How To: Conduct Your Reading Effectively

As students, we’re all too familiar with the amount of reading that is required of us, whether that be for tutorials, essays or exam preparation. As the new term is upon us, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for me to summarise some of my main tips on how to ensure that you're conducting your reading effectively.

Take your time:

As tempting as it is getting the reading done as fast as possible, it maximises the risk of you not gaining anything out of it. How are you meant to fully take in what you’re reading and consolidate your knowledge is you’re rushing? In fact, by rushing the reading, you’re likely to end up going back to it numerous times, which is counter-productive as you’re essentially doing what you wanted to avoid in the first place - wasting time.

Summarise:

Writing up a quick summary in the form of a “mini-abstract” not only helps you consolidate what you’ve read, but actually aids the essay writing process as you’re already familiar with the arguments that various academics have put forward so you’ve established common trends. Therefore, you’re not wasting time researching (especially if you‘ve left it last minute, whoops!) which consequently ensures that your essay is structured and coherent, which in turn, equates to a higher grade.

Go Beyond the Reading List:

Going beyond the reading list not only aids and deepens your legal understanding of the issue in question, but also gives your essay a slight edge which will gain your more research marks. To find this additional reading, looking at the footnotes and bibliography of the readings on your reading lists is useful since it ensures that what you’re reading is relevant to the legal issue in question. Also, reading the summaries or article abstracts makes it easier for you to determine whether that article or book is relevant which ensures you’re not wasting time either. Further, making sure that the article or book is not too outdated is important; the eveolving nature of law means that an argument which may have been of importance 20 years ago for instance, may not hold much weight today, which may hinder you when it comes to exams.

However, if you‘re feeling overwhelmed, being selective with what you read can be rather useful. I would focus on certain sections and pages of the articles or book, especially if they’ve been specified by the lecturer.

Note the Reference:

Noting down the OSCOLA reference and the specific page number of the reading is important, as you’ll know where and how to find it should you need it. This also speeds up the essay writing process since you’re referencing properly throughout as and not rushing to complete it all at the end.

Note and research concepts you don’t understand:

It’s inevitable when reading academic articles that you'll come across concepts you’re unfamiliar with. Noting down the concept and going back to research it afterwards can be useful as you’re consolidating it to what you’ve read and how it applies in a broader context. If you’re still struggling to get to grips with it, there is absolutely no shame in asking your tutor to explain (via email or a zoom call) and they’ll happily clarify everything for you.

I hope these tips have given you a greater insight into how to carry out your reading more effectively.