Critical Reading: Productive Reading

Productive reading

Sometimes you'll need to read quickly. This might be because you don't have much time to read or because you quickly need to decide if an article is going to be useful to you and if it is worth reading in full. In orders to this, try to use some of these techniques:
Use subheadings; you can use these in a similar way that you would a content in a book of chapters if there is a specific part that you're interested in.
Read the abstract and conclusion; see if they lead you to read any other parts. This might also give you a flavour of what the article is about and it might help you to judge if the article is worth reading all the way through.
Look at figures, charts and graphs; see what these tell you. This might give you an insight into the data that was collected or how it was analysed.
Look at bullet points as these are a succinct way of displaying information.
Look for key terms; skim read the document or use your computer to help you through using ‘control f’