READING FOR A PURPOSE

Many students, when they sit down to study, just read. They dont think about the special
purpose for which they are reading. The result is that they read everythinghe comic
pages, literature, history, chemistry, and political sciencen the same way. But there are
almost as many different ways to read as there are things to read. How you read should
depend upon your purpose at the moment. That is mainly what the next few pages are
about.

Skimming
One aim in reading is to find out what something is about. You may want to know
what kinds of things are in a particular book, or if something you are interested in is
mentioned, or if what the book discusses is something you already know. The way to find
out is to skim. There are several ways to skim. One is to look for signposts. That is easy
to do in most textbooks and technical books because the headings do most of the work
for you. You can leaf through a chapter and get a good idea of what its about by just
looking at the headings and subheadings. Another way to skim, particularly in books that
dont have headings, is to look at the first sentence of each paragraph. Chances are that
the first sentence contains the main idea of the paragraph. On the same principle, you
may want to read the opening paragraph of each chapter or section. A third way to skim
is to run your eyes over the page looking for key words. In many textbooks, key words
are
already highlighted in some way. Skimming is a first step in studying. Because it is so
important, we have more to say about it later in this chapter and in other chapters.
Getting the Main Idea
Sometimes we read just to get the main idea. Busy professional people do that, and
it is a good thing to learn how to do. Often the whole purpose in reading is just to get the
main idea and then use your own background of knowledge to pick up the details.
Reading for the main idea is what you do in the first stage of study, as part of your
survey; it is the last thing you do when you review.
How do you find the main idea? This depends upon what level of a book you are
looking at. There are main ideas for entire chapters, sections, subsections, and

paragraphs. Paragraphs are the smallest unit, and we start with

them. The usual definition of a paragraph, as a matter of fact, is that it is a section of
prose that contains a single topic. Ideally, everything in the paragraph centers around
that single topic (this doesnt always happen, you will understand, because even the best
writers are not always alert). Incidentally, one of the ways you can help organize your
own writing is to look for both main ideas and sloppy writing in what you read. We have
more to say about that in Chapter 7. Learning to identify the main or topical idea in
reading will help you with your own writing also. In most writing courses you are told to
begin a paragraph with a topic sentence, then explain it, illustrate it, support it with
additional information, and finally wind it up with a summary statement or a transition to
the next paragraph. That is good advice. However, it is not always practical or desirable
to have the first sentence contain the topical information. Sometimes a transition
sentence comes first. A transition sentence shows the connection between one
paragraph and the next, and, depending on the wishes and intentions of the author, it
might be the first or the last sentence of the paragraph. (The last paragraph shows a
transition sentence as the last sentence, and this paragraph shows a topical sentence as
the first sentence. You can see how the transition sentence might very well have been
the first sentence of this paragraph.)
Sometimes authors cant give you the main idea first. A common practice in
textbooks is to illustrate a principle with an example or an analogy. This ties a new idea
into something that the reader already knows. Keep in mind that the main idea is the
principle and not the example or analogy. Because locating the main idea is not always
easy, we provide an example from a textbook on economics on page 58. In this
example, it should be clear that the main idea is not always given as a complete
sentence; sentences frequently contain more than one idea. The main idea is likely to be
in the
main clause of the sentence. You usually can boil that clause down to a few words. To
see what we mean, pick up one of your textbooks and find some sentences with main
ideas. Try throwing away the modifiers, keeping only the simple subject and the essential
words in the predicate. The chances are you will have the main idea. (If you dont know
what modifiers, simple subjects, and predicates are, you are in trouble. You need some
help in English Grammar. Sometimes, however, modifiers are important to the main idea
of a topic sentence. For example, if you throw away the adjective in the sentence Even
tame lions bite, you will miss the point of the sentence. On the other hand, if you read,

