Ryan Swenson

“Thought Piece #2”

            As I was reading Rosenberg’s article at the beginning, I felt a lot of the same struggles that she encountered. I often would read paragraph after paragraph and begin to get enveloped into my thoughts and soon realize that I had read almost an entire page without actually understanding it. I’d always have to go back a page and then start reading from there only to go back to wandering off again. This seems like a constant struggle that I have at times with reading pieces that I find rather uninteresting. And after a little while of this battle, I’d eventually wave the white flag and surrender to my homework that was due for the time, simply out of a combination of this boredom/frustration.

            What I really liked about Rosenberg’s article was the strategy that was presented by her. Specifically about the parts of reading the intro, section headings, then conclusion. And after reading those, trying to figure out the main point or argument that the writer is trying to convey. I think that when I’m reading scholarly articles, I often get lost in all of the context and really struggle to even realize what the writer is trying to get across halfway through. This strategy will definitely be used by me in the future because I think it will not only get me involved with the material at hand, but it will better my understanding of the article the second time around when I actually read the article.

            A lot of the time students will be quick to just read and skim through any assigned reading they have and then try to bring up little facts and tidbits that they picked up along the way to tie into their assignments, without even knowing exactly what was going on with the article. Some readings are going to take more time, and students, especially myself, need to understand that. Scholarly articles are going to take time to read and should be read as if you yourself were a scholar. They weren’t written to be quickly read over and have bits of information gleaned from them. That’s what I really got out of this reading, and I think that it really will be helpful to further my reading skills as I continue on my college career. I got the most use of the strategy that I mentioned earlier of pre-reading the article to get main concepts from it.

(This is over a page double-spaced, I do not know how to double space on the blog)