Learning Portal - Study Skills : How to Read a Textbook

Parts of a Textbook

Copyright page: the first few pages of a textbook usually tell you the names of the authors, the publisher, the publication year, etc. This information is important when citing information from the textbook in an essay. For online textbooks, this information can usually be found at the bottom of the main table of contents page:

Table of contents: tells you everything that's in the textbook and helps you find specific sections. 

Online textbook table of contents example (Liachovitzky, 2019)

Content chapters: contain the actual core concepts, explanations, and exercises of the textbook. Check the first pages of chapters to see if each one was written by different authors, since this information will also be needed if you ever cite the textbook.

Appendices: These contain extra information, examples, practice exercises, or answer keys, and are usually found at the end of the content chapters. Some major things usually found in the appendices include:

• Index: This section contains key words from throughout the textbook, and shows you which pages you can find them mentioned on. Online textbooks sometimes have indices, but could also have a search bar instead.
• Glossary: This is like a dictionary section, where you can see the definitions of key terms found throughout the textbook.

See the "Using Textbooks for Reference" tab for images of these sections.

Previewing

Reading textbook chapters before you go over the material in class is a great way to prepare your mind to take in new information. You can skim for key concepts, get familiar with overall ideas, and note down any questions you have so that when you go to class, you can build on your knowledge more effectively.

Here are some previewing tips:

• Read the chapter's introduction and conclusion first to get the overall idea.
• Go over the sub-headings to see how the topic is broken down.
• Look for any bold terms, as these are usually the most important vocabulary words. Figure out what they mean by reading the text around them.
• Skim through the rest of the main material.
• Note down anything that you have questions about so you can ask when you're going over the topic in class.

Sample of sub-heading and bolded terms within textbook content (Clark et al., 2018)

Tips on Using Textbooks For Class

• When taking notes, make it clear which chapter(s) in the textbook discuss those topics (e.g., include page numbers).
• Write down anything the instructor says that adds onto or clarifies something in the textbook.
• Ask questions about things that were unclear when you previewed the material, then note down the answers.
• If your course has PPT slides available, you can print them out and take notes directly on those, which can make this process easier.

Notes on printed PPT slides, University of Newcastle Library Guides, 2019

Tips for Studying/Reviewing with Textbooks

Don't try to read entire chapters all over again - that's way too much work!

Instead, you can test yourself by focusing on specific parts of the textbook:

• Read over the bolded terms. Can you explain what they mean in your own words? If not, look them up in the glossary to review them.
• Review the learning objectives. Have you met all of them?
• Try to answer the discussion/practice questions at the ends of chapters, then check your work using the answer key in the back of the book, or going back to the parts of the textbook that cover those topics.
• Go over the notes you took in class and during your previewing. Did you clarify everything you were unsure about?

Using Textbooks for Reference

There are several tools you can use to quickly look up information in textbooks:

• The table of contents
• Chapter summaries
• The index (helps you find where key terms are located in the textbook)
• The glossary (tells you the definitions of key terms found in the textbook)
• The search bar (available for many online textbooks)

More Resources on Reading Textbooks

Reading Textbooks Guide from the University of British Columbia