Reading Strategies

It is important to learn how to get the most out of your reading, learn when you need to skim read and when you need to carefully read and reread a piece in order to note the main points and theories used.

Exercise 3: Different reading strategies

We used the keywords Gang* AND USA OR Canada in Google to find some sites for you to practice your reading skills. We used Google so that we would find sites which everyone using this website should be able to access – although we would caution you to use subject specific gateways to information wherever possible.

The first site listed was:

National Youth Gang Center™ (NYGC)

Which can be found at: http://www.iir.com/nygc/

By clicking on their Publications link we found the following article:

Howell J. C. and Lynch J.P. (2000) “Youth Gangs in Schools” U.S. Department of Justice Juvenile Justice Bulletin August 2000 Office of Justice Programs

Which can be found at: http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/ojjdp/183015.pdf

If you were reading this to answer the question set above:

Account for the rise of the inner-city gang over the last two decades

Would you skim this or make a close reading?

Answer 1: You would skim it.

Look at the abstract for the article – in this case it can be found in the box on the right hand side of the first page. It explains that this document is about youth gangs in schools and it:

...describes characteristics of gangs in schools, and discusses contributory factors to gang prevalence in schools. The impact of gang presence in schools on victimization is also reviewed.

Some of this is useful to you -

the discussion of gang characteristics may help you with defining what a gang is

the discussion of factors which contribute to gang prevalence may help you to account for the increase in gang membership over recent decades

the authors may also include information on the increase in gangs over the last decades and this is also important to you

BUT

you do not have to read the information about the impact of gangs in schools

you will have to see whether the authors include schools other than inner-city schools – if they do – then this is not immediately relevant to the question set

Exercise 4: Skim reading and close reading

1. Skim read the article above and note the following:

What can you find about gangs in inner-city as opposed to rural areas?

Does the article help you to define a gang?

What are the main points which the authors are making?

2. Now go to:

Moore J. and Hagedorn J. (2001) “Female Gangs: A Focus on Research” U.S. Department of Justice Juvenile Justice Bulletin March 2001 Office of Justice Programs

Which can be found at: http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/jjbul2001_3_3/contents.html

This is a more “academic” piece - it is not based solely on surveys and statistical reports but looks at the wider research conducted on female gangs.

3. Read this article more closely and consider:

What is the purpose of the article?

What are the main points which the authors are making? Find no more than 5 main points

In what ways does this, more research-based article, differ from the previous report?

Does it shed a different light on why people join gangs?

How many different theories does it put forward for the growth of gangs?

Summarise each of these theories and identify the authors to whom they are attributed.

4. Think about these two exercises. What have you learned about the differences between skim reading and close reading of a text?