Friday, October 21, 2016
Weekly Post for 10/25
Read Rosenberg's "Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources." Write 3-5 paragraphs summarizing Rosenberg's experience reading scholarly sources and then summarizing your own experiences reading scholarly sources (either overview of past experiences or step-by-step). HOW do you read scholarly sources? HOW much experience have you had? What have been the most difficult/least difficult aspects?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Rosenberg gave a relatable experience about reading scholarly articles. She mentions reading paragraphs without paying attention to it's context. Her mind would start to think about things that do not relate to her readings. She eventually abandoned all hope of majoring in political science. It was only after she graduated that she started to love scholarly articles.
ReplyDeleteThe scholarly articles that we read in English aren't the same scholarly articles I usually read. Due to being a former member of the science research program at my high school, I read a lot of scholarly articles that pertained to research: hardcore, quantitative, p > 100, science articles. I read the introductions first since those usually contain the background of the research topic. Backgrounds are paramount since it frames the reader as to what the article is going to be about and makes the reader critically think. Then, I jump to the abstract since it usually contains the summary of what the researches did, and then I jump to the hypothesis, then the methods, then the results and so on until I reach the bibliography (yes, I do read the references of these articles, because they usually lead to past studies which are helpful if I didn't completely understand the current article). This routine doesn't usually work for rhetorical articles, however, and I find myself bored and uninterested when reading them.
However, that doesn't meant I can't read scholarly articles in an efficient manner. Like Rosenberg stated, read the introduction. It will save you the time, and the frustration of having to understand what the author is talking about. I think of introductions as equivalents of the table of contents in novels. It helps me understand as to what the author is going to talk about.
The most difficult thing about reading rhetorical scholarly articles is the fact that they are so long and sometimes get very bland halfway. I end up skipping to the conclusion of that happens. The least difficult thing would probably be comprehending them.
Rosenberg initially had trouble reading scholarly articles because she constantly found herself getting distracted and her mind drifting off. She hated reading scholarly articles and gave up on majoring in political science. However, her english class still required the readings of them so she crammed herself in the library with highlighters and dictionaries in an effort to make sense of them. It wasn't until after she graduated that she realized the key to reading scholarly articles was in the way you read them, not the time spent doing so.
ReplyDeleteI myself hate reading scholarly articles with a burning flame inside my soul. :) Reading this article, although short, was even a terrible experience. My approach is to see what the questions or objectives of the assignment given are and try to point out where in a reading the answers are. I usually skim read the first, middle, and last sentences of each paragraph to get the gist of a reading instead of reading it out word for word.
I've read many scholarly articles in the past, but only on topics I was interested in. I find it difficult to read textbooks without highlighting or jotting down notes because seeing an extensive amount of words overwhelms me and I tend to skip over many lines. I have no trouble reading scholarly articles that are interesting or provide relatable examples, however if it's a topic I have no interest in whatsoever I usually will just skim through.
ReplyDeleteRosenberg’s experience with scholarly articles began in undergraduate school. She would curl up on the sofa and attempt to read her article as though she were reading a great romance novel, and then wonder why she was falling asleep in the first couple of seconds of doing so. Or why her mind would drift off and she would begin thinking about a cute guy in her class. When she went to graduate school, she no longer had the time to spend aimlessly reading the articles that she was given, so she learned how to, as she puts it: “read smarter, not harder”. Then she goes on to describe her formula for doing so.
I definitely do the same thing. I will try to read and understand what an article is talking about as though it is an article from a magazine or an excerpt from a novel. I will sit with my dictionary out and my Google-search-engine ready to go and feel the need to figure out everything that the writer is saying. And, my idea of “doing homework” and “being prepared for class” is taking as much time as I need to do this. (Argh!) So, this whole concept for reading “smarter” is definitely up my alley.
Also, a favorite reminder I got out of this reading is the one about communicating to people and remembering that every teacher assigns their readings with a purpose. Therefore, it’s so true that figuring out the purpose and knowing how it will play out in that class (for exams, reports, general knowledge, etc.) is the key to success!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete"Read smarter, not harder" is a nice way to summarize what Rosenberg is trying to teach. Despite loving to read, Rosenberg struggled with academic articles much like most people. She would find herself lost and asking herself what she had just read or loss focus and interest entirely. It was not until she graduated when she learned to like reading scholarly articles.
I share the same opinion with the past Rosenberg and also don't think that it will ever change. In my past experience, scholarly articles where always finished as quickly as possible. I dreaded having to reread something and this happened a lot because I didn't understand the language that was spoken. Many times, like how Rosenberg said, the author writes with already assumed knowledge. It was never interesting mainly because the reading would be assigned and not have any interest to me.
I find that some of the strategies that Rosenberg gives are used subconsciously. Such as asking what is the purpose of this reading, viewing the introduction as an important piece and reading the title and section headings. But even after reading this article, I feel that reading a scholarly article will never interest me mostly if it is not interesting to me.
