Giving voice to your text: Sharing 'The Hows' from my experience

Note: if you're a Muslim, recite duas to gain Allah's blessings prior to your reading.

A. pre-reading stage

DOA PENERANG HATI, selawat dan salam, sedekahkan pahala ilmu ini kepada ibubapa, guru-guru, rakan2, etc.

1. Skim the text

-Get the whole picture of the text quickly through. Run through the passage/article back to back.

2. Reconnect and anticipate what it gonna tell you.

-You can look into the subtopics and make connections in your head of what these are all about. This process requires you to visualise using your splendid brain power!!!!

-What? want to do it later? No, your time is-NOW!!!!

3. Sketch it on paper.

-When you're connecting the subtopics while flipping (skimming) through the text, sketch it on a paper. This is an enrichment process, an important step to fortify your understanding. It also ensures that your passion to read blossoms. It also serves as a cup of coffee-avoiding you from falling asleep while reading.

Done with the subtopic.

(If you're reading an academic paper, you might find that the subtopics are  sequenced in a similar format or fashion ie introduction, problem statement, LR, Method, so on and so forth)

Worry not, in this case, you need to skim the point. Elaborated in the next step.

4. Now using the same strategy, sketch the points in each subtopic. use a clean paper.

Use the creativity that you have. Polish it up. you can use a mind map, or any kind of thinking tools (ithink?, concept map, table?). It's your choice.

Remember: the choice also reflects your creativity.

5. Once you've gotten the idea of what the article is all about, wear an eagle's eyes or a helicopter view.

ask:
-does the author tell stories across a different year, time zone?
-does he do some kind of comparison of place on the issue
-does he used methodology unlike any other scholars or researchers do
-does he find a different conclusion?

6. Put your voice. How? There are many possible ways:

a) does the author tell stories across a different year, time zone?

So, the phrases below illustrate your voice (i attached here a reference by Morley: Academic Phrase Bank Morley 2014)

Since decades ago, the issue of.......
Research done by early scholars suggest that
Early studies in the mid-60s focus on different areas compared to studies in 70s and 80s. This is partly due to.....

All these phrases show that you use your own thinking to synthesis the ideas gthered from your readings.

b) Does he do some kind of comparison of place on the issue?

While authors A(year), B(year_ and C(year) note the variables in the perspective of human cognitive, D et al (year), F and G (year), and H et al (year) see the issues in the perspective of..... Hence, the multiple perspectives of seeing into these issues fueled debate on the practical ways of adressing the (state the issue).

c) Does he use methodology unlike any other scholars or researchers do?

What is strikingly different in the studies done by A (year) is in how he collects a sequential data across the population as opposed to B (year) who use only...

It seems that the trend of data collection in the era of 1990s as demonstrated by A appeals to the paradigm of positivistic which is dominant at that time....


d) Does he find a different conclusion?

Stemming from a different approach used to investigate the issue (see: A (year), B(year_ and C(year) and D et al (year), F and G (year), and H et al (year)), it seems that there are two types of findings to the issue discussed.

7. Last but not least, enjoy the moments.


In the beginning, it is hard to get the flow and momentum of the scholarly thinking. But if you're persistent enough, and start WITH THE END in YOUR MIND, soon in no time you'll find yourself there.

All the best.

humble me-DrNK

Academic Phrase Bank Morley 2014