Have you ever read an assignment and, as you reached the final paragraph, struggled to remember any worthwhile details about what you just read? 🙈 It’s a familiar and frustrating problem, to be sure.
It helps to have some active questions in mind to engage you while reading, so I ask students to bring their Quotations, Comments, and Questions (or Q/C/Q, for short) in response to any class readings. As you read any articles assigned as part of this course, be prepared to take notes and jot down quotes from the article that feel important to you. Then, use that note taking as an opportunity to ask yourself some additional questions:
Also take note of what’s unknown or confusing:
When you finish a reading assignment using this note-taking tool, you end up with not only a list of important quotes from the reading, but also some of your thinking about those ideas.
✍️ If it helps you, I have an example Q/C/Q Worksheet that you can make a copy of and use for your notes. (Just want to see the worksheet without making your own copy? Preview the worksheet)
This text and worksheet adapted from From Reading to Writing: Quotation-Comment-Question (Q-C-Q).