Rosenberg shared with her readers that not until her seventh year of college, in graduate school, did she finally learn to read smarter. As my colleague, Jeff, said reading smarter, not harder is the essential idea Rosenberg addresses. She ended up liking to read these heavily dense scholarly articles, she compared it to the process of sucking marrow from the texts.
ReplyDeleteHowever when I read scholarly articles, It's nothing like the glorious idea of sucking marrow straight from the bones of the text (yucky). Rosenberg describes my feelings with "...if they send you into slumber, or you avoid them, or they seem to take you way too long...,". With scholarly articles I tend to gradually but unnoticeably close my eye lids and end up asleep. So to solve that problem of mine, I would read at a faster pace to try and get the reading over with.
In my opinion, Rosenberg points out many key points that some people may skim through or skip. For example she stresses the importance on the title, the introduction, the section headings, and the conclusion as they can help with grasping the main argument. Rosenberg says that if the introduction was written proficiently, it will not only summarize the whole piece, present the main idea, and tell us why we should care, but it will also often offer a road map for the rest of the article. "Figuring out the main argument is the key to reading the text effectively and efficiently."
I personally may find difficulty in grasping the main argument, sometimes authors would shield their ideas with a bombardment of fancy shmancy vocabulary. I felt a similarity to Rosenberg where you must be "armed with a dictionary". Like my colleague Jeff stated "authors write with already assumed knowledge"
In Read Rosenberg's "Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources." Rosenberg shows her experience with reading articles, though being an avid lover of novels, articles bore her. This can be shown by Rosenberg's attempt to trick her thinking it is a great novel. Through trail and error Rosenberg manage to discover that not only does traditional ways like cramming don't work, but there is a much more efficient way which she formulated after graduating.
ReplyDeleteI can relate as I'm also not a fan of scholarly articles, the reason might be the fact that I treat it as something I am force to read unlike novels where I tend to read catering to what I know I like. Not to mention articles that are required tend to not cater on the reader's interest instead focusing on giving tons of information.
Even though the strategies does make you better at reading it still doesn't make me interested in the article and I would most likely get distracted the same way. My reasoning falls on the articles itself, there should be a balance between information and drawing the reader in with trends or jokes. Even if i'm better at reading the article I would never read it if its not required meaning the authors would not gain an audience.
In Read Rosenberg's "Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources." Rosenberg shows her experience with reading articles, though being an avid lover of novels, articles bore her. This can be shown by Rosenberg's attempt to trick her thinking it is a great novel. Through trail and error Rosenberg manage to discover that not only does traditional ways like cramming don't work, but there is a much more efficient way which she formulated after graduating.
ReplyDeleteI can relate as I'm also not a fan of scholarly articles, the reason might be the fact that I treat it as something I am force to read unlike novels where I tend to read catering to what I know I like. Not to mention articles that are required tend to not cater on the reader's interest instead focusing on giving tons of information.
Even though the strategies does make you better at reading it still doesn't make me interested in the article and I would most likely get distracted the same way. My reasoning falls on the articles itself, there should be a balance between information and drawing the reader in with trends or jokes. Even if i'm better at reading the article I would never read it if its not required meaning the authors would not gain an audience.
Rosenberg like any other college student found difficulty in her readings. As she progressed through her readings she found herself getting distracted, and her mind swayed. In her eyes, the way one reads an article is paramount in understanding the article itself. She mentions a couple of key aspects of articles that may be useful.
ReplyDeleteIn a scholarly article the reading may position itself in a structured or skeletal form. Many parts of the article such as the Abstract may give insight into the main ideas, discourses, and the general summary of the article at hand. Considering the title can also be an important tool for a reader. In Rosenberg’s opinion the title can give insight into the subject matter at hand and the methodology of the author. The most important part of the article is the body paragraphs. Rosenberg explains that the body paragraphs can show readers the information that supports the thesis mentioned in the introduction. The key to all of this however, is figuring out the main idea. If you figure out the main idea of a work you can understand the work as a whole while structuring the article in a more understanding fashion.
When I read scholarly articles I tend to try and find the thesis of the article first. Like Rosenberg mentioned this helps to understand the article as a whole. From there I read the article like any other while attempting to locate the best points made that help support the thesis. Being in the Classics Institute has helped me understand scholarly articles better but I still struggle when I first read an article. The most difficult aspects of a reading is to read through a article that I find very boring.
