What Strategies Can I Use to Read Actively?
Once you’ve thought about your writing situation and the writing situations that shaped your sources, you’re ready to start reading actively. Reading actively means interacting with sources and considering them in light of the conversation you’ve decided to join. When you read actively, you might do one or more of the following:
- skim the source to get a general sense of what it’s about
- write questions in the margins
- jot down your reactions
- identify key information, ideas, and arguments
- note how you might use information, ideas, and arguments in your document
- visually link one part of the source to another
- identify important passages for later rereading
To read actively, focus on three strategies: skimming, marking and annotating, and examining sources closely.
How to skim a print document