Difficult Academic Readings

[waitinginvain?]

Hi everyone. I'm ashamed to admit to my professor that the readings she assigns us are difficult for me to understand. I read them over and over with the aid of a dictionary and the internet, and still can't grasp all of the material. We're going to be asked to lead discussions based on the readings. If I don't understand them, I'm going to look stupid. Is there tutoring available for someone like me? Can anyone suggest ways of reading them for understanding? As it is, I'm reading every word, looking up the terms I don't know, searching the internet to shed more light on the subject, etc. Needless to say, it's taking more time than it should.Maybe I'm just not master's material? How do international students whose first language is not English handle this? Any constructive advice is appreciated. Thank you.

Edited September 4, 2012 by waitinginvain?

[Dal PhDer]

Hi there!

Firstly, you're master's material! If you weren't, you wouldn't be there. Second, most students find it difficult to transfer from UG text to graduate level reading. There's still papers I don't understand. In fact, there's a paper on research paradigms by Guba and Lincoln that I have read about 7 times, and there are parts where I am like "what the hell are they trying to say!".

I always found that reading an article and then discussing it with fellow students was really helpful. You might find that others have difficulties with it too. Is this most of the readings for the class, or just the assigned readings for the class that you have to facilitate? If it is most of the readings, I would suggest trying to rally together some other students in the class and have weekly sessions where you work together to on understanding the readings and trying to answer eachother's classes.

You might want to go directly to the professor if there's a particular reading you're having trouble with. Perhaps they can offer some advice to you and point you in a direction to different readings.

You may also want to find pervious students who took the class, and maybe ask them for some help. I don't know if there's tutors at this level, but perhaps you can ask them to act like one for this specific class.

Also, I would hit up the reading/writing/library center. I know with our library they offer writing services and also classwork services. These things are like: planning homework progression, getting through tutorials, how to write notes, and how to read scientific articles. They might be able to help you with specific skills to make reading these texts easier, and if there are specific readings, they might be able to go through them with you as well.

I know we have an ESL center at my school. One of my friends use to work there and I know she would help students with their work all the time, so there might be that option too.

However, I would start by giving yourself more credit than you are. I am sure these readings are difficult for most of the students and are meant to challenge you. With the Guba article, I opened the class discussion with "I'm sorry, but I read this thing 7 times, and I still don't know what they're saying! Especially when they talk about... [insert example]" ...the class and professor laughed and agreed. I don't know the dynamics of your class, but I don't think it's wrong to admit that you've had difficulty understanding a higher level text!

[BrokenRecord]

I don't think it will be to your benefit to try to comprehend every single word in a text as it is conceptual understanding that you must master as a graduate student. A trick that always works for me is to devote considerable time in comprehending the first and last paragraphs in each section fully (if you have to look up defenitions in those paragraphs--do it!), and skim through the rest for supporting evidence of the claims in those two paragraphs. Take careful note of the transition shifts; what does the author conclude? was her postulate demonstrated? Those paragraphs are like the two halves of a sandwich bun--they hold the entire piece together. They provide the conceptual framework for the material and will give you a better understanding of what the author is attempting to say without drowning into details of all the readings (which I'm sure your professor doesn't want you to do anyway).

Edited September 4, 2012 by BrokenRecord

[Vader Was Framed]

Advice above is very good, and should be what you first think about. But I do want to point out something secondary: not all writing is excellent.

What I mean, is that some of what you have been assigned to read may just be poorly-written work if you are having that much trouble making the connections. Not all of what gets published in peer-review journals is written well. Google the Dr. Fox Effect. Sometimes when we hear a lecture or author speaking about concepts we don't comprehend, we take it upon faith to assume they are correct. "Clear communication of one's research is not appreciated. Faculty are impressed by less readable articles" (From Peter's Getting What You Came For). Crazy right? But it has some truth.

And it could be that very reason your prof is assigning this reading. They know it is tough to comprehend themselves!

Now, I'm assuming you aren't brand new to your field. If you are, maybe your field's jargon and common language is what is slowing you down. If so, get with other students and profs and try to discuss these types of articles outside of and in advance of class. But don't be afraid, from time to time, to just admit "I don't get this one" for an article and move on!

[BrokenRecord]

Advice above is very good, and should be what you first think about. But I do want to point out something secondary: not all writing is excellent.

