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Reading Skills: Re-Reading (or, the most important part of reading)

Re-reading is probably the most important part of the reading process. Once you have followed the steps above (in "Reading a Text for the First Time"), you have set yourself up to get much more out of the text as you re-read. Remember: the most skillful readers always re-read several times, and in several different ways.

When you re-read, you might still be trying to understand the ideas in the text; but at the same time, you are beginning to respond to those ideas, and form your own ideas about the ideas in the text. That last sentence has a lot of "ideas" in it, and there's a reason for all those ideas in one sentence: good reading is about ideas, not just "facts" or "information." While the texts you read for your writing classes (and other classes) will undoubtedly present facts and information, those facts and pieces of information are there because a writer is using them to explain ideas. Keep this in mind as you read on through this list of "Re-Reading Skills."

• As a general rule, plan to read the entire essay at least 3 times while you are writing your rough draft, and once or twice more while you are revising your final draft. In addition, plan to closeread important parts of the essay many more times during the writing process. Closereading involves slowly down your reading, sometimes going word-by-word or sentence-by-sentence, especially in complicated passages.

• Before you begin to re-read, look over all the notes you took while reading the text for the first time. What questions remain unanswered? What issues do you want to understand better? What parts of the essay are still confusing to you?

• Reread all the parts of the essay that you have marked. Think about why you marked these sections. Do you still agree with your earlier decision that each section you marked is "important," or "interesting," or "confusing"? Can you move some of those passages out of the "confusing" category?

• Reread the entire essay from beginning to end, paying particularly close attention to passages you haven't marked. (HINT: a Rutgers student several years ago improved her grade from "NP" on one paper to "B" on the next paper. When her teacher asked how this amazing improvement came about, the student said, "I did two things differently while I was working on this paper. I read your comments on my last paper, and I read all the parts of my text that I hadn't highlighted.” We don't promise that every student who takes this advice will progress at the same rate, but we do highly recommend this step in the re-reading process!)

• REMEMBER to reread the essay when you begin to revise your rough draft. After you have written about an essay, you will be better positioned to understand it.

• Stay open to new ideas and interpretations when you reread. Rather than looking for bits of "evidence" to support your original impression of the essay, test your first ideas by actively seeking alternative readings. TRY to find holes in your first interpretation. Even if your first idea turns out to be "right," looking for contradictions will strengthen your reading.

• Actively seek complications to your original reading of the text. Most of the essays you will be asked to read for your 100, 100R, or 101 class will be about complicated ideas; after all, you're in college, so you want to read challenging texts and work with difficult ideas, right? Don't settle for a reading that can be "summed" up in a sentence or two. Look for more of the writer's ideas each time you read