Overview & Framework

Introduction to the academic reading framework and its key concepts.

This guide outlines key elements of the reading process to help identify areas where you can increase your reading productivity. Academic reading is very different from reading for pleasure. It is much more similar to reading for information, but the academic environment adds further differences.

About the Framework

This is a framework developed by Dominik Lukeš for the Reading and Writing Innovation Lab to use to evaluate tools and strategies for academic reading.

The framework starts from a basic premise:

Academic reading is very different from reading fiction but it even has many differences from reading of other expository texts such as instruction manuals, emails, or general non-fiction.

The Academic Reading Framework looks at academic reading through the lens of its 6 defining characteristics:

1. Purposeful	Read to identify, summarise and debate facts and arguments.
2. Strategic	Read only parts needed to achieve the purpose.
3. Non-linear	Do not read in order of presentation but rather in a way to support 1 and 2.
4. Active	Read while highlighting and taking notes.
5. Productive and interactive	Read to write and communicate about 1.
6. Comparative and cumulative	Read in context of other writing and never just one text in isolation. (“Read literatures, not papers.”)

Each of these characteristics has implications for academic readers not just as they are selecting their technologies but also as they are choosing the right approach to their reading.