argument


  Your stance, claim, or take on your topic, based on research and evidence
• Academic argument


  • Not a fight, battle, or negative confrontation
  • Not emotional nor focused on one person's opinion
• Three interdependent elements of arguments

  • Claim (thesis statement)
  • Support (evidence)
  • Warrant (underlying assumption)
• Example 1


  • Claim: The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2001) has led to an increase in high school student drop-out rates
  • Support: Drop-out rates in the US have climbed by 20% since 2001
  • Warrant: (The claim presupposes that) it's a "bad" thing for students to drop out
• Example 2


  • Claim: ADHD has grown by epidemic proportions in the last 10 years
  • Support: In 1999, the number of children diagnosed with ADHD was 2.1 million; in 2009, the number was 3.5 million
  • Warrant: (The claim presupposes that) a diagnosis of ADHD is the same thing as the actual existence of ADHD; it also presupposes that ADHD is a disease
• Three categories of claims

  • Claims of fact
  • Claims of value
  • Claims of policy
• The majority of people believe advertisers should spend more money on billboards, so billboards are objectively the best form of advertisement.
• Fallacy


  Deceptive or false arguments that may seem stronger than they actually are due to psychological persuasion, but are proven wrong with reasoning and further examination
• Most common forms of logical fallacy in academic writing

  • Begging the question (circular reasoning)
  • Hasty generalization
  • Sweeping generalisations
  • Post hoc ergo propter hoc
  • False dilemma
• Formulating effective arguments is a central requirement in academic writing or scientific communication.
• Arguments can fall apart due to faulty connection-making.
• Being attentive to logical fallacies in others' writings will make you a more effective critic and academic writer.
• Being attentive to fallacies in your own writing will help you build more compelling arguments, whether putting together a research report or simply writing a short discussion post on the applications of a particular theory.
• Argument


  A claim that is supported by reasons or evidence
• Argument


  • Different from a statement
  • An author tries to persuade the reader that something is true or correct by presenting supporting reasons or evidence
• Parts of an Argument

  • Issue - problem or controversy about which people disagree
  • Claim - the position on the issue
  • Support - reasons and evidence that the claim is reasonable and should be accepted
  • Refutation - opposing viewpoints
• Persuasion


  The author is trying to convince the reader that a claim is true by giving supporting reasons or evidence
• Claim


  The point of the argument that the author is trying to persuade the reader to accept as true
• Types of Claims


  • Claim of Fact - statement that can be proven or verified
  • Claim of Value - states that one thing or idea is better or more desirable than another
  • Claim of Policy - suggests what should or ought to be done to solve a problem
• Analysis


  Breaking down an argument into its parts and examining them individually and in relation to each other
• Types of Support


  • Reason - a general statement that supports a claim
  • Evidence - facts, statistics, experiences, comparisons, and examples that show why the claim is valid
  • Emotional Appeals - ideas targeted toward needs or values that readers are likely to care about
• Inductive and Deductive Arguments

  • Inductive - reaches a general conclusion from observed specifics
  • Deductive - begins with a major premise and moves toward a more specific statement or minor premise
• Strategies for Reading an Argument

  • What does the title suggest? Preview!
  • Who is the author, and what are his or her qualifications?
  • What is the date of publication?
  • What do I already know about the issue?
  • Think Before You Read
  • Read once for an initial impression
  • Read the argument several more times
  • Annotate as you read
  • Highlight key terms
  • Diagram or map to analyze structure
  • Read Actively
• Strategies for Evaluating Arguments

  • Evaluate Types of Evidence - Is it sufficient to support the claim?
  • Personal Experience - may be biased, so do not accept it
  • Examples - should not be used by themselves
  • Statistics - can be misused, manipulated or misinterpreted
  • Comparisons and Analogies - reliability depends on how closely they correspond to the situation
  • Relevancy and Sufficiency of Evidence - is there enough of the right kind to support the claim?
  • Definition of Terms - should be carefully defined and used consistently
  • Cause-Effect Relationships - evidence that the relationship exists should be present
  • Implied or Stated Value System - are they consistent with your personal value system?
  • Recognizing and Refuting Opposing Viewpoints
  • Unfair Emotional Appeals - Emotionally Charged or Biased Language, False Authority, Association, Appeal to "Common Folk", Ad Hominem, "Join the Crowd" Appeal or Bandwagon
• Errors in Logical Reasoning, commonly called logical fallacies, invalidate the argument or render argument flawed