Great point that I completely overlooked! I'm in a hard science field which is fairly straight forward sans knowing how to do fairly complicated risk models. But I have noticed even with my social science work that some articles are just complex and overly verbose for the sake of sounding "intellectual". In the words of Albert Einstein, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough"

Edited September 4, 2012 by BrokenRecord

[imonedaful]

If you read an article and don't understand it a great thing to do is look up reviews of the article online. If you are reading it, somebody else probably has and wrote a review or an editorial about it. You can use that sort of like cliffnotes so you know what the main point is and what exactly you should be reading for. Then after you do that, look over the article again so you can have a more focused reading.

[ktel]

I feel like I'm reading gibberish somewhat regularly when reading papers. I agree with the above that good writing is not valued enough, especially in my field which is more technical. If it's difficult to understand people are left with the impression that it's because it is an advanced concept, not because it's poorly written

[waitinginvain?]

So it's not just me. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who struggles with these types of readings. Maybe some of the articles are poorly-written. I've managed to decipher the authors' intention in some of them, and they seem to be repeating themselves--and taking pages and pages to do so. Imonedaful, I'm going to try to find reviews of the articles. That's a great idea! Thank you. And thanks to everyone else for your help.

[ZeChocMoose]

How I read a difficult academic piece depends on whether it is empirical or conceptual. If it is empirical, I ask myself these type of questions: What is the research question(s)? What methods were employed to address the research question? How did the author(s) conceptualize the variables? What were the findings? What are the implications of those findings? Do I agree with how the author(s) conducted the study? If not, what would I recommend?

If it is conceptual, I ask myself these type of questions: What is the general theory? How is the theory situated in the current literature? Why is the theory important? Is it an extension of someone else's theory? In what situations or populations would the theory not work?

For me, this really helps to get the general idea of the piece and I don't tend to get bogged down with not understanding every single sentence in the article. It might also help to write down the answers and bring them to class with you. An added bonus is you'll be better prepared to add to the discussion and it helps you remember what you read especially if you are reading 5+ articles for each class. I also think it is important to ask clarifying questions about the piece-- "I really liked x, but I had trouble understanding the author's point about y (or something to that effect). I think he or she was trying to infer this [insert explanation]. What do you all think?" Since this is a discussion based class, this can get some really interesting dialogue going.

After rereading what I wrote, this is probably more in align with how social scientists tackle difficult work, but hopefully some of what I said can be useful! I also found that tackling difficult work gets much easier over time. Good luck!

Edited September 4, 2012 by ZeChocMoose

[waitinginvain?]

Thank you, ZeChocMoose. This is conceptual work (the subject is dramaturgy). So I'll try your tips for reading that. I hope the readings do get easier!

DalPhDer: Your encouragement and advice are so appreciated! I hadn't thought of trying the writing center for help with reading. But it may work! I'll also see if I can get help from other students--both past and present. I just have to get over this fear that everyone will think I'm an idiot.

[Dal PhDer]

I just have to get over this fear that everyone will think I'm an idiot.

Hehehehehe!! I still have that fear! I am not sure it ever goes away! Just get comfort that everyone else in that room has the same fear!

[koolherc]

it's amazing the variety of concepts that people have pulled out from reading Kant because his writing is so bad. They assume there must be some deep insights in there when he's basically saying that we have to construct concepts based on faith and throw reason out of the window.

[i.am.me]

Thank you, ZeChocMoose. This is conceptual work (the subject is dramaturgy). So I'll try your tips for reading that. I hope the readings do get easier!

DalPhDer: Your encouragement and advice are so appreciated! I hadn't thought of trying the writing center for help with reading. But it may work! I'll also see if I can get help from other students--both past and present. I just have to get over this fear that everyone will think I'm an idiot.

HAHAHA! I think everyone believes this a little bit in the beginning of their graduate studies. I am in my last semester, and 1 cohort member actually confided in me that she thought I was dumb and a bit silly and immature when we first had class together. Only much later did she change her opinion of me. I bet that she wouldn't have been the only one who thought so because there were "cliques" in my program and I have my suspicions (I trust my hunches because they almost always turn out to be right lol). I don't let this bother me though because none of those people know me well and vice versa.

Edited September 24, 2012 by iampheng