Essential Reading Strategies for Film Writing

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• Literacy
• Foundation Degree

Essential Reading Strategies for Academic Writing

What can be challenging when reading for an assignment?

Why is Reading Crucial for Academic Writing?

Effective reading helps you:

• find valuable information

• strengthen your arguments

• reference sources accurately in essays and projects.

Why do I need sources in writing?

• You must show that you have read around the subject and can conduct independent research

• You can select and prioritise appropriate sources and information, filtering out what is/ is not needed

• You can harness evidence in support of your views/arguments.

• You can consider and evaluate arguments/counter arguments and integrate these into your own argument.

Text

What sources of evidence could be useful?

• Data and statistics

• Direct quotation from primary or secondary sources

• Summary of an idea from a primary or secondary source

• Paraphrasing something rom a primary or secondary source

Learning Objectives

At the end of the lesson you will be able to:

• Skim a text to decide if it is relevant and worthy of close reading

• Scan a sample text for the 'gist' identifying key sites of meaning in sentences and clauses.

• Closely read a document using active reading strategies.

What types of sources should I use?

• Use only peer-reviewed, quality academic resources

• Steer clear of mass-media publications and websites

• Textbooks tend to provide an introduction to the subject rather than a piece of orginal academic research

• Journal articles present up-to-date research

• Edited collections are academically robust

Skimming a text: why?

• Great technique to use to get a sense of the 'big picture', overall structure and content very quickly

• Helps you to find relevant information quickly

• Helps you decide if the document is worthy of close reading.

Skimming a text: how?

• Title and subtitles

• Abstract or synopsis

• Contents page: chapter titles

• Index

• Subheadings

• Imagery

• Introductions

• Conclusions

• Topic sentences

• https://wordwall.net/resource/101773675

Skim reading activity

In 4 minutes, skim read the following text. Solely read the following:

• Title and subtitles

• Abstract or synopsis

• Contents page: chapter titles

• Index

• Subheadings

• Imagery

• Introductions

• Conclusions

• Topic sentences

• Researching Filmmaking Practices

4

minute

00

second

+30 s

Activity

Write a short summary of what the article is about having skim read it. Write only a few sentences.

Scanning

• Scan a text when you need to find specific bits of information quickly

• This information is usually something you already know about

• What helps when scanning?

• Index page or contents page

• Use your finger to move over the text

Scanning for the gist

1. Looking quickly though paragraphs and particularly sentences, to understand the gist of what is going on

2. Look at topic sentences or an index to find specific pieces of information

3. Human eye uses peripheral vision to see items wither side of the main focus, and can see between 5 and 7 words at any one time

4. Next identify key sites of information within individual sentences

5. Scan for 3 elements: the topic, the action and specific detail

6. This gives you the gist of the overall picture

7. Let's look at some examples

Scanning for the gist - topic, action, specific detail

• Despite its popularity, social media has become an insidious, negative and highly addictive means of disseminating fake news.

• 'The culture industry as a whole has moulded men as a type unfailingly reproduced in ever product' (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1999, p.35)

• 'The unconscious - that is to say the "repressed" - offers no resistance whatever to the efforts of the treatment' (Freud, 2015, p.13)

Activity

Go to the section "Research Films Made by Industry"

Highlight the topic word, action and detail of each sentence in that paragraph.

Activity

Summary of skimming and scanning: https://wordwall.net/resource/64631137

Closely read a document using active reading strategies.

• Read for a maximum of 5 minutes and then take a 1 minute break

• Try to summarise (in one or two words) each paragraph before your break to 'reset' your mind

• After each break, take a few seconds to re-read the one or two word summaries you have written about the preceding paragraphs to 're-orientate' yourself into the big picture.