Researcher perspectives in managing intensive reading

‘When dyslexic people read things, we don't read exactly what everyone else reads. For example, with something like a newspaper, we'll look at it, read completely the wrong thing, pass on and never know that we've read the thing wrongly. We'll be thinking about it, and it's built into our knowledge but it's slightly off. So that changes your whole perception of the world because you've read something slightly differently from everyone else.’

Dyslexic postgraduate researcher

‘It also took a while for my supervisor to realise just how slowly I could read. This is accentuated by the subject-specific notation which includes a significant number of sub- and super-scripts, symbols etc. These are both difficult to read, even using access technology, and completely impossible for an OCR (scan and read back) system, my preferred method of reading, to handle. Diagrams were also difficult to access, as these were often three-dimensional plots which took a good deal of time to study for the important detailed information that they include.’

Postgraduate researcher who is blind

‘I have found that, as I have no lectures and am therefore required to get all my information from independent study, just about the only thing my degree consists of is reading. I have found that this is severely hampered by having myalgic encephalopathy (ME). I become tired far faster and this then begins to affect my concentration; meanwhile if I start off tired I will notice this even faster...

I have found that, if my mind doesn't want to concentrate, I will know very quickly, and this has proved to be very difficult to overcome during research. The words just seem to bounce back off my eyes and, just a few pages into an article or a book, I will be fighting to get the words to make sense or even to go into my head at all.’

MA by postgraduate researcher with ME