As academic readers we can’t simply accept or reject what we read – as our definition suggests we need to approach the task with care and consideration. Most of the articles, journals, and books that that you will find in the library are of value to you. This is especially the case if they’ve been suggested by your tutors.

As a rule, the vast majority of academic literature goes through a long and careful publication process and, in many cases, something called peer-review. That is, they have been read and evaluated by academics who can identify whether that piece of writing meets the quality expected in that discipline. Funnily enough, this process is quite like the one where your tutors mark your essays! So, unlike newspaper articles which are produced quickly, academic texts are produced with real care.

Despite this, the important takeaway for you as a student is the following: despite the fact that most of what you read is of a high quality, you are allowed (indeed encouraged) to disagree with it. In fact, if done properly you’ll likely be rewarded with higher marks on your essays. Even papers that have undergone rigorous peer review can, and should, be criticised. This is a large part of what academic researchers do. Scholars challenge each other’s work for, amongst other things, being too general, ignoring important topics, and sometimes academics will even accuse their colleagues of being colonialist in their thinking (Todd, 2016). Therefore, the ability to think critically is fundamental to life in an academic community, but it does require some care and practice to perfect. For now, remember this, no academic text is without fault. This is why critical reading is key.

Weighing scales

In the first part of the academic reading section we mainly focused on how to understand and digest what you read. In this section we are going to pivot somewhat and show you how you might engage with your reading on a more advanced level. We will introduce some skills that will help you select what you read, question it, and then get those pieces of literature working in dialogue with one and other. As ever, good reading lies upstream of good writing. Therefore, good critical reading lies upstream of excellent, critical, and analytical writing.

Source: Todd, Z. (2016). 'An indigenous feminist’s take on the ontological turn: ‘ontology’ is just another word for colonialism', Journal of Historical Sociology, 29(1), pp. 4-22.

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