The person who reads rapidly, scanning each line in the fewest number of glances and
not stopping to daydream, is typically the person who learns a great deal in a short
period of time, you can eliminate most of the words, translate them, and come up with,
The fast reader is usually a fast learner as the main idea. You may also find
paragraphs in which the main idea is not expressed at all. That doesnt happen very
often in textbooks, but it does in literature, and particularly in fiction. A writer may take a
paragraph to describe a house.
The purpose, however, is not to tell you about the house, but the description will tell
you about the people in the house. From the description you may know, for example,
that they are old, fussy, and aloof. You need to be alert to these kinds of things in reading
imaginative literature. Incidentally, almost nothing you read is complete in itself. Most
writers dont tell you everything essential about a subject. A writer who did so would bore
you beyond endurance. Every writer takes it for granted that you know certain things
alreadyhat you have had certain experiencesnd that you can draw the necessary
implications from what you read. If you dont understand something you read, it may be
because you dont already know some.
Extracting Important Details
Frequently, students think that an instructor maliciously looks for unimportant or
trivial details to use on examination questions. Most likely the reason for this thought is
not the mean spirit of the instructor, but rather the students inability to spot important
details in the reading. Getting the main idea and remembering important details usually
go hand in hand. If you have really grasped the main idea, then you can use it as a kind
of tree on which you can hang the details. For example, if your history book tells you
that, The Congress of Vienna was a triumph of reaction, then you will be able to
remember all sorts of important detailshe restoration of the balance of power, the
elimination of republican governments everywhere, and the attempt to reestablish old
values and systems.
What is an important detail? It is often nothing more than an illustration of a general
principle. This happens regularly in science texts. For example, a biology book may tell
you that the sparrows in urban centers in England in the nineteenth century were darker
and grayer than sparrows in the country. The text then goes on to tell you that this is an
example of protective coloration and that it illustrates natural selection in action. City

birds lived in an environment of sooty, coal-dust-stained stone rather than in the woods.
The sparrows that were not easily seen by predators (alley cats, for example) survived to
breed. The result was that urban sparrows became darker than their rural relatives. The
important idea is that protective coloration results from natural selection. The sparrows
just provide an example. If you are really onto the technique, you can probably come up
with some examples of your own.
What is important is a matter of judgment, and people dont always agree in their
judgments. But most of the time, particularly in textbooks, which are organized to
present information in an orderly way, it is easy to pick out the main idea and important
details. If you get in the habit of reading in such a way as to identify them without
thinking about it, you will be a superior Reader.
Reading for Pleasure
The more you read because you like to read, the better reader you will become. Some
people read little more than TV Guide, the sports section of the newspaper, and
supermarket tabloids, if that much. We dont mean to knock interest in any of these, but
one of the things a college education should do for you is to expand the list of things you
like to read. Also be aware that you can read for pleasure in all the same ways you read
in order to learn. Some things you will want to read very slowly, even out loud or saying
the words to yourself as you read. Other things you will want to skim. Some things you
wont want to remember after you have finished reading them; others, you will. Some
things you will want to read just for the way in which they are written, others because
they tell you something you want to know. Our point here is that if you learn to like to
read all kinds of things, your college education will have more than paid for itself.

Evaluating What You Read

Another thing that will guide your reading from time to time is evaluation. We hope that
you will read controversial things, new stories, and other things that cant always be
taken at face value. We even hope that you will read things that will offend your beliefs
and values. The important thing is to evaluateo determine why you agree or disagree
with what you read. Even textbooks are sometimes not going to agree with your beliefs
and preconceptions. When you disagree with something, use it as an opportunity to

