As an English student, reading will play a large role in your studies, both the primary literary works which are the object of study, and the secondary works of scholarly criticism that interpret those literary texts. The terms primary and secondary do not imply that the literary text must be read first and the criticism second (although you may choose to manage your reading in this way), and you must decide what is the best way to structure your reading for you. Reading can be an iterative process, where you switch between or return to texts more than once with new understanding gained from other texts. The reading strategies you use will vary according to what you are reading and why, and the ways that you look for the information you need will vary according to text type, resources available to you, and your own preferences.
