My reading habits

Introduction

This assignment allows you to write fairly freely about a broad subject, your own reading habits - this way,
your teacher can get a feel for your written English and provide feedback which you can apply to the rest
of the assignments in the course.

The tips below the instructions can be applied to all the written assignments in this course, as well as your
own personal writing!

Instructions

A. Watch Lisa Bu's personal talk How books can open your mind, as inspiration for your assignment:

How books can open your mind

B. Read through the bullet points below and think about your reading habits. Make a rough structure in
your head before your start writing, but do not be afraid to change your text if you feel like it is not flowing
like you want it to.

 Write a fitting headline and a brief introduction for your text.

 Describe your own relation to reading; here are some points to get your started, but feel free to
bring your own perspective as well:
 What do you enjoy reading? Keep in mind the genres other than fiction (like thriller, sci-fi or
drama, for example) such as blogs, scientific articles, social media etc.
 How much time do you spend reading every day?
 Do you read the news every day? Do you read them online or in the paper?
 Have your reading habits changed over time? Perhaps you read more when you were younger, or
perhaps you read different things?
 Do you have any specific interests which have their own literature? This could be fashion
magazines, rule books for role playing, ornithology books etc.
 What books would you recommend? What do you think makes them so good?
 Looking back at Lisa Bu's talk, what have you gained by reading?
 Write a short conclusion to wrap up your text.

Make the text 400-600 words long. Keep in mind that this is a formal text, so avoid contractions (I'm, it's,
don't etc.) and spellings like "u" for "you" or "wanna" for "want to" and so on.

Tips

 Make sure that you text flows in a way that can be understood by someone who has not read it
before. Try to pretend like you know nothing about your own text, and read it through. Is every
 idea and topic introduced in a way that makes sense? If you feel like your text jumps back and
forth between subjects, you can rearrange your text to make it easier to follow.
 Paragraphing is very important; a good rule of thumb is to have one paragraph for each
thought/point in your text. This webpage has great material for learning how to make effective
parapgraphs.
 When working with a text for a long time it is common to become "blind" to any mistakes or
phrasing which makes sense to you, but perhaps not to someone who is unfamiliar with the
subject. After you are done with your text, try to get it out of your head. Let it sit overnight, if
possible, but doing something else for a few hours works as well. After this, you can look at your
text with fresh eyes, and you might find mistakes that you missed the first time around.