Reading Strategies: Text Mapping

Join the Academic Skills Team for The Skills Pod. In this episode, Academic Skills Advisers, Liz, Sharon, and Emma, discuss text mapping. They chat about what it is, what you need, and how it can be a useful strategy to help with your academic reading.  

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Transcript

Welcome And What Text Mapping Is

Emma 0:04

Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of the Skills Pod. I'm Emma and I'm one of the Academic Skills Advisors at the University of Chester, and I'm joined by my colleague.

Sharon 0:15

Hi, I'm Sharon, and I'm another academic skills advisor at the university.

Liz 0:19

Hi, I'm Liz, and I also am an academic skills advisor at the university.

Emma 0:24

And today we are going to talk about text mapping. So I guess a good place to start is what is text mapping?

Liz 0:34

Text mapping is uh a name given to a way of breaking down information, usually a journal article or a book chapter, in a way that can help you to access the information and turn it into knowledge from your own reading. What do you think, Sharon?

Sharon 0:56

Yeah, I'd agree with that. I think where it might differ from other sorts of reading of things like journal articles, is it it tends to be a lot more active and you're much more involved with it, which makes it a really useful tool to have in your academic toolbook toolbox, if you like.

Liz 1:15

It's a it's a way of maybe learning how to access academic um material if you're unfamiliar with it and if it seems a little bit overwhelming, and like Sharon said, it's the that it's active, you're actually um not just passively reading it or reading it and making notes, you you're breaking it down so it becomes a little bit more um real to you. It it you can understand what it's trying to do, and it therefore is going to make it easier the next time you come to read something. So the idea is that it's activity rather than passive.

Emma 1:56

So it's kind of like if you have like we've all had them journal articles that you can't kind of you just like, I don't know how to get into this, I don't know how to navigate the world of this article. It's a great way to kind of break down those, those all texts, but also those difficult texts that you just kind of get like a you know, sometimes you get a panic, don't you? Like, I've got to read this and I've got to understand it. So text mapping is like a way to is an active way to kind of break that down and make it easier to access.

Sharon 2:24

Yeah, absolutely. I think um when you start reading journal articles, they just they are confusing. Um, they're written by experts, for experts, which can make them seem really hard to get into. And um text mapping can help, and it can help in a couple of ways because it you break it down into manageable chunks, but also you start to see that journal articles are all quite often similarly structured. So once you get the hang of seeing how they're structured overall, it can help make your reading easier in the future. So spending time doing something like text mapping on a few journal articles can really just help you then ease into, well, actually, yeah, this is whilst the content is different and I still have to get to grips with that. I can see how this all links together, and I can see how it might link with other things that I've read.

Liz 3:25

And it also is potentially going to be useful later on for you when you're writing, say, an extended project or a dissertation, because quite often they have the same sort of layout that journal articles do. So you'll be putting things in in a way that you've become familiar with and you can see how you're doing what other authors did and um trying to put that information across to the audience who are marking it.

Emma 3:50

So, in

Choosing The Right Text Length

Speaker 1 3:51

terms of kind of text that you can use, is it is this kind of um that you can use text mapping on? Um is there is it just journal articles and book chapters are the kind of main resources that you would you would use this for?

Sharon 4:04

Yeah, I think generally um you can't really do because it's a very physical process and you print it out and work on it, you can't really do very long pieces. So it doesn't work if you need to read an entire book. But things like, as you mentioned, journal articles, um, book chapters. If if there's a a website or a report or something like that, it can work on that as well. So, but it needs to be something that you can physically print out and handle because it's a very physical process.

Liz 4:36

So the length is the important thing, really. So, you know, if you've got a 200-page report, it's not going to be practical to print it out and do the physical activities because it's just too too big, you can't really text map it easily. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And by the time you get to the end, you've lost the plot. You know, you really need something that's maybe 30 pages, something like that, is about the limit of text mapping. Something shorter would be better.

Emma 5:08

And what do I need to text map? So we I need to print off the resource that I'm engaging with or I want to read. What else do I need?

