critical reading assignment example

Florida State University

FSU | Writing Resources

Writing Resources

The English Department

College Composition

Critical Reading Activities

Active Reading
Appealing to an Audience
Finding the Commonalities
Sofa to 5k: Active Reading
The Verbal Shove-Off: Active Reading
How to Eat a Poem

Active Reading: Marking Up the Text and Dialogic Journals

Purpose: Helping students learn to actively read texts, how to take notes on readings, and gain an understanding of their preferred styles for notetaking and the possible benefits of each.

Description: This exercise asks students to try two active reading strategies using the sources they might use for their research papers. Then, they discuss in order to articulate their preferred note taking style and the benefits of each.

Suggested Time: 50 minutes

Have students bring in at least two articles they plan on using for their research. Give students the two handouts below. Give students 20 minutes to try each technique, using one article for each technique. Give 5 minutes for independent writing in which students explain which method they prefer and why. Then, have a class discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of each method.

Active Reading – Mark up the Text

Underline key ideas – for example, topic sentences.
Box or circle words or phrases you want to remember.
Place a checkmark or a star next to an important idea.
Place a double check mark or double star next to an especially significant idea.
Put a question mark near any unfamiliar reference or a word you need to look up.
Number the writer’s key supporting points or examples.
Use different color highlighters.
Don’t be afraid to write your thoughts in the margins or on a separate sheet of paper (like the dialogic journal).

Questions to Ask (and Answer) when Reading a Text

What issue is the writer focusing on?
Does the writer take a clear stand on this issue?
What is the writer’s thesis (if there is one)?
What is the writer’s purpose for writing?
Who is the audience for this writing?
What is the writer’s tone? Why do you think he/she writes with this tone?
Does the writer seem to assume readers will agree with his/her position?
What evidence does the writer use to support the essay’s thesis/central argument? Does the writer include enough evidence?
Does the writer consider, address and/or refute opposing arguments?
Do you understand the vocabulary? If not, look the words up.
Do you understand the writer’s references/citations? If not, look them up.
Do you agree with the points the writer makes? Why/why not?
What connections can you make between this article and others you have read?

Dialogic Journals (also called Double Entry Journal)

Before reading, answer these questions:

Why are you reading this piece?
What do you hope to learn as you read it?

Fold a page in your daybook in half (long ways) and follow these steps to complete your dialogue journal:

Write the title and author of the article at the top of the page.
In the first column, “write down anything from the reading that catches your attention, seems significant, bores you silly, confuses you, or otherwise causes you to take note (or stop taking note).” 1 Make sure to also write down the page number from which you have taken the quote.
In the second column, explain what made you write the quote in the first column and/or respond to, question or critique the quote.

Note: You will ping-pong between the two columns. When you find a quote you want to write down, you will write that quote in column one and then respond to it in column two. Then you will go back to reading, notice a new quote you want to write down in column one and respond in column two. And so on…

For this assignment, I want you to choose at least two quotes per page.

When you have finished reading, answer these questions:

How is this reading useful or not useful for my purpose (in this case, for your inquiry project)?
If it is useful, what is useful about it, and what in the reading illustrates that use?

_____________________________

1 Adler-Kassner, Linda. Considering Literacy. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006. Print. (Quote taken from page 10)

_____________________________________________________________________________

Appealing to an Audience: How Publications Set a Tone with Content, Structure and Design

Purpose: Understanding how journals and newspapers set a particular tone for their audiences. Description: This exercise asks students to analyze various features of publications. Homework assignment that turns into a discussion the next class period. Often used when students are preparing for a feature article or remediation project.

Suggested Time: 20-50 minutes (depending on discussion time)

Give students the following homework assignment:

Publication Analysis (2-3 typed, double-spaced pages)

For this short assignment, you will identify what specific publication you are going to write your feature article for, and analyze the publication in four areas:

Content – skim through several issues of the publication, primarily paying attention to the feature articles (i.e. usually the major articles that are listed on the front cover). What subjects/topics do their authors write about? Make a list of the most common subjects you see.
Style – pay attention to the type of vocabulary used, the tone employed, the length of the articles, paragraphs, and sentences, the persona/ethos that the writer constructs, and the overarching themes that emerge.
Structure/Design – what kinds of organizational structures do the writers use? What about their “hook”? Do they typically start with an interesting quote, a shocking statement, the posing of a problem, factual information, an anecdote, etc.? What kinds of design elements are present? Are there off-set quotes, images/advertisements, unique fonts, subject headings, works cited, bio of the author, etc.?
Audience - On the basis of the feature articles’ common types of content, style, and structure/design, what can you infer about the audience? Start with demographics like age, race/ethnicity, gender, religious/political affiliations, etc. but don’t stop there. What does this audience value? How do they perceive themselves? What kinds of weaknesses or desires do the advertisements tend to exploit or encourage? What kinds of knowledge or background experiences do the articles assume that their readers have?

