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.

writer

may

take

paragraph

to

describe

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
than

to

their

breed.
rural

The

relatives.

result
The

was

that

important

urban
idea

is

sparrows
that

became

protective

darker

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