Sharon 5:16

The important thing when you do print it out is print it out one-sided because you want it spread out all in front of you. So the printer tends to automatically go to double-sided to save paper. So make sure you change it to one-sided printing.

Liz 5:30

So any kind of stationery, pens, pencils, highlighters, uh, colour pens, maybe a ruler, just um post-it notes are useful as well. Um whatever you've got, really. Colour.

Emma 5:49

So we've kind of gone through the basics, what it is, where we should use it, what we can use it on, and what we need. So once we've gathered, we've got our article, we've gathered all our stationery. Who doesn't want stationery? We're ready to go. What's our first steps in terms of text mapping?

Making A Scroll And Spotting Structure

Liz 6:06

I kind of forgot that you need sellotape as well. Staple's thinking about it.

Sharon 6:11

Don't forget the cellotape, unless it's a really short journal article that you can just pop side by side.

Liz 6:17

Because the idea is you turn it into a scroll so it's uh a flat thing that the pages all roll out from one to the other. So you need to sort of colourate them together so that it's one long piece of writing from start to finish if you can.

Emma 6:35

Okay, so is that our first step is to turn it into a scroll to salotate the pages together side by side.

Liz 6:43

Yeah, make sure it's side by side as well. It's not like an old-fashioned scroll that's top to bottom, it's left to right.

Emma 6:53

We've got our article, we've stuck it together, it's side by side as a scroll. What comes next?

Sharon 7:00

The the next step really is is just to look at it, um, look to see how it's structured. Um, so when you've got it all in front of you like that, rather than just looking at a page at a time, you can actually see the whole overall structure of it. And if it's something like a journal article, you can see that there are separate sections, but you can get this overview of the whole general layout. So even before you pick up your coloured pens, which is my favourite bit, you can actually just get a bit of an overview of what it looks like, what the sections are, and then you can pick up your coloured pens.

Liz 7:39

Yeah, you can underline things or you can box things um in your different coloured pens, and you might put a box around the title and the author or authors. Quite often, journal articles will have quite a few different authors, and then underneath it might say what university they work at or institute, and you can highlight those. You'll be able to see headings if it's got headings, if it's got subheadings, if there's maybe um some sort of infographic or data table, you can highlight those, and you're gonna highlight the reference list at the end as well. So it's basically just putting a one single stroke across the top of the start of a section. So you're not highlighting the entire thing, you're just separating the different sections out so that as Sharon says, you've got an overview of the whole thing, and then you've got an overview of where it changes from one bit to the next bit, so that you can navigate through those different bits and see them as separate sections. It's all about chunking.

Emma 8:48

And should I be using different colours for these different sections?

Liz 8:53

In an ideal world, but if you don't have them, then use what you've got.

Emma 8:57

Okay.

Sharon 8:58

So the next step, once you've got your coloured pens out, different sections.

Summaries, Questions, And Active Reading

Sharon 9:04

I mean, it's flexible what you do, but then you can start the reading. Um and and again, the way that you do this isn't up to you, but maybe summarising key points in each section. So always having in the back of your mind why you're reading that particular journal article, not just making um little notes because they seem interesting, but thinking about why you're reading it and what you're going to get out of it for your assignment because that's why you're doing it. Um, but making little short summaries in your coloured pens or on a post-it note, so that you're getting a bit of an idea of what the content is before you start maybe doing a bit more of the harder thinking about thinking about why they've done it a particular way or the strengths or the weaknesses of it. Um, and I find it when I do it, um I find it more useful if I do write these short little summaries and comments rather than just getting the highlighter out and highlighting, because that tends to be a bit more of a passive thing if you just highlight something that's important, whereas if you rewrite it, summarize it, putting it in your own words, starts to make a bit more sense to you, and that's then information that you can put in your assignment if it's relevant, because you've already done the summarizing the paraphrasing rather than just highlighting it. So, um, yeah, that sort of stage of just pulling out the bits that are important to you, um, making a note of them is can be the next stage. But Liz, I know it is a very flexible thing, so there might be other things that you can do as well.

Liz 10:41

Yeah, that that's the beauty of it, it is just trying to find what works for you and not thinking this is the step-by-step thing I have to do. It's trying to find what's helpful for you. So, as we've already talked about a couple of times, journal articles can be difficult to understand, they can be complex. So, again, this is an ideal time at the sort of beginning stages of text mapping to sort of scan through and see if there's anything straight away that maybe you're not familiar with, they talk about a specific way of doing the research or a specific theory that's being applied, and you're like, I don't understand that, uh, I don't maybe understand what the word means, or I'm not quite sure how that uh theory is being used. Make a note of that because when you go and read in detail, if you don't have the background knowledge, it's not going to mean anything to you, you're not going to understand why they've used it or why they're talking about it. So just alerting yourself that there's things coming up that you don't know gives you the chance to prepare for them. So then you don't get overwhelmed and you don't sort of stop reading because you have to do some some more uh additional information searching. So trying to identify that early on, you know, like Sharon says, use a post-it note, make a note of what it is, and then afterwards go and have a look at it before you come back to read the article in depth.

Emma 12:13

I think that's the really important thing, isn't it, with academic reading, is it's okay to have questions. Like you're reading to find answers, but sometimes you will read something that you come away with more questions than you had before, and that's okay. The key thing is to to make a note of those questions to, you know, so you can direct your next your next stages of research.

Sharon 12:32

Yeah, and it's totally, totally normal not to understand everything in a journal article, especially if it's a new topic to you. If you've been studying it for a while, you've probably got a general gist of it. But we all sit in front of a journal article for a new topic and think, I've no idea what this is going on about. But that's where text mapping is great because you can take your time to break it down gradually and it's very visual, um, and you can be involved in it, and you're not just staring at a screen or staring at a piece of paper and it just making no sense at all. You're starting to get active and like Liz said, asking those questions, what does this mean? And it's fine if you don't know what it means, but if it's an important if it appears important, then spending that bit of time finding out before you dive into the depths of it is really good.

Liz 13:18

And if you have a look at the reference list as well, you might find that there are some articles in there that it might be useful to go and look at. You you'll get a feel when you look at the reference list. If the article that you're reading is, I don't know, two or three years old and you go look at the reference list, and there are articles on their reference list that are 15 or 16 years old, you might start asking yourself, well, why have they used old information to put together a recent article? Is it still useful? Are they using good sources? You're you're sort of developing an inquiry mind and you're trying to get to the root of lots and lots of questions that you've got. And it's it's really useful to be able to see that and to look at someone else's reference list and say, Oh, why have they used that? Or oh, that looks good. My lecturer mentioned that, and it's on one of my slides. I recognise that surname. All of these sorts of connections that can help you to s understand and and take away more from what you're reading than you might do otherwise.

Emma 14:21

And I

Critical Analysis For Later Years

Emma 14:22

know that Sharon, when you do text mapping sessions, you kind of change by um so when you're when you're doing sessions, so like for example, when you're speaking to like first years versus third years, there's there's kind of extra layers you can add to text mapping as you're kind of going through university degree.

Sharon 14:43

Yeah, absolutely. Um, quite often in the first years, it's about getting comfortable with what what a journal article is and the overall structure and just reading through to find information. But um both Liz and I have done sessions with different years, and as you say, um maybe with the third years, we'll then spend a bit longer getting those post-it notes out, and then they start to think about the key points of each section and thinking about maybe looking at the method section and what were the strengths of that, why did they do it a particular way? Um looking at the results and comparing it to the discussion and conclusions and picking up on any strengths or limitations around there. So like I like the way you say that, it's got different layers of usage and um yeah, just using it as what's best for you. So those post-its, you if if you're as mad on stationary as I am, um, and you want to do a sort of more in-depth reading, you might um use post-it notes, and on some, you might highlight any strengths of it, and a different colour you might highlight any sort of potential issues or questions that arise.

Liz 15:59

Um, so that again it's very visual that you can see that you've you've critically analysed, you've thought about what these things mean, but you've also identified the strengths, weaknesses, and again, that can go in your writing, then so it's not wasted, it's it's all information that can be used for your for your work, and having some sort of a handle on what they're trying to say, and and maybe you know, if you're not familiar with statistics or you're not familiar with the way the information's been put across, the kind of methods they've used, that might enable you to go off and do some more research or book a one-to-one with a maths and stats advisor to say, how do I know what this article is talking about with these statistics? How do I read these statistics? Because they can be quite overwhelming, and you look at the data that's presented to you and you're not quite sure what it's trying to say and what it shows. Uh, and likewise, you can always do the sorts of things that we talk about when we're looking at paragraphs, concentrate on the first and last sentence of each of the paragraphs, see if what the sentence is talking about is uh something that you're interested in, is something that's relevant, something that you can use in your assignments. Look at the last sentence before you start to read things in depth. Text mapping is about breaking down, breaking down some more, breaking down some more, and then reading in depth. It's not about colouring it in and then starting at the beginning and finishing at the end of an article, it's about giving you methods to identify the places where you need to really be able to look at something in depth and the places where there's discussion that's going to be useful that you can get involved in and understand.

Sharon 17:51

That's a really good point because um you do, I think, when you've read a lot of journal articles, you will flick through bits that you think, oh, that's not so important, because maybe the introduction is just setting the scene. And that might be useful to read if you're at the beginning of learning about this particular topic, and it'll give you a good overview. But if you're more in-depth in that topic, you might skip over that bit or at least just skim read it, and as Liz says, looking at the beginning and the end of each paragraph, and instead you might want to focus on their methods. So, was it large-scale study, was it small scale? How did they, as you say, analyse the data that they got, and so on? So, text mapping just might help you guide you to those important areas. So, we keep talking about how flexible it is, it's it's great because you can use it in so many different ways, depending on where you are, not only in your journey through university, but where you are in your knowledge in that particular module or topic.

Liz 18:50

Yeah,

When To Use Text Mapping

Liz 18:51

definitely, definitely. It's um it was something that a colleague of I uh and I did quite a few years ago when they were doing their masters, they became just so overwhelmed because they were working full-time, they were doing the masters as well. There was an awful lot going on, and they you we used text mapping together for a few articles so that they had a way to separate what they were looking for versus what they were finding because they kept finding things and they all seemed to be useful, and then it started to get a bit overwhelming, so it was a way just to try and highlight okay, this is what I'm looking for, this is a really useful article that I found. Can I do it with a couple more articles just to try and identify when I'm reading things that potentially are just not going to end up in my assignment? Because you know, there are millions of articles out there, it's really time consuming. The research process isn't quick and easy. Having ways to digest it and break it down can be really time-saving.

Emma 20:02

Yeah. And I like that idea that it's flexible, like you can adapt it to like a way that works best for you. You can use your own, you know, you might develop your own key of colours, you know, you might have the introduction draw around that in in purple and the methods in blue, you know, it's make it as pretty as make it pretty to you, I guess. So it kind of means something to you. I I like that um aspect of text mapping.

Sharon 20:26

And I think the thing about text mapping is it can seem a lot of faff, but it is a great way of just getting to know journal articles or chapters or however you're using it. You don't have to use it all the time because it is time consuming. But once you get used to reading them, or if you're into a new topic and you're getting the hang of that topic, you can just sort of then step back and say, Well, okay, I've learnt the bits that are important to me now, and I can do the reading without the text mapping. But where I found it useful is if it if I come again to a new topic, sometimes it is worth breaking out the seller tape and the coloured pens and the post-it notes again and just spending a bit of time getting to grips with the new topic again. So it's something that I use myself, um, as well as uh supporting students in learning to use it as a tool. It's that tool in the toolbox thing I keep seeming to mention it.

Emma 21:21

I like to imagine that your house is just full of scrolls of journal articles, Sharon.

