Chapter 3 summary

Chapter 3 explains that reading is not just the process of decoding words on a page, it also necessitates interpreting the information. This is what gives the specific text or document meaning. Regardless of the purpose, workplace professionals expect (As identified in Chapter 1) documents to be accessible, accurate, comprehensible, and usable. The specific example should also have a clear purpose. Similar to any technical communication information written documents should be neatly organized, systematically develop points, and use both verbal and visual information.

Four common purposes for reading a document at the workplace include:

1. Assess: Often skimming to decide whether or not a document is worth reading thoroughly.
2. Learn: Reading to obtain knowledge relavent and pertaining to improvement in the workplace.
3. Learn to do: Instruction manuals and how-to step by step processes help workers learn to do.
4. Do: The reading serves as an external prompt for completing tasks i.e. product labels.

Reading and writing are closely related and often insperably intertwined. As a writer, it is important to be conscious of the readers purpose and vice-versa this applies to readers being conscious of the writers purpose and text features that may cause questions to occur. One strategy experienced readers use is recognizing recurrring evolving patterns that help the reader become more familiar with the document, thus making it more accessible, understandable, and usable to the reader.

Six strategies that this chapter highlights for more poignent reading and writing are:

1. Skim, scan, and predict: Skimming and scanning are similar methods of highlighting key points, and gaining a general idea of a documents thesis and purpose. After both skimming and scanning a reader can make infernces about that information on which to base a prediction of what ideas are going to be communicated through the document.
2. Identify Structure: Use of headings, visual cues, and previews of whats coming make identifying the structure of documents easy. Fairly often a technical document will feature an abstract which provide an abbreviated overview of a report while maintaining the tone and focus of the original document.
3. Identify Heirarchy: Being able to define heirarchy is important in distinguishing main points. Documents with more concrete heirarchies provide more clear and distinguished points and make it easier for readers to recall important information.
4. Draw Inferences: Inferences are simply things that are communicated without being specifically stated. Many articles and documents can imply meanings without explicitly stating them. Think about reasonable but unstated implications and inherent assumptions that are prsumed but not articulated.
5. Generate Questions and Examples:

• Knowledge Questions: Stress the importance of specifics, facts, conventions or organization, classification systems, evaluation criteria, methods, principals, and theories.
• Comprehension Questions: Comprehension questions are qualified by the use of knowledge and understanding to translate, interpret, or extrapolate ideas from the given source.
• Application Questions: An application question implies that the response requires an application of principals or theories to check for understanding of their function and how they are applied to specific instances.
• Analysis Question: An analysis question accentuates the differences between seperate elements of the whole document. Literally breaking the document into its devisive parts and establishing their relationships within the document.
• Synthesis Question: If an analysis question breaks down a document into its seperate pieces than conversley a synthesis question relies on an essential structure to form the sum of all parts of the document to form a unique whole.

6. Monitor and Adapt Reading Strategies: Skilled and effective readers are aware of their process while they are reading. They understand the material and grasp the concepts and are they are always conscious of their comprehension of material. Excellent readers are also able to adjust and adapt to the situations that they encounter and they can reflexively acclimate themselves to that situation in order to be more successful and productive readers.

A readers specific purpose and preconceived ideas can lead different readers to interpret an identical document in completely different ways. People who come from different backgrounds and who are reading a document for different reasons will usually have their own unique set of inferences and interpretations related to the article that they are reading. It is important to be open minded and aware of your own preconceptions before reading and article and asking, "What is my prejudice or bias before reading this article?" If the reader is critical of what their purpose of reading the article is before they begin than they are likely to pull away only the relavent information pertaining to them, rather than an overall summary or sythesis of the documents whole.

Reading and writing are inextricably intertwined. So when writing consider strategies that readers use before preparing and organizing information. Also, while reading be conscious of the strategies used by the author and their purpose as well as your own specific purpose for reading.