Approaching the Text: Surveying

Surveying a text means gathering as much information about the text as you can before you actually read it. It is an important reading skill for several reasons: § It helps you quickly assess new material, decide if it is useful and which parts need to be read more carefully. § It gives you an idea about the organization of the text, its ‘skeleton’, which will help you read better because you will be prepared for what is coming next. § It gives you a general idea about the content of the text. Then, you can activate your background knowledge of this topic, make predictions and interact with the text, which will help you make meaning of it.   How to survey   1. Read the title. The title is the name of the article, and usually announces the subject or topic of the article. The title may be one word, or a full sentence, or anything in between. If it is a full sentence, or a sentence fragment, then it is probably a preliminary position statement, or thesis. The thesis is the main idea of the article and is a statement or a significant position concerning the subject or topic. Everything in the article has some relationship to the thesis. SPECIAL CASES: a)The title cannot be understood until AFTER reading the article—the purpose of the article is to explain, define, describe or analyze the title/topic. b) The thesis is given in parts throughout the article.   2. Look through the article for any extra-textual reading aids, such as: a) Abstract or summary b) Subtitles, headings, subheadings, section headings c) Diagrams, charts, tables, illustrations d) Key words in italics or in bold print or underlined e) Biographical information about the author f) Name and date of journal or book it is taken from g) Footnotes (at bottom of page); sources and references (at end of article) h) First paragraph and last paragraph.   3. Ask yourself the following questions: a) What is my purpose for reading? b) What is the topic of the article? c) What do I know about this topic? d) What is the purpose of the article? e) What is the target audience of the article? f) What questions do I expect the article to answer?  

Task 1. [individually, then in groups of 3-4]

Follow the instructions above and survey the article ‘What is psychology?’ Discuss the results of your surveying in the group. Choose one person to report the final ideas to the class.

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