1.2 Lean into your learning objectives

Know what you are looking for, before you even start reading.

There’s nothing quite as demotivating as coming to a new piece of reading and not really knowing why you’re reading it – beyond the fact it is on your reading list and someone in the academic team therefore thought it would be useful for you.

Aim to identify the purpose of each section of reading you are assigned. Look out for learning objectives for each topic in your Module handbook or semester outline. If they aren’t provided, look ahead to your assignments or seminar questions and focus on the sources and chapter sections that address these.

For example, you may have a learning outcome like this:

Be able to explain the procedural and legal steps a mortgagee must take before repossessing a residential home.

Now you have something concrete to focus your reading. Having a clear purpose for a reading session makes a huge difference to motivation.

Remember, there is no rule that says your textbook reading must be sequential. I encourage you to get comfortable treating your textbook as a reference source, like a dictionary, thesaurus or encyclopaedia. Use it to look up the things you need to learn.

Don’t assume you must read every part of the chapter, and certainly not in strict order.

So in our example here from Land Law, it is permissible to scan ahead in the chapter on Mortgages and find where the author discusses mortgagee remedies. Martin Dixon, for example, in Modern Land Law, provides a detailed contents section with an entry for “The rights of the mortgagee under a legal mortgage: remedies for default”. This covers some 16 pages. Rather more palatable than the 48 pages of the whole chapter – the gist of which you will already have if you followed the advice in the previous post!