Reading to write

Make no mistake: reading is perhaps the single most important activity in scholarly work. Scientific work entails participation in the historical dialogue that permanently develops within our peer group, and this dialogue is staged in text. We read to update our knowledge of the subject matter, to understand and keep up with the current state of affairs, but we also read because it enables us to write.
We model our own writing in the texts we have read. We naturally recognize different genres merely because we have encountered them repeatedly along our lives. Consider, for a minute, the variety of text types we can find in a newspaper. When we flip the pages to look for the kind of information we wish to read, we do it knowingly because our experience informs us of the kind of text search we are performing. We, seemingly painlessly, can tell, say, an article, from a news report or an obituary.
Similarly, in scientific composition, we construct our texts on the basis of other writings. These texts inform us on register, organization, lexical choices, and the whole range of textual features that make up an academic paper. Hence, when we write, we activate all this knowledge and we struggle to produce a text that fits in the scientific paper genre.
Reading, thus, is an activity that -slowly, but surely- enables us to become efficient scholars, and better writers. And we should do it as critically as possible, not only towards the content that we are being presented with, but also towards the language through which the message is conveyed. In time, we will encounter authors whose style we find particularly appealing or inspiring, and that will motivate us to improve our own skills.
What all this means, basically, is that by being better, more critical, and -why not- voracious readers, we also take important steps to become efficient authors. And though it may seem an absurd proposal now that you are too busy to even look around, reading for pleasure is also essential. We read because it is entertaining, often fascinating. What we rarely realize is that while we cuddle in the sofa with a good novel, for instance, we do more than enjoy the prose: we are learning the mechanics of the language, the silent work of words, the intricacies of syntax.
So next time you indulge in reading a good book in a rainy evening, remember that far from bumming around, what you are really doing is taking a discreetely pleasant and enduring writing lesson.