Reading and Writing 1

The other day I was thinking about the relative merits of reading badly written and boring texts, that however may be important and hold key ideas. It is a bit like reading a boring, badly written novel and pursuing it to the bitter end - the amount you read drops considerably. I used to have the idea that if I couldn't get into a novel within 50 pages that I should give up on it. The problem with this is that sometimes great novels are difficult to engage with...I could never engage with Jane Austin but still feel I should read her.

When it comes to academic literature it can sometimes be rather dense and boring. The question is whether you drop what you are reading and search around for something that is an easy read...very often these will talk about the same ideas anyway and you would consume much more.

I also recently came across 'Researchers, Reflexivity, and Good Data: Writing to Unlearn' by Audrey Kleinsasser 2000. She referred to a quote from Richardson in the Handbook of Qualitative Research - ed. Denzin ( which I just the other week got out of the library) who also talks about this problem.

For the time it takes to force myself through one drudge I could perhaps read four times more of other more exciting material. The difficulty is that the drudge can hold important gems. I guess when it comes to papers you do have to wade through some of tough ones...although books are much lengthier matters and perhaps the choice should rather be made on readability.

Sometimes academics make things seem more complicated than they actually are and please give me down to earth examples of what you are talking about.