Today I received a typical email from one of my graduate students who shared that they felt like they were struggling with the readings at the graduate level. I get this type of email or question/concern every year from students and have offered advice previously along the lines I decided to write up and share for future reference for my students and others who might benefit from it. This should be heard as the words of someone just along the journey a bit further hopefully offering some helps to those struggling.
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It is a VERY common issue for students in graduate school to discover the level of readings (quantity and quality) have dramatically increased in challenge. A couple of tips I offer students:
- You don’t have to read thoroughly everything that was assigned. Instead, you read smarter. Learn where to skim and where to pause and reread for care. The idea of the readings is not for fully grasping all of it but getting the sense along the way. You simply do not have the time for these readings to linger everywhere. So, figuring out what matters and how to read faster, longer, and with greater specificity will help immensely. Have grace for yourself along the way. You are stretching reading muscles that have not been stretched to this extent before.
- You will definitely encounter terms and ideas you are unfamiliar with from any previous reading. This is to be expected as you are seeking to “master” a field of study. Know that you cannot always simply Google terms or ideas either. Since they may be technical to the field and searching for definitions online can actually at times be misleading because of the uniqueness of usages in any field of study. This is one of the reasons I have students journal all of their readings: to also ask questions about them (terms, ideas, challenges, approaches, etc.). This is the very place to ask such questions knowing that I expect students to not know all of the terminology and ideas so there is zero shame in asking (I’ve actually assigned students to ask such things). This is also where some books offer a “glossary” of the specific ways that terms are being used in the volume. There are often also other specialized books written specifically to help unpack such technical terms.
- You need to figure out your ideal spaces and paces for best practices of reading. Be okay with your own pace of reading and be happy with simply moving on without having to have grasped all that you’ve read. Also, at the grad levels you will likely be reading things over years that circle back around using similar ideas and language and thus at your first exposure (or the first you’ve noticed) you aren’t necessarily even expected to remember it. You will pick some things up only through long-term and regular exposures. If you feel you really need to soak some part of a book, then consider writing a VERY brief summary of that part (like a single sentence for a paragraph or even chapter). Finding the right times in one’s day and week for particular reads is imperative. As is the right kind of space. Some places and times simply do not help with reading of technical works. I also recommend always having something to write with available. Feel free to mark up books or keep a writing journal beside you. This can even be where you simply indicate some idea to come back to later when you have a more opportune time or space to follow up.
- You will benefit from people and places to discuss what you are reading. Your fellow classmates, professors, and sometimes others, will prove invaluable for discussing readings. Reading is not best experienced only as an isolated individual practice. I find it personally incredibly helpful to me (for retention and even insight) to find someone to talk with about what I’m reading. When you are reading with a class you have a built-in “book club” that is pre-made to discuss what is being read together (before, during, and after classes). This is also where I find journaling what I’m reading as well as simply making notations in books a helpful exercise. I’m not simply reading with others but reading with another version of myself. The version of myself that has not yet finished the readings. I can go back later (hours, days, weeks, etc) to encounter what I had written about what I was reading and have internal dialogue about such. This is actually a conversation with different versions of yourself. Further, find ways to incorporate the ideas and language of your readings into other courses, into life and ministry, etc. This will likely require “translation” as the terms and ideas are not meant to be directly shared in such settings, but when we “translate” terms and ideas (or at least attempting to) we often find ourselves better comprehending what we read to begin with or even discovering something as we tease it out in life and practice.
Hopefully these few tips can prove beneficial for you going forward.
Happy reading (even when it feels painful)!
