What sorts of things do you think you’ll be reading in college and why do your professors choose these? I confess that before heading off to the university, I didn’t really think about it. I guess I didn’t think it was very important. I also thought that it was probably going to be just like high school, maybe just a little more of it. Was I ever wrong! In hindsight, I wish someone would have told me about not only the variety of things I’d be reading, but how, with just a few tweaks, I do a much better job of reading and understanding it.
In the last blog posting (How Difficult is College Reading – part 1) we walked through how important it is to read the syllabus and took a look at how much you’re likely to be reading in college. Today we’re going to take a look into the heads of your professors and also explore all the sorts of things you’re likely to read in college. Knowing this isn’t just interesting, but it gives you ways to read and take notes much more effectively.
How do professors decide?
Let’s talk about what’s going on in the heads of your professors. Once again, remember that although this captures the general idea of why professors assign reading the way they do, it will be very different teacher to teacher, class to class, school to school, and depending on what your area of study is.
Course Numbering
First of all, you should know that college courses typically run in a series of numbers that build on each other and roughly correspond to your academic year. First-year students usually start with courses labeled as 100s and move on to 200s and so on. If you transferred in some college credit from high school or previous college, you may jump straight into the 200s or 300s.
If you’re in a 2-year program your courses will probably be in the 100s and 200s. If you’re in a 4-year program your courses will run up through the 400s. If you’d decide to go to graduate school someday, the numbers will pick up again in the 500s and run up through the 600 or 700s. This is general understanding and you’ll find schools all over who do things their own way. Their numbers and codes may be different, but the idea of starting with lower numbers earlier in your program and building on them over time, still holds.
Building the Pyramid
Professors tend to think of 100-level courses at the bottom of a pyramid and then build later classes on top of it. Initial courses and their reading tends to place a heavy emphasis on basic facts and information. As you move beyond the 100 Introductory courses, you’ll begin to encounter readings that argue with each other and introduce you to some of the big debates and conversations that happen in the field you’re studying in.
For example, in sociology, after you take Introduction to Sociology, you might move on to an Environmental Sociology course where you encounter the big debates around different ways to look at environmental issues. The Environmental Justice advocates look at things differently than the Environmental Marxists than the Eco-Feminist movement and so on. The further you work your way through the program, the deeper you get into specific debates and concepts.
The reason these things matter is because professors generally see 100 level courses as broad foundational courses. As you work up through your courses, the classes will begin to dig deeper into specific details and the reading will likely get more complex. 100 level courses often use big thick textbooks that provide a survey of the whole field. Think “an inch-deep and a mile wide” way of looking at being a nurse, HR manager, or accountant. You’ll learn a little-bit about a lot of stuff. There may be additional readings sprinkled in with the textbook but they’ll generally not be too difficult.
Climbing the Mountain
As you move on to higher-level courses, you’ll likely not see as many big general textbooks and will instead encounter texts, individual books or shorter articles that focus on more specific areas. These will probably take something that you touched on in your previous classes and push it deeper.
Fair warning here…although there might be the same or even fewer pages to read in upper-level classes, the difficulty will be increasing. Again, remember this varies a lot across fields. This description is pretty true for social science and history. Advanced English and literature courses will have you reading more difficult books. You’ll probably still see big thick textbooks in chemistry, nursing and other natural sciences classes. They’ll just become more specific as you move into the advanced classes.
For Example…
When I was a sociology professor, SOC 152 was our school’s Introduction to Sociology course. It was required for lots of majors so about 95% of the students who took the class weren’t going to be sociology majors. So as a professor I chose a big thick sociology textbook that I thought would appeal to students with lots of different interests. I also added a weekly chapter or academic article that applied the topic we were looking at in addition to a chapter in the textbook. The chapter was probably 50 pages and had a 7th or 8th grade reading level. The chapter or article was an additional 20-ish pages with a slightly higher level. So maybe 70 total pages of reading a week.
Students who moved on beyond this 100 level course would take things like Social-Psychology, Social Theory, or Environmental Sociology. These were 200 and 300 level classes. Readings often came from books that had chapters focusing on specific theories or ideas. We’d read chapters, articles, and sometimes whole books. The difficulty was definitely going up, probably reaching 10th or 12th grade and perhaps 150 pages a week.
Now and then I’d have an advanced senior student who would do a special study of some kind. We’d read one book every week or two. I’d also often challenge students in advanced courses to read things that I thought would push them out of their comfort zone because it is really good to wrestle with hard reading.
What Will I be Reading in College?
Before going too deep here, lets just state the obvious…there’s lots of different sorts of reading. I’m not sure we think about this very often. I have the feeling we just read, and don’t think about how many different sorts of things we read. We flip through social media, read news stories, read signs as we drive or order food, advertisements, fiction books, operation manuals, blogs, emails, and so on. And you probably don’t even think about how you read each of these differently, even though you do. You read a tweet differently than you read a cake recipe, a hand-written letter from your grandmother or the new Stephen King novel.
