7 Summary

This week you have looked at the types of text that university students need to read and at the most effective reading and note-making strategies.

These are the most important learning points:

• University students need to read books, journals, specialised websites and reference texts.
• Reading academic texts can be difficult and requires a strategic approach.
• It is important to have a reason for reading.
• The most effective strategy consists in reading actively.
• Skimming, scanning and predicting the content of the text are active reading techniques.
• Skimming helps to decide how you want to read a text.
• Underlining words and/or phrases helps you to select and focus on the key points in a text.
• Difficult words can sometimes be guessed from the context.
• Adding notes in the margin and writing brief jottings are useful note-making techniques.
• To remember the content of your readings, it is useful to reorganise your notes using headings, mind maps and tables.

You can now go to Week 2 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .