Reading Complex Articles | Guidelinesforwriting

Reading Complex Articles for Fuller Comprehension

Reading and writing are analogous skills. Both require you to pay careful attention to what is being said and the purpose each point is serving for the larger piece (whether this piece is an essay, paper, article, book...). The skills which can help you plan a coherent essay can also be used to understand another author's work. In the case of writing, you must carefully develop a plan such that you are aware and in control how the pieces fit together to form a coherent essay centered on a Main Point (the thesis). In the case of reading, you must understand not just the individual ideas the author discusses, but how these pieces fit together to help the author's Main Point.

"Details" = the specific thoughts, ideas, or facts which an author discusses in their article

When reading a complex piece, it can be easy to get lost in the details. Usually, there are a lot of them, and these details can themselves be tricky to understand! But until you understand how these details fit into and help the author's larger point, you will not be fully understanding what the author is saying. Your comprehension will be incomplete.

The following strategy is meant to help you develop your comprehension of complex pieces. (I use this strategy myself in my own graduate research!)

step 1: find the thesis!

Just like the thesis is the heart of any paper you will write, the thesis is the heart of any paper you will read!

To comprehend a piece of writing is to comprehend how the author argues for the thesis. As such, the essential first step of comprehension is to identify the thesis! Usually, the thesis will come towards the end of the introductory section. If the thesis is not clearly stated, it may help to move on to step 2, get a sense of what the main moves of the piece are, and see what Main Point these moves seem to be aiming towards.

Step 2: Getting a bird's eye view

I have emphasized that in planning the structures of your own essays, you should think first of the "major tasks" you will need to accomplish in order to argue for your thesis. This idea of major tasks also applies to other authors' writing!

In order to understand a complicated piece, you have to understand what role the details are playing - that is, how they are helping the main point. To do this, it helps to get a "bird's eye view" of the main moves the author is making.

Authors do not meander randomly through various ideas; there is always a deeper strategy and structure. This structure is provided by dividing the piece into major tasks. Understanding this deeper structure - how the piece is divided into major tasks - is the goal of a "bird's eye view".

If the author has broken up their piece into sections, they have already done part of the work for you! Authors do not break their work into sections randomly: each section represents a major task. You simply need to go through and ask yourself: what is the main point of each section? What is it doing? How it is contributing to the thesis?

If the author has not broken up their piece into sections, you will have to determine where the "breaks" are yourself. Look for paragraphs that go together or seem to be about the same topic. Conversely, look for paragraphs that seem to represent a break what was being discussed. Often, the author will help you out with topic and transition sentences. (In teaching you how to write, I have emphasized that topic and transition sentences are "sign posts" which help to guide the reader through your thought process - now, you are the reader and you need to pay attention to the signs!) Once you have found a group of paragraphs which go together, ask yourself: What is the main point of these paragraphs? What are they doing? What are they contributing to the thesis?

Once you have understood how paragraphs fit into larger groupings, and how each group fits into the thesis, you have achieved a bird's eye view: you will have effectively created a "map" of the article. Now you can see how all the ideas and details discussed fit into the piece as a whole!

You can stop at this step if all you need is a basic understanding of what and how the author is arguing. However, if you need a deeper understanding, proceed to step 3.

Step 3: details

Now that you have an understanding what the main moves/major tasks of the piece are, you are in a much better position to understand the details! Here are three key tips:

Remember that each detail needs to be understood in terms of how it is contributing to the major task it is a part of. How is each detail helping the major task? Here are just a few options to get you started:

It can help to recognize that often, paragraphs fit into larger groups. For example, a section/major task of an article might start off with 1 paragraph introducing and describing an idea, and the next 3 paragraphs giving concrete examples of this idea. In this case, these 4 paragraphs fit together as a group. You will understand the ideas discussed within paragraphs better if you learn to recognize how they fit into larger groups.

Look out for key terms which the author relies on in the article, and make sure that you understand what each of these key terms means!

The detail might be providing a concrete piece of evidence for an argument (perhaps by giving a specific example)

It could be clarifying what the author means by something

It could be giving a more thorough explanation of an idea

It could be explaining how something works/what the causes are

reading to Identify reasons

Reading to understand an argument is a branch of the more general skill of reading for deeper comprehension. The first step to understanding an argument someone else has given is identifying the conclusion - the position they are arguing for. Usually, this will be the thesis! The second step is deciphering what the basic "moves" of the argument are - i.e., the reasons. By identifying the reasons, you are extracting the basic thought process of the author.

To decipher an author's reasons, first look at the major tasks/sections of the article. If you are lucky, at least some of the major tasks will be reasons for the argument; but remember that not every major task is necessarily a reason! Authors often spend the first major task or so providing background and context for their argument. These are not reasons for the argument; they are simply meant to help you understand the argument better.

Sometimes, an author will give several reasons in the same major task/section. Look out for cases like this.

While the Thesis of a paper will have multiple reasons given for it, usually the author will explain why we should accept each of the reasons. In other words, the author will give us reasons to believe the reasons! These are called sub-arguments. You must keep track of which reasons are the direct reasons for the Thesis itself (call these the Major Reasons), and which reasons are part of a sub-argument for one of the Major Reasons (call these the minor reasons).

Here are two further rules to remember when you are extracting the reasons:

1) Make sure that you do not conflate two reasons together - each reason needs to be stated separately.

2) Make sure that you do not list the same reason twice. Often, an author will give the same reason multiple times using different words - it is important that you do not get confused when this happens!

NOTICE: The Major Reasons are the ones you need to focus on presenting when you are giving an overview of someone else's argument; the minor reasons are the details you can draw on when you are thoroughly explaining the author's argument instead of just summarizing it! For more details, click here: