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Dominik Lukeš, a consultant at the AI

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Competency

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Centre, gives first-year students at Opportunity

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Oxford a morning session on productive reading

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and writing.

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He used to run the Reading and Writing

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Innovation Lab, which looked at e-readers and note-taking

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apps. Tomorrow's session covers AI.

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Today covers the foundations.

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Study advice differs in what it costs.

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Installing an app or learning a shortcut is

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a low investment, creating an account and watching

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tutorials a medium one, and scheduling learning

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time and changing routines a high one.

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There are three things to learn: that something

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is possible, how to use it, and to

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make it part of your practice.

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Academic reading has a purpose, so it is

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strategic: you read the parts that serve it,

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and jumping to the end of an article

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is fair game.

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It is also cumulative.

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Readings come as a stack, and the task

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is to link five papers and the works

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they cite.

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To show how dense academic prose can be,

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he reads a passage by Judith Butler, winner

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of a Bad Writing Award.

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Academic language can seem impenetrable.

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In 2010 Cathy Birkenstein wrote that, unclear

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moments aside, Butler's wide impact comes from

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recognisable arguments that readers can identify,

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summarise and debate.

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So an academic reader's job is to

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identify, summarise and debate

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arguments. There are no points for saying you

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have read Smith

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2019. There are points for saying what Smith

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2019 argues and debating it.

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Is E equals m c squared any simpler,

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or this dense passage from a course reading?

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Deciding what is important is the key thing

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in academic skills, and the most important

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word is strategic.

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Jeanne Godfrey's Reading and Making Notes

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warns against two myths: that you must read

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most of your reading list from the top

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down, and that you must read each text

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carefully from start to finish.

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Comprehensive, narrative reading goes from

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start to finish, as in literature, and most

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texts suggest it.

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Academic reading also uses skimming for the gist

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and scanning for specific information, often on a

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second pass. Skimming shows where the argument is

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going, so you can decide what matters.

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To skim, look at the headings, the keywords

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in the abstract, the first or last sentence

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of each paragraph, and the graphics and tables.

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Do it before you start.

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It seems like extra work, but it wastes

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less time than reading five papers and finishing

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none the wiser.

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A long reference list can look impossible to

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have read. In a paper he co-wrote, some

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sources were read only for the abstract, some

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for the conclusions, some twice or more,

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and some were added after anonymous reviewers asked

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whether the authors had read their work.

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References also show the gossip of the field:

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a paper that every text cites becomes important.

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His example for five texts: skim the

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introductions of texts one and two, read the

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conclusion of text two, compare references

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across one, two and three, then read the

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paper they all cite.

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The key thing is not to try to

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power through a series of readings from start

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to finish, because you waste time without learning.

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For unfamiliar words, he suggests flashcards:

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note the word, carry on for the big

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picture, and learn it properly later.

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He advises against going into a reading cold.

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Stories are easier than academic papers because

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90 per cent of a story is not

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new.

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In a first paper in a field everything

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is new, so learn the keywords you need,

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the famous people, the typical questions and the

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big controversies.

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Background comes in many forms.

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For Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman,

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there are YouTube summaries, a lecture he gave

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at Google, reviews, blog controversies,

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his profile at Princeton, and podcasts and

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blogs on the field.

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Arriving warmed up matters, because a brain that

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looks up every word in a sentence stops

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processing.

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How long should a paper take?

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His answer is anywhere between five minutes and

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five years.

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He often starts with the references, a few

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keywords in the abstract and perhaps the

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methods and conclusions.

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For notes, a consistent system matters more than

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the app, with one exception: do not keep

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all your notes in Word, because at exam

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revision future you cannot find anything.

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When in doubt, use OneNote, which is

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searchable and takes phone photographs of slides.

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Zotero is a free reference manager.

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A browser button imports a paper's citation and

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PDF, a Word plugin inserts

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citations, and a built-in reader keeps highlights and

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notes.

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He uses it for readings, OneNote for lectures,

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and Obsidian or Notion for ideas.

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He says Zotero will stay with students

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longest.

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Writing is the core of academic practice, not

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reading or thinking: if you are only reading

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and thinking, you are not yet doing academic

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work.

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He quotes Thomas Basbøll: “Scientists and scholars are

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not writing to delight or even to persuade.

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They are writing to open their ideas to

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the criticism of their peers.”

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A tutor is there to test you, so

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writing only for a tutor leads you to

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guess the right answer.

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He suggests writing as though convincing someone in

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your field.

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For notes, ask what you could write about

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this text, because you read in order to

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write.

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Helen Sword's BASE model covers behaviour, with regular

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habits and a place to write; artisanal craft,

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meaning sentences and arguments; social

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writing, with and for others; and

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emotion. Steve New writes that nearly everybody

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finds academic writing extremely difficult.

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Writing improves with deliberate practice.

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In Peak, Anders Ericsson describes Benjamin Franklin

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noting short hints of articles he admired and,

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days later, reconstructing the articles from them.

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Jazz musicians transcribe other players'

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solos. For routine, he points to Couch to

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5k and to Basbøll's Writing Process

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Reengineering.

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His eight-week writing boot-up sets two one-hour reading

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sessions and four thirty-minute writing sessions a

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week.

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The night before, he suggests opening the document

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with its first sentence.

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Week one writes outlines of two papers,

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week seven reaches four papers and a

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five-paragraph essay, and week eight, with no new

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reading, a seven-paragraph essay.

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Writing is easier with others.

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In a writing space everyone says what they

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are working on, works, checks in halfway through

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and debriefs at the end.

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Basbøll says enjoyment is a trainable skill, and

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writing out your thoughts reveals gaps that did

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not feel like gaps.

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Back up every statement, even small ones.

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Darwin's Origin of Species passage about striped horses

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names Colonel Poole and Edwards in

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passing, and today it would read, according to

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Poole, eighteen forty-five, with Edwards as a

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personal communication.

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Knowing when to cite matters more than the

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format, and a reference manager handles the format.

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You must always have an outline, though not

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always at the start.

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It helps explore structure and break work into

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smaller chunks.

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Word's navigation pane lets you jump around a

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document, and a table of contents takes one

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click once headings are marked.

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He ends the session with its lesson: reading

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and writing are skills, and with practice you

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will get better at them.