Topics
Reference topics
The reference is divided into four parts. The first is about reading itself: how to stay focused and how to approach a long text. The second covers words and set expressions. The third deals with quotations and how to get back to the original source. The fourth is about what to do with a text once you have read it: summarise it, shorten it, write down what matters.
A reader who can admit to themselves "I did not understand this part" is already halfway to understanding. The hardest time is had by those who skip over the obscure passages and pretend they are not there.
We choose topics that an ordinary adult reader, a school student or a parent comes across: household documents, manuals, educational and popular-science texts, fiction. We mention specialist questions of linguistics and law but do not go into them in detail.
Reading
How to read a long text without losing the thread, and how thoughtful reading differs from skimming.
- Contracts and manuals
A step-by-step way to read a document: from the contents and definitions to footnotes, appendices and clauses about deadlines.
- Focus and pace
Why your eyes slide along the lines while the meaning does not stick, and what can honestly be said about speed reading.
- Popular-science texts
How to separate the author's own conclusions from summaries of other people's work, and what to do with unfamiliar terms in an article.
Words and expressions
Word meanings, polysemy, idioms and catchphrases, officialese and professional jargon.
- A reader's glossary
Short definitions: polysemy, idiom, officialese, context, dictionary label.
- Finding a meaning
When an explanatory dictionary is enough, and when it is worth looking at real examples of usage in a corpus.
- Start with an example
The worked difficult paragraph on the home page shows how unfamiliar words change your understanding of the whole.
Quotations and sources
How to check who really said a phrase, and why a third-hand retelling can distort the original idea.
- Checking a quotation
Signs of a dubious quotation and how to search for the text in which it first appeared.
- Original and retelling
How a primary source differs from a secondary one, and why a reference to a reference proves nothing yet.
- Old texts (in Russian)
How to search for old publications in libraries and web archives, and how to read them with the time of writing in mind.
Summarising and writing
What to do with a text after reading it: retell it, shorten it, take notes, discuss it with someone else.
- Reading with a teenager
How to discuss a book without exam-style questions and help a teenager put their own opinion into words.
- Notes without clutter
How note-taking differs from copying out, and how to keep only what you will actually need later.
- New pages
A feed of new pages: what has appeared in the reference and which reader it was written for.
Read next
- Practical
How to read a contract or a manual without missing anything, plus a catalogue of practical articles.
- Reference
A reader's glossary: vocabulary, how a text is built, primary sources and second-hand retellings.
- Questions
Short answers about focus while reading, word meanings and tracing a quotation to its source.
What this page draws on
- Russian explanatory dictionaries (general principles)
- Russian National Corpus
- Reference portals on the Russian language (general information)
Dictionaries are revised, definitions are refined and corpora keep adding new examples of usage, so for a precise answer check the current edition of the dictionary. This reference describes general reading techniques and does not replace advice from a lawyer, doctor or other specialist on the content of a particular document.