Textbook Readings: Necessary or Not

By Victoria Robertson on September 27, 2018

College is no stranger to homework, especially when it comes to textbook readings. If you’ve ever taken a history course, you’re more than familiar with thick textbooks, small font and hundreds of pages of reading to complete in a very small amount of time.

But are those readings necessary?

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It’s a question we have to ask ourselves when taking a full course load of classes that require extensive amounts of reading, as time seems to just disappear rather quickly. To provide some background: yes, textbook readings are necessary. But no, they aren’t always necessary in the way you would think.

When a professor assigns you a reading from a textbook, they are doing so to provide you with some context as to classroom discussion. Using the example of history courses, a professor in history will assign you readings so that you can understand the time period under question as well as the events that occurred during this time period.

Now, this, of course, begs the question, is this necessary?

Yes and no.

For one thing, a reading assignment is typically given out because the reading provides more information and/or detail than your coursework would. For this reason alone, it’s worth delving into the text. For another thing, the reading assignment typically involves a significant amount of information that can’t be covered in class due to time constraints. So you may miss something by not reading the materials that will be featured on a test or quiz. Classes aren’t always lengthy, so every detail can’t be discussed in a classroom setting, which requires reading on your end.

Of course, that’s not to say that every reading assignment is entirely necessary. For instance, some professors may assign reading that covers exactly what was gone over in class simply for a few more details that aren’t actually pertinent. In addition, some reading is so dense that even if you sit down to take in all of the information, you may not absorb any new information and therefore waste your time in reading the assigned materials.

For this reason, there are some tips and tricks to keep in mind when it comes to reading materials for class.

First, don’t read the book word for word. More often than not, these textbooks are dense with text that you’re not going to be able to fully absorb, and just reading word for word without retaining it is entirely pointless.

My recommendation here is to learn the art of skimming. No, this does not mean that you pretend to read the text, as this really won’t do you any good. Instead, skimming the text helps you to pull out the key components without wasting hours reading the book word for word.

Skimming typically requires reading the first and last sentence of a paragraph in full, and instead of reading the entire paragraph, picking up keywords and phrases and reading those statements as needed.

Again, there are a lot of different ways in which somebody can skim a text, so as long as you’re doing it correctly and actually retaining the information you are skimming, this is a huge time saver and you’ll be able to get the assignment done as well.

Second, don’t simply take the professor’s word for it. While you do want to complete the assignments you are given, college students have to prioritize their tasks as well, which sometimes means determining whether or not an assignment, such as reading, is necessary/helpful to you.

Everybody learns differently, and that’s what it comes down to. If you sit down to read this text, are you going to gain anything from it? This may require sitting down and attempting to read the text to determine whether or not it’s actually necessary for you. Take note, however, that there’s a difference between not wanting to do something and not needing to.

Just because you don’t feel like reading a text doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t. Pay attention to the content and determine whether or not you’re reading information that you’re going to need/be able to use either to help with your other required assignments or to help you study for an upcoming exam/quiz.

The large difficulty when it comes to reading assignments is that whether or not they’re necessary is a bit ambiguous and situational. There is no blanket answer to this question, as it depends on the class, the professor, the text and the content provided in the text versus the classroom.

The best thing that you can do here is make a judgment call for yourself. Timing is everything in college, so make sure that you are making the most of your time by being honest with yourself and determining the best course of action for you when it comes to your reading materials.

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