{"id":1388,"date":"2015-02-16T17:24:59","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T23:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/?p=1388"},"modified":"2016-02-04T15:15:28","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T21:15:28","slug":"do-not-read-all-the-text","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/do-not-read-all-the-text\/","title":{"rendered":"Do not read all the text"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by Katya Rivers<\/p>\n<p>So you are in college, you are having the time of your life, and then Sunday comes around and you have a paper due Tuesday. You haven\u2019t even gotten to the point of opening Word and writing your name and the date. And the worst part is that right next to you is a stack of books, journal articles, and essays that you haven\u2019t even looked at. You estimate the pages of dense reading that await you\u2014well over a thousand\u2014on this gloomy Sunday afternoon. It\u2019s okay. We\u2019ve all been there. You aren\u2019t doomed.<\/p>\n<p>Sure it\u2019s doable to read all of that information, but it\u2019s not necessary! That\u2019s right\u2026you do not need to read all the text. You are saved. The important thing to realize in this situation is that there is a way to get through all of that reading material and write one heck of an essay. Let\u2019s get started.<\/p>\n<p>My Perfect Strategy\u2014from a senior who finally figured it out.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Read the title\u2014Help your mind prepare for what you are about to read and digest.<\/li>\n<li>Read the introduction and\/or summary and the conclusion\u2014Gather the most important points.<\/li>\n<li>Take notice of\u00a0boldface headings and subheadings\u2014This helps create a structure in your thought to organize the information you are\u00a0receiving and absorbing. This will help you deal with the details to come.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure to take full notice of graphics\u2014Charts,\u00a0maps,\u00a0diagrams, pictures, etc. are there to make a point. DO NOT OVERLOOK THEM (take it from someone who\u2019s done it too many times and\u00a0suffered).<\/li>\n<li>Notice\u00a0reading\u00a0\u201cclues\u201d\u2014Italics, bold face, print,\u00a0clearly stated objectives.<\/li>\n<li>Question\u2014Develop your own questions as you read. This is where your\u00a0thoughts begin to connect to the text in front of you, and you begin to form your own\u00a0opinion on the topic or issue. This is also where magic happens, and these questions may become the birth of your thesis.<\/li>\n<li>Always annotate and make notes, highlights, symbols, etc. \u2014This is for future\u00a0reference when you are actually writing your paper. It will help you find and reference your information and quickly\u00a0access major points you related to. This is also your way of contributing to the\u00a0scholarly discussion you\u2019re in college to join.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Remember good writing always starts with good reading. Have fun!<\/p>\n<p><em>Katya Rivers is a senior majoring in religion.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Katya Rivers So you are in college, you are having the time of your life, and then Sunday comes around and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,74,109],"tags":[46,42,76],"class_list":["post-1388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-note-taking","category-reading","category-writeherewritenowwriteon","tag-organization","tag-research","tag-scholarly-articles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5DI6r-mo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1391,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions\/1391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/content.principia.edu\/teaching-excellence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}