Re-Read, Review, & Summarize
Reviewing, elaborating, and summarizing will help when you need to read deeply.
Re-read. Remember that you may choose to re-read, and that re-reading is a normal part of the process for most scholars. You may have questions that you still want answered, you may want to re-read to critique an argument after you have understood it, or you may want to re-read so that you can highlight the main ideas (remember: don't do that the first time you read!) and create an outline you can refer to quickly later. The important thing is to think strategically: not everything needs to be re-read, and you should know why you are choosing to re-read now.
Review your thinking. If you pre-read the material, review your initial notes to see how the text met (or did not meet) your own expectations, answered (or did not answer) your questions, or addressed any concerns you expressed before you started the line-by-line reading. Try to both understand the author's argument and to critique it.
Review your notes. Your notes can be useful to study for exams, to use when you are writing about what you read, or even to help you decide whether to re-read again. If you review your notes, you may also see questions you still need answered or areas where you need to clarify your notes so they will be useful to you later. "Activity Six: Double-Entry Note-Taking" demonstrates a note-taking technique that allows you to revise your notes, talk back to the text, and start thinking strategically about using what you have read.
Recite and elaborate. One of the best ways to make sure that you understood and can remember what you read is to try and explain it to someone else, either out loud or in writing. You may want to form reading groups with your peers in the courseroom. You can work through questions about the reading together, constructing understanding and answering questions as a group. You can also recite and elaborate with the help of a tutor. Tutors are trained to ask questions about your reading, even when they haven't read the text themselves.
Summarize or Paraphrase
Note that most of these strategies require that you are able to summarize or paraphrase what you have read. If you can't put it in your own words, then you may not have understood it. So summarizing and paraphrasing are two important ways to monitor your own comprehension. Remember that monitoring your comprehension is a part of metacognition, a habit that has been shown to rapidly improve your reading. For more information about paraphrasing and summarizing, visit the Academic Honesty module or view this pdf.