Sharon 21:25

Yeah, I should open the cabinet up actually, because I'll be so few right there.

Liz 21:30

There you go.

Emma 21:33

So it's a kind of like summarised text mapping. So it's a way of kind of getting to grips with the shape of a journal article and the information that it's presenting. And it's really crucial that you print off the article, put it side by side on the floor, on a table, seller tape together. On a wall. Cellotate it, don't celebrate, tape it to the wall or the surface that you're using. That wouldn't be good. Um, and then um if you haven't sat it tool you can you can roll it up into a scroll and then you would look through and each of the sections kind of highlight uh oh sorry box around so the introduction of a box in one colour um you might highlight keywords draw a box around things like methods abstract introduction using different colours any diagrams tables things like that you would box in a different colour um and also if there's any you might if there's any words that you come across that you don't understand highlight those in a different colour as well and also you've got your post-it notes that you can write down questions on and stick all around it and also as you said Sharon paraphrasing summarizing kind of key bits and sections and things like that is really useful because that is information you've already done pre-assignment that you can then pop into that because you've paraphrased or summarized it. Is that is that text mapping in a nutshell I was trying to think of a pirate metaphor then but I failed

Sharon 22:57

yeah in a nutshell yes but do what works for you but make it colourful make it useful make it active

Emma 23:06

active

Liz 23:07

you don't have to do it for everything it's just a useful way to break things down get familiar with main maybe new terminology and um just have a bit of fun and chunk it as well. Yeah

Study Groups And Making It Work

Emma 23:22

is there anything else that we think would be useful to add in terms of text mapping?

Sharon 23:26

I suppose the other thing is it doesn't have to be because Liz just said make it fun it doesn't have to be solo um if there's a small study group of you then you've all got to read the same or same articles then doing it together and chatting about it that often works really well too yeah

Liz 23:44

we quite often teach it with groups of people um it works better with small groups sort of four people or fewer and it also tends to work better if people are standing up if you're sitting down you tend to be quite passive and less likely to get involved in anything apart from what's right in front of you. So if people if you're standing up even if you're doing it on your own if you're standing up you're more likely to be looking for an overview rather than the page that's directly in front of you.

Emma 24:23

Adaptable to all situations

Sharon 24:26

and a great excuse is to buy pens and pencils

Emma 24:31

and post it notes.

Liz 24:32

Yeah and post it notes

Emma 24:34

I hope that you found this episode useful and we hope that you listen to another episode of the Skills pod soon. Bye

How To Get Academic Skills Support

Emma 24:43

if you're a University of Chester student here are the ways you can access support from your academic skills team.

Anthony 24:51

On our Moodle pages we've got lots of interactive resources for you to use. On our literacy's Moodle page you'll find help with a range of skills from academic rating to revision. On our Maths and statistics Moodle pages you'll find help with different statistical tests, calculations and formulas.

Emma 25:08

You can also use our feedforward email assistance service. You can send 750 words which is around three paragraphs of your work to ask at chester.ase.uk and we'll respond within three working days with generic and developmental advice on aspects such as paragraph structure, criticality and referencing.

Anthony 25:28

You can also book a one-to-one with the Academic Skills advisor via our Moodle pages. These appointments typically last 30 minutes and are available online and in person. Be able to see the campuses we're at by looking at our working scheduler. You can send across an extract of your work for us to look at in preparation for the one-to-one or you can book a one-to-one to discuss a generic skill such as referencing or critical thinking.

Emma 25:52

If you and a group of your course mates are struggling with the same academic skill you can book an Ask Together session by emailing ask at chester.ac.uk with details of your availability, how many people are in your group what skills you want to cover and where you'd like the session to take place.

Anthony 26:10

You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook using the handle at skillsuroc where we post practical tips on a range of academic skills and it's also a great way to see what the team are up to.

Emma 26:21

And of course you've got the skills pod if you have a topic that you'd like us to cover or you'd like to be involved with our podcast please email at ask@ chester.ac.uk

Anthony 26:30

Ask

Emma 26:33

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