Alethea facilitates a few different task models - Guided Reading, Standard, and Peer Review. Each offering a deep engagement with reading materials though using different modes of engagement with the subject matter. 

The first two, Guided Reading and Standard tasks are especially unique in that they allow students to complete their instructors' reading assignments while utilizing scientifically proven methodologies that are designed to facilitate a deep yet focused engagement with the text. 

Our methodology mostly relies on Richard E. Meyer's SOI model and derivative reading systems (SOAR, SQ3R, SQ4R). Our workflows are designed to help maintaining fluency in reading by:

1. Providing a tool that helps you catalog your thoughts

2. Allowing for in-moment cognitive offloading into the platform 

3. Eliminating costly task-switching (and subsequent attention-splitting)

4. Instilling a systematic framework for healthy lifelong learning skills 

The standard task is divided into three steps, and is enhanced by AI.

1. In step one you are required to select a question from the left side panel and highlight relevant passages from the text.

2. In step two you are invited to review and arrange the highlights you created. 

3. In step three you are required to answer the questions in your own words by typing in the text box.

1. Click on a question in the left side panel

2. Select relevant text. By doing so the text is automatically highlighted and saved as a card inside your question 'folder'.

3. To delete a highlight click once on the highlight you wish to delete and then click on the bin icon.

4. Alternatively, you can delete a highlight by clicking the bin icon on the highlight card.

Whether it is for the purpose of class readings or research - the process of reading academic texts is more often than not a tedious and complex endeavour. Dense argumentation flows tend to be difficult to follow, different ideas and voices within the text blend into one another, sometimes it is not simple to integrate evidence, readers - even seasoned ones - are often feel lost and perplexed. In addition, in order to integrate and retain our knowledge we often highlight, summarize, take notes, and write ideas of our own. It is thus not surprising that our concentration and focus break so easily. 

Alethea's Guided Reading application is the first of its kind implementation of scientifically proven reading methodologies into a digital interface. Explained in further details below - the Guided Reading application relies on Richard E. Meyer's SOI model (Select - Organize - Integrate) and derivative reading systems (SOAR, SQ3R, SQ4R). Our workflows are designed to help maintaining fluency in reading by:

1. Providing a systematic framework for healthy deep learning

2. Eliminating costly task-switching (and subsequent attention-splitting)

3. Facilitating a structured method to catalog, index, and evaluate the key instances in the text

4. Allowing for in-moment cognitive offloading into the platform 

5. Instilling lifelong learning habits and skills 

To learn more about the Guided Reading methodology click here.

In the first step of the Guided Reading application readers are instructed to survey the text, i.e. - go over titles, subheadings, the abstract, and the first sentence of each paragraph. 

Whenever you come across something that interests you or might be important to you - highlight it. To highlight the text - simply select the given text with your cursor and it will be automatically highlighted. 

By surveying a text before a deeper readings you will get a limited, yet oftentimes surprisingly clear understanding of the outline of the text, what it treats, what concepts or ideas are discussed etc. 

The significance of this first step is allow the reader to get a quick overview of the text, recognize the parts of the texts that might be more interesting than others to get into, and to clearly define what is that they are looking to get out of their reading.

This might be the most important part of the process:

Come up with questions of your own based on the general information that you see on the cards of the highlights you collected. At this state you will at once have a basic and abstract understanding of the text, but at the same time - a lot of missing details. Come up with questions to 'connect the dots'. Reading the text while actively seeking for answers will focus your reading, reduce time and effort, and help you to gain better understanding. 

1. To add questions, just click the “Add question” button and type your question. You can edit and delete questions by using the question menu.

Tip: If your instructor chose to add a question of her/his own - it will already appear in the sidebar - pay special attention to it as you survey the text and pay special attention to places in the text that will be important for you to dive deeper into in the next step.

By linking a highlight with your question you have thereby connected and indexed that instance under this question, and will be able to find it indexed underneath it.

While many of us have been highlighting texts for a long time, and while it may help us keep our concentration (working/sensory memory retention), researches show that (unless you have a very strong photographic memory) - highlighting does very little to help retain materials in your memory. 

Annotating in Alethea is is drastically different than traditional highlighting in the sense that beyond just saying 'this part is important - period', by linking the given part of the text with a question we are saying - 'this part is important - BECAUSE..'. This is what is called 'thematic coding' and is among the highest order cognitive skills that could be used while reading. 

Beyond the fact that by interlinking the text with your questions you create an 'external memory bank' of each one of your themes - by merely using the highlights as answers to your questions you are coding the data into your short & long term memory as you would if you were summarizing the text as you're reading it. But there's another benefit:

When moving back and forth between reading and taking notes we are effectively 'task switching', i.e - alternating between categorically different cognitive procedures; overtime this creates an unbearable load that could decrease our cognitive performance by a factor of 10. 

By keeping the reader's eyes and focus in the same frame - Alethea offers a completely new way of reading and learning that could ultimately make the tedious task of note-taking redundant. Try it out for yourself and see if it works. 

1. Click on 'Highlight View'.

2. Give your highlight cards titles.

3. Drag and drop them to other relevant questions, create any kind of hierarchy or order that makes sense to you (a clearer argumentative/logical flow; classify them according to how well they answer the questions, etc.) 

In doing so you are thus casting order into your selections and critiquing your work. Beyond merely being a step closer to your own synthesis of  the text - you have made use of your higher order skills and driven deeper your digestion of the text. 

In this last step of the process, you'll add your own answers to all of the questions. 

1. Type your answer in the text box.

2. Click on the arrow icon next to the question to have your highlights available for reference as you write your own answer. Some users may prefer to try and answer without referencing back to their answers to test their memory and understanding of the text.

Click on the pending peer-review task and read the relevant academic paper. Write your reflection in the designated box. You can zoom in on your reflection using the 'full-screen' icon on the upper right corner of the text box. When you're done, click share and choose a peer from the list to review your work.

To review your peer's work, click on the pending review request in the task manager. Write your review in the box. You can take a look at the text at any time using the tabs. When you're ready click submit and confirm. Your instructor will be able to view both the reflection and the review.

• If your instructor shared their thoughts with you - you will receive a notification when a feedback is available for your task. 

• You will receive an overall evaluation, as well as a feedback for each question. 

• Use the sidebar to navigate between the questions.