In college you’ll be reading lots of different things. It’s worth taking a minute to get to know these. For our purposes, we’re going to look at six different sorts of things you’ll read in college. In future blogs we’ll dig deeper into each of these and how best to read and take notes on them. For now, let’s get to know them.
Textbooks
These are those big thick books that often have glossy pages and color pictures. They tend to be pretty expensive if you buy them (which is why lots of students rent them now). You’ll also see them in digital versions and as open-source texts that you can access or download online for free. They are frequently used as the main text in what are known as Introductory or Survey classes – like PSY 101 Introduction to Psychology. The reading level is on the easier side. There are often lots of illustrations and the ideas are clearly structured and presented in an outline form. Each chapter often concludes with a concise summary and sometimes additional learning tools like online flash-cards, glossaries, or test-your-knowledge quizzes.
Edited Books
These are books that include a whole variety of shorter readings often written by important scholars in a particular field. There may be 10 to 20 or more readings that provide perspectives on the topic from a bunch of different directions. Each of the readings tends to have a particular perspective and is making a particular argument (as opposed to trying to give a big overview like a textbook). Sometimes the readings are grouped together in sections because they’re sort of similar. The reading level is likely more difficult than the textbook. The ideas are almost certainly connected to something you learned about in your survey class, but are going into more detail. Professors often assign these in 200 or 300 level classes for just these reasons – they build on what you’ve learned already, are a bit more advanced, and give you a sense of the deeper conversations in your field
Research Articles
Nearly every academic field has these sorts of readings. They’re usually shorter (maybe 20-30 pages or so) and likely explore a specific topic. When I say specific I do mean specific! These are generally written by researchers or other experts in a particular field. The typical purpose of these articles is to explore a particular research question by gathering data, analyzing it, and reporting its findings. The reading level ranges from pretty challenging to downright cryptic. Your professor has probably read tons of these and will have likely written a few. Hopefully they will select these because they provide deeper insight into the ideas you are exploring. They tend to be used more as you move to 300 and 400 level classes. If they fall into the areas you’re really interested in, they can be fascinating. If they’re outside of your interests, you might catch yourself wondering what the heck the author is trying to say.
Monographs
This is a book where usually a single author is writing something that lays out a well-developed vision for their perspective or an argument they are making. Sometimes the book is pulling together their lifetime of research into a single whole. Sometimes they have a new idea that they are developing and want to share with the world. Sometimes they’re responding to others in the field who they disagree with. They’re often several hundred pages long and the reading difficulty can range from pretty accessible to downright challenging. They tend to have a specific focus (sort of like research articles) but are taking more time and space to flesh out their thoughts. Because they’re longer and are building on the basics you learned in your 100 classes, most professors use them in your 200 classes and beyond.
How-To-Texts
Depending on your program, you might also be reading about how to do things that are specific to your field. Nursing students will be reading about how to properly start an IV, diesel mechanics will read about how to change out glow plugs, and computer technicians will read about how to defend against the most common phishing strategies. Professors will assign these so that you can read about how to properly do something and learn some of the frequent mistakes that folks can make.
Their difficulty can be highly selective, as in, if you know the field, you might find it easy, if you don’t, you might feel like you’re reading a foreign language. For instance, I might be able to read doctoral-level social science, but would be totally lost reading engine-repair 101 (thank god for mechanics!). Finally, these readings are often designed with action in mind. They describe the right way to do something with the expectation that a nursing student will practice hundreds of needle-sticks under the eye of someone who has started thousands of them.
Other Readings
No list would be complete without a miscellaneous category. Besides the five typical sorts of readings we looked at here, you’ll encounter all sorts of other things. Classes I’ve taught have included blogs, novels, student newspaper editorials, magazine articles, letters, and speeches. You’ll be looking at all sorts of online charts, postings, and research.
Know What You’re Reading
Understanding how professors choose readings and the different sorts of readings you’re likely to encounter gives you a huge edge in your reading, note taking, paper writing and exam preparation. You need to read and take notes on these different readings in different ways. For instance, although using a highlighter or pen to underline a key idea in an article or edited book may help you find your way back to it later, soaking the page of a textbook with neon pink highlighting is probably worthless. Likewise, while there is little sense of capturing quotations from textbooks, finding and putting a key quote from a research article can be essential for a paper you write later.
We’ll dig into just how to do this in future blog posts. For the time being, now is a great time to become more aware of the different sorts of things you read and how you might begin reading them differently.
Dr. Matt Friesen received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Oregon and has spent most of life as a student, professor, researcher and advisor. Check out www.gutsycollege.com for the free Workbook for Reading in College and Note Taking Template. Watch for his upcoming book Dr. Matt’s Gutsy Guide to Reading in College coming in spring 2024.
Noah Friesen’s artwork is featured in these blog posts. Noah has been drawing since 2003 and specializes in caricature and comic art. Connect with Noah, check out his gallery or commission him for your project at www.ko-fi.com/idekdraws.
