Reading for a Purpose

Why am I reading?

Knowing why you are reading and what you hope to get out of your reading matters when you’re choosing reading strategies and tips. When you are reading for pleasure and enjoyment, knowing your “purpose” isn’t as important, but to get the most out of the reading you do in university coursework, it helps to identify your purpose.

Here are some examples of different purposes for course-based reading (and often you’ll find more than one of these are applicable):

To gain a broad understanding of subject
To learn specific concepts
To prepare to participate in a class discussion
To create a study guide for exam review
To explore perspectives which inform your essay or paper
To gather evidence or support related to an argument

You can also use your textbook to quiz yourself on concepts, do practice problems, and in some cases, just read for fun, but let’s focus on the purposes above.

Student sitting outside reading a book and smiling

Reading to understand

When reading to understand, pay attention to whether the content makes sense to you, and pause periodically to summarize the information in your own words. If you don’t understand, read it again and try to focus on the meaning. If you still don’t understand, note the area as a question to get clarity on from classmates or the instructor.

Reading to learn specific concepts

When you want to learn specific concepts, start by identifying the key concepts. In some texts, key concepts are bold or italicized words and section headers. Read the specific section and then think about the concept in relation to others – how is it similar or different from other information in the section? How does it connect to the broader subject or connect to things you’ve already learned about? Highlight or underline the concepts you want to learn, and jot down the concept in your own words in the margins or your notes.

Student at home on their laptop taking notes

Reading to participate in class discussion

To prepare to participate in a class discussion, read to understand the main ideas of the reading. In addition, identify questions you have about any sections, writing your questions in the margins of the text or in your notes. Think about how this reading connects to previous readings or discussions. Pay attention to how you feel about any arguments made – do you agree or disagree? Take note of your thoughts. Highlight key quotations that captured your attention or that you thought were compelling so you can find them again during discussion.

Reading to create a study guide for exam review

To create a study guide for exam review, begin by identifying the type of material you’ll need to know for your exam – whether that’s vocabulary, concepts, problems, or other types of information – and focus your efforts on those elements of the reading. If you’re unsure of what to focus on, ask your instructor. Take notes in the format you’ll use to review – whether that’s Quizlet, or notecards, or a set of notes on your computer – and enter information into that format as you read to avoid doing the work twice. Turn headings into questions. Use the text to form answers to the questions, then note the question and the answer in your study guide. You may get ideas for what to include from a review section at the end of the chapter.

Reading to explore perspectives that inform essays

To explore perspectives that inform an essay or paper, start with exploratory reading. Think about the perspectives you find, the validity of the evidence, and what you may way to argue. You might choose to take some general notes, but at this point you’re thinking about the range of perspectives on a topic, so your critical thinking questions are most important: What are the range of perspectives on this issue? Why do perspectives vary? What key arguments are being made? What evidence is used to support these arguments?

Reading to support an argument

To gather evidence, you’ll need to evaluate different readings with your paper’s goal or argument in mind: Is the source/reading relevant, specific, current or timely? Think about what will work best based on the assignment parameters and your purpose. As you read, highlight the passages that are particularly well-said that you might later quote or summarize. As you research and read, take note of your citations; it’s easier to gather that information along the way than find it again later.

Talk to your instructor

Finally, one of the best ways to align your approach to reading with the course expectations is to talk to your instructor. You can use email or office hours, but consider sharing with them how you’ve been approaching the course reading and ask if they have any recommendations for how to adapt that strategy to be more effective.