examine your own beliefs and determine whether or not you want to keep them.
Sometimes you will say a resounding yes, and at other times you may want to change
what you think in certain ways. If you concentrate on evaluation as you read, it will keep
you alert and you
will absorb knowledge more selectively. You will become more skillful at dissecting
arguments. We warn you, though, you wont be satisfied with accepting everything you
read at face value.
Expanding What You Read
One of the really important purposes in reading is to expand or amplify what you read so
that you can apply it to things perhaps not even imagined by the author. Sometimes you
can apply what you read to your own problems. When you read this book, for example,
certain things will apply to the way you do things, and others wont. Are you alert enough
to expand upon things that apply and in so doing make this book more relevant to your
own problems? Once again, this is part of making reading an active and not a passive
Process.
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR READING SKILLS
There are a few things nearly everyone can do to improve reading skills. Some of these
will come naturally as you learn better study habits, for often poor reading is the result of
wandering attention or an inability to organize what you are reading into coherent
knowledge. But there are some specific stepsaside from general improvement in study
skillsthat will improve your reading ability.
Building a Vocabulary
If youre going to make sense out of what you read, youre going to have to enlarge your
vocabulary as the material you read becomes more difficult. In college you are going to
learn about a lot of things that are new to you. It stands to reason that you will acquire
many new words. Many of these will be technical terms from certain disciplines. For
example, if you take economics, you will learn about demand curves and marginal
utility. In psychology you will encounter libido and ganglion. In philosophy you
will be lost unless you grasp the meaning of epistemology, positivism, and natural
law. Furthermore, philosophers will use words you already know, such as materialism
and idealism, in very different and specialized ways. Technical terms aside, you will be

asked to read books that contain words like heuristic, peroration, and reticular.
Knowing the vocabulary is often more than half the battle in the effort to understand what
you read. One of the most obvious signs of a good student is a strong vocabulary. Good
students not only recognize and correctly define more words than do poor students, but
they also discriminate more carefully among the multiple meanings of words. They dont
often have to go back and say, Huh, what was that? To read efficiently, and thus faster,
you should be able to perceive the meanings of words at a glance. You shouldnt have to
stop and think. Paradoxically, one of the ways to help build a good vocabulary is to stop
and look a word up you dont know.
Paying Attention to New Words
Be on the lookout for new words. Whenyou see a new word or encounter one that you
have seen before but which you cant pin down, dont pass it by. Not only is that being
lazy, but its a sure path to poor academic performance. The meaning of a whole
sentence may hang on the new, unfamiliar word. And this may be the sentence with the
main idea.
Using a Dictionary
The most important tool that a college student can have even more important than a
personal computer is a good dictionary. Use it.
1. Do you move your lips or vocalize when you read? Reading aloud is too inefficient
for the modern world. When you move your lips, you are going through exactly the
movements made in reading aloud. There are times, particularly if you are a fast reader,
when you will have to slow down in order to understand something difficult. Then reading
aloud may help. But most of the time it is terribly inefficient. We could go on to say that
moving lips is a bad habit that you ought to break. It is a bad habit all right, but it is a
symptom rather than a cause of poor reading. Simply holding your lips still will not
improve your reading, but if you learn to read better and faster, lip movement will
disappear.
2. Do you read words one by one? Good readers know that some words are more
important than others, and they do not give equal emphasis to each word. Reading
words one by one is, like moving lips, a symptom rather than a cause of poor reading.

People who read word by word have a hard time putting together the words to make
sense out of them. They can understand each word as it comes, but they have no idea
what the words are saying when they are put together in phrases and sentences. Many
people who read this way are likely to write poorly and have a limited understanding of
English grammar. If you think you read this way, you probably need some help from one
of the study, learning, or reading skills centers at your college.
3. Do you often find words that you do not understand or that are unfamiliar to
you in your assigned readings? If so, you need to work on your vocabulary. This is
probably the easiest of reading problems to correct. We discuss some techniques for
helping you to do this later in this chapter.
4. Do you backtrack and find it necessary to reread what you have just read? This
is usually a symptom of inattention. Many times this happens because of fatigue.
Sometimes, though, it happens because you have not learned the technique of putting
ideas together as you read so that they make sense to you.
5. Do you read everything at the same rate and in the same way? Francis Bacon told
us, Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed
and digested. Some things need only be skimmed. Other things such as good stories
can be read as rapidly as possible by a mixture of reading and skimming. Still others
must be read very carefully; you must go through each sentence as if every word were a
mine ready to explode. If you dont adjust your reading rate to the nature and difficulty of