7 Reading Like A Writer

College students spend much of their time reading. If students learn to read like writers, this ability will transfer to stronger writing. One way to master a skill is to learn from experts. For example, football players watch hours of films, studying plays over and over to catch nuances they can add to their game. Singers listen to songs dozens of times to learn subtle changes in tone and timing. Similarly, reading like a writer means reading material more than once. That’s how writers learn to craft clear, detailed paragraphs and to edit early drafts into final drafts with tight, captivating sentences.

Below are few tips for reading like a writer.

• Preview the test before you even start reading. Read the title and headings. What do you they tell you about the author’s purpose? What is apparent goal of the piece?
• Recall the text all the way through for understanding, and jot down comments in the margins, in your notebook, or with the comment features of PDFs.
• Use notes like fishing nets, catching the ideas flooding through your mind as you read something for the first time. Capture questions the text raises by writing them down.
• Look up new vocabulary.
• Make observations: Write something like “That’s sure interesting,” or “Research further.”
• Write one or two sentences to summarize the main idea of the reading.
• Decide on your own purpose with your second reading. What are you looking for?
• Underline main ideas and supporting evidence after you feel clearer about those elements.
• Review your summary, after your second reading, to see if it needs editing. Write down your second version of the main idea.
• Make up questions about the information. You can answer them later to check your learning.
• Ask who, what, when, where, why and how questions to help with comprehension.
• Create a works cited entry for the reading so you can easily cite the source later, if you choose to use information in your own writing.
• Consider the author’s writing techniques? Can you learn to develop stronger paragraphs by studying how the writer interweaves general ideas with images, facts, and specific examples?
• Notice how the writer uses transitions.
• Observe how the writer constructs topic sentences.
• Look at how the writer develops the introduction and conclusion.
• Keep a list of strong verbs you encounter that you might use in your own writing.
• Study how the writer uses commas.
• Identify one or two grammatical elements or writing techniques to learn from in every reading.

In a world where we have more published material available to us than ever before, and because our homework competes with many fun-filled events we want to attend, we all find ourselves plowing through texts quickly and never looking back. College forces you to take the scenic route, to pull over and study as many details in your readings as you can find and learn from. Learning to read like a writer won’t only help you become a better writer; it will help you learn to notice things many never see. – -Loretta Long