Where to Put the Manicules: A Theory of Expert Reading.

Manicules are hand-drawn symbols used by medieval readers to mark important parts of a text. Knowing where to place manicules is one characteristic of an expert reader. A meta-cognitive theory of expert reading helps to account for what readers know that allows them to place manicules appropriately. This theory proposes that expert readers are meta-readers who have awarenesses and skills enabling them to read texts efficiently and effectively. The awarenesses of experts include meta-textual awareness of organization and structure, meta-contextual awareness of how the text fits into its discipline or area, and meta-linguistic awareness of the linguistic characteristics of the text such as specialized vocabulary. The skills of expert meta-readers include analysis of main ideas, details and other aspects of the substance of the points presented, synthesis of points in a single text or multiple texts on the same topic or issue, evaluation for authority, accuracy, currency, relevance and bias, and application or creation for the readers' own purposes. The theory, supported by a variety of research findings, helps to distinguish experts from novices; teachers can use specific intensive and extensive teaching techniques in any discipline to help novices learn to read well in order to place their manicules successfully. I'm reading now for new courses I am teaching this coming academic year. The texts are informational prose, some textbooks per se and some not. As always when I read this kind of material, I am marking the text in a very particular way, following a strategy used in medieval texts. I sometimes underline or draw boxes around important ideas, but for key points, I draw a little hand in the margin with the index finger pointing to the passage. When I review the text, the little hands make it easy to find the key points without re-reading the whole text. I've been reading this way since I studied with a medieval literature scholar in college who told me about this text-marking scheme; the little hands are called manicules, according to Renaissance scholar William Sherman of the University of York in Britain (Sherman, 2005, p. 28). Part of what makes me a good reader is that I know what to mark and where to put the little hands. It is this ability and related skills in text processing, analysis, evaluation and application that distinguish expert from novice readers. A theory of readers' awarenesses and skills accounts for experts' appropriate placement of their manicules; the theory reveals the abilities student novices lack and urgently need to develop in order to be successful in any major in college and in their personal and professional lives.