NOTES ZA RLG 108 - COMMUNICATION SKILLS (05/1/2016)

 

READING

 

Introduction. 

As you read information on text or book, you receive both receptive and productive skills.

Receptive skills;

They include understanding when you listen and when you read. You receive the language and decode the message. 

Productive Skills

They are speaking and writing skills. it is a result of using the language you have acquired and produce the message through speech and or written text that you want others to understand.

Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols in order to construct or derive meaning.

Terms used in reading include;

i. Intensive Reading - Reading with concentration and great care in order to understand exactly the meaning of what you read or you are reading. 

examples : 

• Reading legal documents
• Financial documents
• Academic reports & anything to with business

ii. Extensive reading :- Reading as many different kinds of books, journals, papers etc. as you can for pleasure or entertainment/refreshment. It only needs a general understanding of the concept.

Intensive vs extensive reading

•  When reading something intensively, you also try to read between the lines. reading it very carefully so as to understand the meaning whereas extensive reading needs a look or reading something for fun/pleasure.
• Extensive reading covers a large area, while intensive reading might only cover a narrow/limited section. 
• Extensive reading involves student reading long texts or large quantities for general understanding with the intention of enjoying the text.
• In intensive reading, a student has no freedom to choose the topic he/she likes as it will be used to answer some questions as a mode of testing the understanding of the student. This means the student has to know all the meaning of all words in the text in order to make them easy to answer the questions.
• Intensive reading is something like focusing on a single article/topic in a book.
• Extensive reading is like reading a number of different books articles etc. that may or may not be related. It is always about increasing your general knowledge.
• Reading extensively is widely done for the whole information (getting just the general knowledge) while reading intensive means concentrating for details.

iii. Skimming vs Scanning

These are two important strategies for speeding up your reading. they are used for different purposes and they are not meant to be used all the time.

Skimming:- refers to the looking ONLY for the general or main ideas in the particular reading. With skimming your overall understanding is reduced because you don’t read everything, you only read what is important to your purpose.

In skimming what you read is more important than what you leave out. 

Scanning:- Refers to reading quickly for a specific information, its about looking only for specifics facts or piece of information without reading everything. You scan when looking for your friend’s telephone number in your phonebook and for sports scores in the news paper. It also includes looking for a specific information in a book. the ,material you scan is typically arranged in the following ways.

A. Alphabetically : - In order/form A-z

B. Chronologically : - In time or Numerical Order. (Date or 1-n)

Reading Strategies

Terms:

i. Speed ( in relation to reading) : The number of words/minutes

Is the number of words to be read over specific period. The speed will vary depending on the text you are reading. e.g if you are reading for detail, usually the speed is low (because there is high concentration as you pass word by word) The normal reading speed should be 80-100 words per minute (80-100/wpm).

It is determined by the purpose of reading and nature of the text.

For a detailed study, means the speed is low and the recommended speed should be 80-100 (80-100wpm).

If reading is for self enrichment, it is between 100 to 250 words per minute. (100-250wpm).

If the purpose is for critical evaluation (making judgement whether it is true or false, bad/good) speed is also 100-250wpm.

Reading creatively (fast), the recommended words is 200-300wpm.

Reading for general information, the recommended speed is 300-500wpm.

Reading for relaxation, the speed is high which ranges between 300-800wpm

Eye movement/eye fixation 

As you read each eye should at least read three to four (3-4w/glance) words at one glance.

Vertical vs Horizontal reading:

This is related to the concentration of reading at the centre of the text while leaving few words in the left and right. For an effective and active reading use the following letters; S, Q, R1, R2, R3, T method of reading.

S: Stands for survey: as you get a book the first thing is to survey for relevance or irrelevance of the book. Look at the title and sub-titles of the book, look at the content, the author, academic experience of the author, year of publication, read the current Books unless you are interested with the past information. Also look about the publisher, whether it is trusted publisher.

Pass through the diagrams, photos, charts of the book, maps etc.

Q: Stands for questions. Ask your self in three stages.

i. Before reading the book:- Does the book answer my question

ii. While reading:- Ask yourself whether the book fulfils your needs e.g.. am I getting what I want, is the content true or correct?

iii. After Reading:- does the book give the details I need? is the content true or correct?

R1: Stands for Read the Text:

As you read a text, take the notes of the main ideas. The first and last chapter give you the main idea of the chapter. this is important as you may have limited idea in going through the whole book. The topic sentence carries the main idea, it is sometimes found at the middle or end of the text.

N/B: if you are only after the main Idea, just read the first and the last paragraphs.

R2: Stands for Recite/Review

Review the idea or the main ideas in your own words. rewrite the same sentence without distorting the meaning.

R3. Stands for reading again to clarify certain ideas or concepts. (re-reading)

T: Stands for Test yourself

Test yourself for what you have just read.

CITATION & REFERENCING

Plagiarism : - 

It is an academic offence of taking someone’s ideas and treating them as they were your own ideas. Any academic essay should contain two things; 

1. your won Ideas
2. The people’s Ideas but you have to acknowledge sources of those ideas of other people. 

N/B: Do not copy other people’s ideas, but work with other people’s ideas

How to acknowledge other people’s ideas

i. In-text citation : This is done within the paragraph.

Show sources of information inside your essay or text.

ii. Footnote(s) : Essay information at the bottom of the page.

iii. Endnotes : Done at the end your work/essay.

References

This is a list of books, articles, journals and or websites etc used in your essay. They are shown at the end of your essay, listed alphabetically by authors and all books that might have been read or cited.

Citing sources of information:

To show that we work with other people’s ideas. We are academically strong because we stand on other people’s ideas.

How to cite:

i. Direct quotation: Taking information as it is.

- “We have been exploited for a great deal, we have been oppressed a great deal, we have been disregarded a great deal” (Nyerere 1967, Page 20).

ii. Paraphrasing: Reading the information and rewriting it in your own way without distorting the idea/meaning. example

- Nyerere (1967, Page 20) says The people of africa has been exploited, oppressed and disregarded.

Summarise

Means taking main points e.g

Nyerere 1967, education for self reliance may be summarised as “…..”.

Start the author’s name and year of publication

Reference list

1. Start a fresh page.
2. Write;
   1. Author’s last name then Initials e.g. Nyerere,J.K
   2. Year of Publication in brackets e.g. (1968)
   3. Title of the book(you main underline or italicise.
   4. Place or publication (New York etc) 
   5. The publisher e.g. Nyambari Nyangwine.

Example.

Nyerere,J.K (1968).Freedom and socialism. Nairobi:Oxford press.

— (Citation and Referencing) researching 

 

As copied by Okiki..