Reading Techniques for Academic Midwifery Texts
With Emma and Ethan, Academic Skills Specialist
Key Takeaways
- The key is to read with purpose and use strategies that match what you need.
- Not every text requires the same depth of reading, and trying to read everything word-for-word isn't efficient.
- Skimming is reading for overall structure and main ideas — you take in headings, abstracts, opening sentences.
- Scanning is looking for something specific, like a statistic or term.
- Close reading is for texts that are directly relevant to your argument or assessment.
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Full Transcript
Emma: Welcome to Reading Techniques for Academic Midwifery Texts. I'm Emma, and with me is Ethan, our Academic Skills Specialist. Ethan, academic midwifery texts can be dense. How do students approach them without getting lost?
Ethan: The key is to read with purpose and use strategies that match what you need. Not every text requires the same depth of reading, and trying to read everything word-for-word isn't efficient.
Emma: Let's start with skimming and scanning — what's the difference, and when do you use each?
Ethan: Skimming is reading for overall structure and main ideas — you take in headings, abstracts, opening sentences. Scanning is looking for something specific, like a statistic or term. Both are useful before you commit to a deep read.
Emma: And then there's close reading, which is what students often think of as 'proper' reading. When does that come in?
Why is reading techniques for academic midwifery texts important in midwifery practice?
Ethan: Close reading is for texts that are directly relevant to your argument or assessment. You're reading to understand, evaluate, and extract meaning — not just absorb.
Emma: Active reading is a term that comes up a lot. What does that actually look like in practice?
Ethan: Annotating as you go — highlighting key points, writing questions in the margin, summarising paragraphs in your own words. It keeps your brain engaged and makes the text easier to return to.
Emma: Research articles have a specific structure — abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion. How does understanding that structure help midwifery students?
Ethan: Enormously. Once you know the structure, you can go straight to what you need. The abstract tells you whether it's worth reading further. Methods tells you how reliable it is. Discussion tells you what it means for practice.
How does reading techniques for academic midwifery texts work in a healthcare context?
Emma: What about the statistics in research articles? Students often find the quantitative sections intimidating.
Ethan: Focus on what the results mean, not just the numbers. Look for the confidence intervals and p-values — these tell you how certain the findings are. You don't need to calculate them, just interpret them.
Emma: How do students manage reading across multiple sources without confusing whose argument is whose?
Ethan: Good note-taking and organisation. Record the author, date, and key point from each source separately. Some students use a reading matrix — a table that maps each source against themes or questions.
Emma: That sounds like a tool that would really help at assignment time. Any other techniques worth mentioning?
How does reading techniques for academic midwifery texts work in a healthcare context?
Ethan: The SQ3R method — Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review. It's structured and evidence-based. You survey the text first, generate questions about it, read to find answers, then consolidate. It significantly improves retention.
Emma: Ethan, for a student who genuinely finds academic reading difficult, what's the first step?
Ethan: Lower the stakes. Start with a readable overview article, not the hardest research paper you can find. Build the skill gradually, and remember — every experienced midwife was once a student who found this hard too.