1 Critically processing what you read

In Week 1 you learned that it is important to read actively. As part of this strategy you learned that it is useful to ask yourself some questions about the text (Figure 1). This section will help you to look at these questions in detail in order to learn how to critically process information from anything you read.

Figure 1 Asking yourself questions about the text

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An image with a silhouette in the centre of a person holding a book with four speech bubbles surrounding it with the words, ‘Why?’, ‘Is this true?’, ‘How?’, and ‘Do I agree?’.

Figure 1 Asking yourself questions about the text

Processing information is a very important skill for university students to develop. They should not read simply to ‘find out facts’ and absorb the ideas and theories in books. They need to think for themselves and question what they read, as well as weigh up ideas and viewpoints as they read them.