Rosenberg like any other typical college student found it hard to read scholarly articles without falling asleep or her mind drifting apart. Throughout time she learned the hard way how to properly read articles. Through this she found mechanisms or ways to read articles that benefited her. In her article she is giving advice to other college students. She lets them be aware that they aren’t alone in the struggle to read scholarly articles. Rosenberg breaks the article into pieces and analyzes them and then finally she would bring all her information together to form a conclusion to what the main argument is about.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to Rosenberg when she was in college, I am not a fan of scholarly articles. I find them exhausting to read with the large terminology and various amounts of concepts that we need to know before reading the article. As Rosenberg stated in her article, academic articles aren’t intended for students like me but for other academics but that doesn’t mean that wouldn’t be able to read the article myself. Except that means that i would need to put double the work to fully comprehend what I’m reading.
Some concepts that Rosenberg stated in her article I use. I tend to skim quickly through the article and find key words or any words hatstand out. I look at the headings before reading to get a sense of what I’m going to read. Then i read the introduction thoroughly and try to make sense of what is going to be spoken about in the article. When reading I tend to annotate the key words and concepts that were mentioned in the introduction then at the end when I finish reading, i try and use what i underlined to formulate the main argument. I believe that with time, like Rosenberg, I will become proficient in reading scholarly articles.
In the beginning, Rosenberg’s experience with scholarly articles was similar to the experience most people have when first being told to read them. Rosenberg found it hard at first to analyze a piece of academic writing when she was used to reading casually and only reading stories for classwork. Rosenberg realized the reading of academic articles is very different from the reading of novels because the content is not written to be read by nonprofessionals in the field. Rosenberg experienced a problem most people have when it comes to academic sources and because of that, she had to figure out her own way to go about reading them.
ReplyDeleteRosenberg realized that in order to read an academic article you need to break it down into pieces. Breaking down articles is necessary because they are written for members of the field to read so you need to remove the academic language and just read the information. Each section of an academic piece contains different and useful information as Rosenberg discovered and each section needs to be looked at thoroughly. Rosenberg grew talented at doing this because it is seething you pick up through practice academic reading is a challenging thing and one that needs to be practiced constantly.
The way I have learned to read academic articles is slightly different from the method described by Rosenberg despite sharing some similarities. When searching for an academic article I never read the entire article first, I have grown to acknowledge the usefulness of the article’s abstract. The abstract is basically just the article minus the actual findings, it is summarized version that helps us find articles that work with our topic. Once I’ve found articles that work I do something a little different than Rosenberg; I read the article once through and after that I look through it again only this time I take any passages that look useful and I copy and paste them into a separate document. By removing the article form the surrounding information I am able to analyze that and that alone giving me a better understanding of the information and the article as a whole.
It's not difficult to relate to this article in every possible way. Scratch that, you have to relate in every way as an undergraduate student. I've also find myself reading the long scholarly articles and thinking to myself, "Is dinner ready yet?" or "Why are the Knicks so bad?" It's just the worst part of being a college student: low attention span.
ReplyDeleteI tend to just not read scholarly articles (sorry Megan), but on the occasions that I do, I break them down paragraph by paragraph. With that being said, I don't have much experience with them, but the ones I have read have absolutely given me headaches, every time, this one included. Anyways, I find that this is the easiest way as sometimes two paragraphs nowhere near each other relate. You have to kind of just take it all one step at a time because one thing that does not work in a dense article is skimming. Skimming is a favorite among college students, but the issue with this is that it's not a novel or a short story so all information is important. By breaking down an scholarly paper paragraph by paragraph, you put yourself in control of the information so it's a lot easier to process, dissect, and use to your own benefit.
The hardest part I find when reading these articles is focus. It's nearly impossible for me to focus on something I don't enjoy reading, especially when it's required. Another difficult thing to do is take it slow as just like everyone else, I like to skim. The least difficult thing to do is analysis as I understand the confines of an article after a few paragraphs.
Rosenberg experience with the reading sources starts off by explaining how whenever she is reading scholarly articles, her mind would constantly be at a different place. Rosenberg explains how she would always seem to get distracted and wouldn't be able to focus on the main details on the article itself.
ReplyDeleteRosenberg further explains how you can actually focus on these sorts of articles. For instance, she breaks down the articles into sections/parts and is able to analyze each section and decides on the main purpose of the article.
Rosenberg further mentions how reading the scholars article or quickly skimming through it won't help you understand the focus of the article, so breaking it down into sections and forming a conclusion would be smart idea.
I can relate to Rosenberg in many ways because I dislike reading articles myself. Ive always had difficult times comprehending these articles and knowing what was the exact purpose on reading them. Quite honestly, I find them to be a waste of time and energy.
The hardest part I find reading these articles is definitely the use of complex vocabulary words and understanding the focus of the article. I am extremely bad at vocabulary words and especially in these articles they use even more complex vocabulary . I find it to be honestly very annoying and very energy consuming to find the definition of many words.
Overall, Skimming through a scholarly article is definitely not a good idea and believe me, you won't understand a single thing. So Like Rosenberg mentioned, it is smarter and way better off breaking down the articles into sections and analyze.