Navigating through the Terrain of Reading in Political Science (+ Reading tips?)

[Volition]

Being slightly taken back by the massive (yet faintly manageable) reading load for my upcoming courses, I've spent the past short while browsing the forums for reading tips, and although I found several great reading tips hidden in the History subforum, I couldn't find any over here! Over there it is implicitly acknowledged that it's "unrealistic" to read from cover to cover the assigned book readings, and that the main focus of the readings should merely be to identify the thesis, the methodology, and the argument/structure, and this can be done by two ways: 1) thoroughly read the introduction, conclusion (and sometimes the first line of each and every paragraphs) or 2) Read journal book reviews, if available. But to be fair, their reading load seems to be quite brutal!

It doesn't seem like our reading load for Political Science is nearly as unbearable as it is for History, and it seems like we're primarily dealing with articles, which, due to the nature of the medium, tend to be more succinct (though we are required to read a lot more of them). I suspect that since our reading load isn't brutal we are expected to read it from word to word; however, I did find a post on here from a graduate student saying that it's not expected for us to read the articles word-to-word, but I'm curious to know if is this true? I have always been used to reading from cover-to-cover during my time in undergrad, so I wouldn't know any better. I was hoping that the Political Science graduate students from this forum can weigh in on this matter, and describe their approach to their reading load in Political Science, and if they can, describe their reading strategy as well as any reading tips that they may have! Thanks!

 

[PoliticalOrder]

Honestly, it really depends on your reading skills. I have no problem reading everything from all my classes, but some do. It would also depend on how much you are willing to spend on it and your time management.

That being said, if you mean reading 'cover to cover' as in reading political science literature like a novel, that is a poor approach to reading academic research.

Obviously the first thing you do is read the introduction of the book or article. The introduction always points out the puzzle that they are trying to explain and briefly summarizes the author's main argument. It also identifies the empirical boundaries of the puzzle. The puzzle is probably just as, or in many cases, more important than the central argument the author advocates for. Why? Because how can you evaluate whether someone adequately addressed the questions they asked if you aren't able to know what questions they are seeking to explain. (This is also extremely important for learning how to identify puzzles of your own - perhaps the most important skill for anyone who wants to do well in academia).

After the introduction there is usually a literature review of some type pointing out how other authors have addressed this question (or tangent questions related to it), and why they do not address their specific puzzle and/or cases. This is incredibly important because you not only see what the extant literature is, but if they framed this section well, you will see how they took bits and pieces from the literature and formed it into their theory.

Then obviously will come the theory they advocate for. A 'central argument' is one thing, but you need to understand the causal mechanisms for why their theory addresses the puzzle they are investigating.

Then the rest is the empirical sections that try to go about proving their theory through case studies or stats or whatever, and disproving how the other theories could not address it. 

Now, after you read enough literature you start to see how most works follow this same path although the structure may be different. But really there is only a few important things:

1) What is the puzzle? What is the universe of cases that the puzzle encompasses?

2) How do the extant theories address this, what are their shortcomings?

3) What is different about the author's new theory, what are the underlying mechanisms and assumptions?

4) How do they prove/disprove the theory through empirical evidence?

So good reading is not about actually reading but rather engaging with the article. Focus on what matters, not the fluff. Some people just outright skip certain aspects by not reading them, but I have never done that.

But furthermore, the key to being a good seminar participant isn't whether you have read something (everyone does, at least if you are in a good program with good students) it's about whether you understood and digested the readings. TAKE NOTES. Take notes on the puzzle, the literature review, the main theory and mechanisms of every book or article you read for a class. If you don't, you will forget most things and will not be able to deeply discuss them in class.

My basic path is as follows: First I read the introduction, literature review, and theory section and highlight/underline the most salient parts. I then read the conclusion, then take a look through the empirical section (if the empirical section is addressing cases that I am interested in, I spend more time on it). I then go back and turn the underlined parts into detailed notes. This will take more time than just reading but will prove extremely fruitful when you want to actually address it in class, or more importantly if you want to use it in your own research.

There are no hard and fast 'tips' for reading quickly. Some people advocate skimming (which I do time to time on the empirical sections), but the best approach IMO is to focus extensively on the things that really matter and just make sure to devote enough time to reading throughout the week so you can get through it. One thing a lot of students don't realize is that if you spend more time on reading during your seminars throughout the semester not only is it way easier to do well in the class on assignments, but it is also easier to be able to use that literature for your own research if you need to at a later time. Also, we don't get to just 'learn' how to do good political science by doing, there are high barriers to entry to publishing from the start, the best way to learn how to do it is by extensively and exhaustingly learning how other people do it through their own work.

[CarefreeWritingsontheWall]

One of the main things I've learned, and that I try to convey to the students that I've TAed, is to read strategically. It's not important to read closely, to know every word. Like PoliticalOrder said, it's important to know three core things from any article or book:

1. What's their question? What puzzle are they trying to answer? Try to narrow this down to a sentence or two. Articles tend to be succinct, and state this but not every book puts into a nice one liner.

2. What's their answer to the question? I.e. What finding do they claim to find.

3. What evidence do they provide for this finding.

4. What is the causal mechanism or underlying theory that puts the evidence and answer together? I had a professor who told us to think of an X causing Y, with the causal arrow acting as the theory. This doesn't always work if the causal mechanism isn't necessarily positivist, but it's a helpful way to frame how you read.

5. What surprised you or interested you about this piece? - A good talking point in seminar is always a section that made you raise an eyebrow, ask a question, or confused you.

Finding the answers to these questions is key and you don't need to read an entire book to find these bits of information. In articles, most of this information is in the introduction, theory, results summary and conclusion - though it's important to go back and closely read the theoretical logic after the fact.

My strategy has always been to read the first sentence of any paragraph, and to skim the rest unless I stumble across something interesting, or a clear articulation of the articles key points (i.e. answers to questions 1-4). It takes a lot of practice to get to the point of reading quickly, and part of it is looking for key words. I am the type to skip parts, but I do so strategically - and how much I can do this always depends on the author's writing style and structure.

Inevitably, people will adopt different perspectives on pieces and some people will focus on different parts than others but this is what seminar is for. If you want to mount an internal critique of a paper, you ultimately need to understand how the argument is built up within the piece on its own. Once you have this down, I would proceed to PoliticalOrder's questions about the wider literature, comparing a paper's argument with others that have answered similar or related research questions.

As a method this strategy hasn't failed me, but everyone is different. My students always found it useful as it inevitably saved them a lot of time. When you have 1500+ pages of reading to do a week, you inevitably can't read every word.