Reading With a Purpose.

Before actually beginning to read, it is important to know the purpose of reading, that is,
why the reading is being done. Knowing the purpose greatly enhances the effectiveness of
the reading. Also, knowledge of the purpose can help one adopt a style of
reading best suited for the purpose.
Purpose of Reading
Some of the reasons why people usually read:
  Pleasure and enjoyment
  Practical application
  To obtain an overview
  To locale-specific information
  To identify the central idea or theme
  To develop a detailed and critical understanding
1.  Pleasure and Enjoyment
This is probably the best reason to read anything. You have chosen the
material for the purpose of enjoying yourself. Reading entertains you,
even relaxes you. However, this will rarely be the purpose behind the
reading one needs to do for academic purposes.
2. Practical Application
Here the purpose is to gain information that you can apply or use in a
practical situation. Books such as laboratory manuals, computer manuals,
instruction booklets, and recipe books are all texts that you would consult
with the purpose of gaining specific information.
3. To Get an Overview
The point here is to get a general feel for the material, to determine
whether it is relevant, useful, up·to-date, and to get a sense of how the
topic is treated by the author. This is likely to be the main purpose behind
your reading when:
4. To Locate Specific Information
Sometimes you know what you are looking for but do not know exactly
where to find it. For example, you might be looking for any of the
following:
A specific quotation
Evidence to support a particular argument
Details about a specific person or event
A map
A diagram
A statistic or table of statistics
To find this sort of information might mean that you have to consult
several books or sources. In these circumstances, you will be reading with
the aim of zeroing in on the information you are looking for.

5. To Identify The Central Idea Of the Theme

The purpose here is to extract the essence of what the written material is
trying to convey. For example, you might want to identify the major
finding in an experimental article in a journal, or the core issue of a
discussion paper.
6. To Develop a Detailed and Critical Understanding
On many occasions, you will need to masterfully the material in a book, journal article, or
manual so that you can evaluate its arguments, perspective, and/or evidence. This will
require you to:
Read the material thoroughly.
Make effective and relevant notes.
Keep an open mind by being aware of your own ideas and opinions regarding the issues
involved.
7. Develop a broad background.
Broaden your background knowledge by reading newspapers, magazines and
books. Become interested in world events.
8. Know the structure of paragraphs. Good writers construct paragraphs
that have a beginning, middle and end. Often, the first sentence will give an
overview that helps provide a framework for adding details. Also, look for
transitional words, phrases or paragraphs that change the topic.
9. Identify the type of reasoning. Does the author use cause and effect
reasoning, hypothesis, model building, induction or deduction, systems
thinking?
10. Anticipate and predict. Really smart readers try to anticipate the
author and predict future ideas and questions. If you're right, this reinforces
your understanding. If you're wrong, you make adjustments quicker.
11. Look for the method of organization. Is the material organized
chronologically, serially, logically, functionally, spatially or hierarchical? See
section 10 for more examples on organization.
12. Create motivation and interest. Preview material, ask questions,
discuss ideas with classmates. The stronger your interest, the greater your
comprehension.
13. Pay attention to supporting cues. Study pictures, graphs and
headings. Read the first and last paragraph in a chapter, or the first sentence in
each section.
14. Highlight, summarize and review. Just reading a book once is not
enough. To develop a deeper understanding, you have to highlight, summarize
and review important ideas.
15. Build a good vocabulary. For most educated people, this is a lifetime
project. The best way to improve your vocabulary is to use a dictionary
regularly. You might carry around a pocket dictionary and use it to look up
new words. Or, you can keep a list of words to look up at the end of the day.
Concentrate on roots, prefixes and endings.
16. Use a systematic reading technique like SQR3. Develop a systematic
reading style, like the SQR3 method and make adjustments to it, depending on
priorities and purpose. The SQR3 steps include Survey, Question, Read, Recite
and Review.
17. Monitor effectiveness. Good readers monitor their attention,
concentration and effectiveness. They quickly recognize if they've missed an
idea and backup to reread it.