It is important that you consider reading at university as a process, you plan, critique the reading and summarise the content of readings along with your new knowledge gained from reading to make sense of the topic.

Why not search for synonyms for key words in your question to ensure that your searching and reading is relevant and that you aren't spending time reading and collecting irrelevant information. 

Discover about being selective with your sources in the video below:

Reading critically means questioning arguments, ideas and evidence, and comparing them with other sources, and any research data you have collated yourself.

Discover more about beginning to research your assignment in the video below:

Work through this useful online tutorial to help you with your academic reading

When reading a text, you need to start with some descriptive questions that will give you a general overview of what the text is about. You then need to ask more analytical and evaluative questions to help you engage critically with what you are reading.

“Don't believe everything you read on the Internet just because there's a picture with a quote next to it.”

— Abraham Lincoln

When reading you need to ensure that you are reading critically, differently to the way you would read a book for pleasure.  The presentation and quiz questions below are intended to help you to understand how to read and understand academic journal articles. 

Why not summarise your reading to someone else? Ideally a person who does not have prior understanding of your topic area. This will highlight your understanding, help with paraphrasing and understanding of what you need to work on. 

Reading is one of the main ways you will gain knowledge and deeper understanding of your subject. When you read for university you identify different expert viewpoints.  You can draw on theories, ideas, expert knowledge that you’ve read in class activities and later when completing your assignments.

This can seem like a challenge at first – especially if you’re not usually a big reader.  It can be really manageable if you are selective about what you read, use active reading techniques and manage your time so you do not need to do it all at once.

Make judgements about the texts you read using the CRAAP test. This may help you to establish if the text is useful to build your overall argument or it may indicate if biases are present. 

Use the CRAAP test as a guide to evaluate sources of information in the context of your assignment and your information need, as this may determine if some criteria may take priority over others.

Be aware that it may also be useful to engage with sources that do not pass the CRAAP test as long as you critically evaluate the information.  It is important that you locate and understand multiple perspectives on a topic, keep an open mind and acknowledge that new research can potentially dispute previously widely held views.

Test yourself: are these sources academically reliable?