- Current section: Introduction
- Learning outcomes
- 1 Reading and note taking
- 2 Purposeful reading
- 3 Strange words, long sentences and lost meanings
- 4 Taking the point: identifying key ideas
- 5 Keeping it short: jottings, abbreviations and symbols
- 6 Extracting a summary
- 7 Reading and thinking
- 8. Making the ideas your own
- References
- Acknowledgements
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Reading and note taking - preparation for study
Reading and note taking are two essential study skills. How do you...
Reading and note taking are two essential study skills. How do you read? This unit will introduce you to different techniques to help you to alter the way you read according to the type of material you are studying. You will also learn the techniques behind successful note taking and how to apply them to your own notes.
After studying this unit you should be able to:
- recognise some of the skills which are particularly associated with the way social scientists work;
- describe some basic techniques relating to reading, for example, highlighting, note-taking and the processing;
- write in your own words using references and quoting sources.
- Duration: 12 hours
- Published on: Monday 18th July 2011
- Level: Introductory
- Posted under: Sociology
Contents
Reading and note taking - preparation for study
Introduction

This unit is about the very basic study skills of reading and taking notes. You will be asked to think about how you currently read and then be introduced to a some techniques that may help you to alter the way you read according to the material you are studying. In the second section you will be asked to look at some useful techniques for note taking and how you may apply them to the notes you make.
This material is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Introducing the social sciences (DD100 and DD121) which is no longer taught by The Open University. If you want to study formally with us, you may wish to explore other courses we offer in this subject area [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .
Archive content
This is an extract from an Open University course which is no longer available to new students. If you found this interesting you could explore more free Sociology course units or view the range of currently available OU Sociology courses.
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- Creative-Commons: The Open University is proud to release this free course under a Creative Commons licence. However, any third-party materials featured within it are used with permission and are not ours to give away. These materials are not subject to the Creative Commons licence. See terms and conditions. Full details can be found in the Acknowledgements section.
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