With Associate Prof. Wang Junqi’s lecture on reading methods, the SFL Graduate Student Union started its Academic Excellence Improvement Plan of the new semester in the lecture hall on Mar. 17th.
Academic research needs humanistic quality, interest in research, creative mind and practical ability, all of which can be improved by academic reading. From book choice, reading methods and reading habits, Prof. Wang was intended to motivate the students to read more and to read more effectively in their respective academic fields.
Graduate students, in Prof. Wang’s opinion, were supposed to be future scholars with interest in academic research. He further explained what postgraduate education meant for a person from three aspects -- knowledge, ability and research. About reading methods, Prof. Wang attached great importance to a good reading habit, reading broadly, major-focused reading and book reviews writing. With detailed analysis of some lab reports written by science and engineering students, Prof. Wang demonstrated the liberal arts students how to write a book review. As to paper writing, the postgraduates’ big headache, Prof. Wang pointed out that sufficient reading will naturally produce some original academic opinions. When talking about how to “bite the hard bone—classic masterpieces and academic works”, he used A Dream of Red Mansions as an example, introducing the audience several reference books which can prepare the readers for deeper understanding of the original work.
In the Q&A session, Prof. Wang urged the students to make full use of the library resources, introducing a few e-book readers and some websites where the electronic resources are available for downloading. In the end, Associate Prof. Yu Senlin summarized the lecture with an ardent encouragement for the graduate students to do more academic research.