Hi guys! It's Myung, and welcome to another video.
Today I want to show you guys how I do my readings for each week, so let's go!
So just to start off and explain to you guys, these readings are weekly readings, and each week,
we have essential readings, or lecture readings, and we have further readings. Essentially you'd
have to do all the essential readings and do a fair amount of the further readings for each week
if you can, and then you'd hopefully be very ready for the seminars or classes that we have each week
to discuss the topic of that week with other members of your class. The more further readings
you do, usually the more information you'd have for essay writing and so on. For these reasons,
doing the readings efficiently is really important, as they can be time consuming.
Without further ado, let's move on to how I do my weekly readings.
When I first came to LSE this year, the Department of Methodology and other members of my department,
the International Development Department, briefly introduced us to how we should read readings
effectively, and the first thing they said was to read the abstract of the paper. The abstract
usually includes the aim, the methodology of the article, and brief findings, and it's basically
a very brief summary of what the whole paper is about and maybe some of the background context
of the academic article. Then we were advised to read the introduction and the conclusion,
so after I read the introduction, I will skim through the paper. Then I would go ahead and read
the conclusion, and as I'm skimming through the whole paper, I will just highlight the important
things like the definitions, the concluding points of a certain chapter for instance.
The introduction and conclusion are very important
as this is where I can find the aim of the authors, the methodology used,
the definitions of terms, and the points that they found throughout their work.
The software that I'm using here is basically Notability, and you can get it on your iPad or
tablet, and you can also get it on your computer. I use a MacBook, and actually they're synced,
so whatever I write or annotate on my iPad will be synced to my MacBook and vice versa, so it's
really useful for when you just want to access the same piece of work from a different workspace.
That is basically the first skim done of the paper. I'd say that if you're in a
hurry or looking for some ideas for essays and things, this is a good way to finish reading the
paper. However, if it's an essential reading or something that you're—a topic that you're very,
very much interested in looking at, or you just have a lot of time on your hands
and want to read everything, then it's pretty much the same as what we've just discussed before,
but instead of skimming through, I probably read each section of the paper very thoroughly
and just go through each thing really well.
Most times I will write some notes probably at the bottom of the paper or do some note taking.
This doesn't mean that I write out every single point, but I follow this guideline:
What was the aim of the paper and what was it about? What did the authors find,
most importantly? Were there any positive points or any criticisms
of the paper and its findings or methodology in particular? Finally, if it does, how does
it link to the findings and ideas of other authors and other papers especially for that
week? What is my own opinion if I have one? I think that's quite important for when it
comes to essay writing in particular. I still will make a note of really, really important quotations
that I feel like are going to be useful points that I might include or refer to in an essay. At
least I'll jot down the page number if there's anything. What I'm using here to take my notes
is the program called Notion. I've just turned the camera around to show you guys my note taking.
As you can see, I've made a table basically on all my readings for each of my classes
and each of the weeks, and if it has a link to it, for example, it might not necessarily
be a reading. It might be a video. Then I will link that here and just the author,
the title, and basically this tick—I tick it if I've done all the readings
and if I've done the whole reading and if I have made all the notes on it.
Let's just open a random one. This is from Week Two. Basically, this is the guideline,
author, theoretical orientation, comparison. You know. I didn't actually write the comparison down,
but it's in my actual reading that I had annotated on my iPad. Strengths, weaknesses.
I didn't really have specific questions about this text, so I left that blank, but
that's basically how I do my reading notes.
Finally, I will also actually color code my work. When I just need to underline a point,
it'll be this kind of blue color, or if it's something really important,
I would highlight it in this coral color, or if it's a definition, I like to do it in lilac,
or it's the aim of the authors, I do it in a baby blue, etc. etc. It just personally helps
me because when I come back to the paper, I can see straight off what I'm looking for.
For instance, if I'm writing an essay and I wanted to include a definition and cite
the definition from that paper in my essay, then I can just look for, let's say, a lilac underlining,
and then I'll be like, "Oh yeah. That's the definition." It just personally helps me.
I think that this method has helped me to improve on my understanding
of the actual reading and also do a lot better on my essays for this year. This term I've especially
found that this method has really helped me in structuring my essay and shaping my own ideas,
which are really important in the end, and I've been met with
good results so far, so I think I will probably continue to use this method.
So, I hope this was a very interesting and fun video hopefully, and please remember
that this is not the official way to read or take notes, and everyone works differently,
and I hope to see you guys in the next video. Bye!