Pleasure Reading vs. Academic Reading

The beginning of the new school year is almost upon us. So, I thought it might be useful to remind students and colleagues that not all reading is the same.

Reading for pleasure is not the same thing as reading for learning, intellectual development, critical thinking, and/or application. For most folks, pleasure reading is defined by enjoying a plot, identifying the main character or (in the case of non-fiction) learning some cool facts. Pleasure reading rarely entails note-taking or even doing anything with the text other than stacking on a shelf.

Academic or professional reading is different. First off, you need to determine the expertise of the writer, the book's likely audience, and the nature of the book (is it a romance novel or a scholarly treatise?). Next, you need to identify the book's goals, its topic, its main thesis, and its general structure. Once you have a good overview of the book, then you need to evaluate the evidence (how was it collected and evaluated), analyze the writing quality, identify the writer's assumptions, and consider if the evidence and the assumptions support the general conclusion. You also might need to look at how the ideas developed and how the author relies on tradition.

To get the most out of an academic or professional text, most folks need to take notes, highlight key passages, jot down how to apply an idea to an example, note important phrases or quotations, and even identify places where you have questions for the author and/or disagree with him/her. There are a range of academic books and a similar range of goals when reading academic/professional books. You may need to evaluate the idea it presents or apply the idea to future examples or cases. For many humanities classes, evaluating an idea is a key skill. For social science, natural science, and professional courses, much time is spent on learning to apply concepts and skills to the field.

Whether reading a philosophical treatise or textbook on accounting, students will need to "read with a pen" and highlight key parts of the text by putting them in your own words. Increasingly, I am encouraging students to "brief" readings or learn how to summarize them in a page for future use. No matter one's job or profession, one will need to keep updated on the literature and it will be crucial to possess the reading skills to get and apply new concepts and facts. Teachers focus on reading because it is a key way to develop the intellectual, analytical, and critical thinking skills and habits students will need once they leave the university.

The longer I am involved in teaching the more I think that we need to develop a new word to describe academic or professional reading. The lack of specificity makes what we do in education unclear and confuses folks about what we are asking our students to do. Moreover, it breaks the link between reading the kinds of habits of mind we are trying to foster among our students. Academic or professional reading is not the idle passing of eyes over words but engaging in critical and analytical thought.

By differentiating between pleasure and academic/professional reading, students and their professors are more likely to meet their goals this semester.