Have students discuss what they found either in small groups, whole groups, or both.

____________________________________________________________________

Finding the Commonalities: Investing Organizational Structures and Formatting of Academic Articles

Purpose: Helping students develop knowledge about organizational structures and formatting common to academic articles, so that can use this information to help them read difficult texts

Description: This exercise asks students to identify and present on the features and types of academic texts. This exercise works for particularly well for research-based classes, but can work in other composition courses as well.

Suggested Time: 2-3 class periods and outside of class work time

In groups of two or three, students choose one of the types of essays or essay features from the list at the bottom of the page and create a short presentation for the class. (The list is by no means complete but is applicable to most of the texts students encounter in scholarly databases.)

For the article types, students should explain

the purpose of the article (i.e. what does a review article actually do?)
the kind of information in each section (i.e. what does the results section do?)
how each section is connected to the others (i.e. how is the lit review connected to the argument?)
and how knowing this information helps readers understand the text (i.e. how can you read differently knowing the purpose of a lit review?)

For the features common to multiple article types, students should focus on

the purpose of those features (i.e. what do notes do?)
the kind of information in the features (i.e. what kind of information would you find in notes?)
how the features are connected to the content of the article (i.e what is the relationship between the subject heading and the actual text?)
how knowing about these features helps readers understand the article (i.e. how might you read differently knowing about subject headings?)

Each group creates a PowerPoint or similar artifact that can be distributed to the rest of the class. After the presentations, discuss what the students learned and then, during the next class period, apply this knowledge to a course reading.

List of Article Types and Features

IMRAD Articles (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion)
Review Essays (Introduction, Methods, Article Discussion, and Implications)
Humanities Essays (Introduction, Lit Review, Body/Argument, and Conclusion)
Book Reviews (Introduction, Summary, Critique, and Implications)
Subject Headings
Signposts / Forecasting Moves
Notes/Endnotes/Footnotes
Works Cited Pages

Sofa to 5k: Active Reading

Purpose: This exercise demonstrates the relationship between active-reading and efficient-reading. Students should learn that attentive reading habits can increase their retention and comprehension. It is well-suited for the beginning of the semester, or in conjunction with a research-based assignment.

Description: This exercise prompts students to reconsider quick and non-interactive reading by comparing the processes. It should demonstrate that retaining information is more difficult and time-consuming from a passively read passage.

Suggested Time: 40 minutes

Ask students to read an excerpt of your choice projected on the board.
Remove the projection and ask them to write short answers to a series of questions referencing specific content, as in phrasing or numerical details.
Discuss their answers, and draw extra attention to their (in)ability to quote exactly from memory.
Project the excerpt again and ask them to double-check their answers.
...Did it require them to essentially read the entire passage again?...
Provide a second excerpt on a printed hand-out and ask them to read the material with a pencil in hand. Encourage them to mark the passages they think are important, especially the author’s thesis or relevant / convincing facts. Ask them to anticipate as they are reading which details you may have chosen for questions.
Project a new set of questions for the second excerpt, and ask them to write their short answers on the same sheet of paper as the first excerpt.
Discuss their answers. How did engaging with the text affect their ability to find the specific answers? How well did they understand the second text? Did they need to completely re-read to find the answers?
Start a discussion about which process seemed "better" to them, or more useful for writing with research.
Be sure to question which factors might prohibit them from physically writing in their books (they want to sell them back?), and address possible solutions (post-its).

The Verbal Shove-Off: Active Reading

Purpose: This exercise compels students to engage with authors in an exaggerated take on the “talking back to the text” reading strategy; and serves as a nice precursor to an opinion-editorial. Students should be motivated by the outlandish or absurdly biased (poorly researched) essays to challenge the author with questions in the margins of their essays. Comments like, “say what?!, seriously?, really?, says who?,” are what we want.

Description: While this exercise aims to generate a conversation between the student and the author, it invites students to scrutinize the resources used within the text. It prompts students to challenge claims in a colloquial manner, and then provides the opportunity to discuss varied viewpoints and draft a counterargument. This is aggro active-reading, or active reading with a purpose.

Suggested Time: 60 minutes

First, you need to find an “article” which presents opinion as fact, and refers to questionable sources like Wikipedia. Here is one, for example: Interest Convergence, FSU, and the Seminole Tribe of Florida .
If you’re in a computer-classroom have your students respond in a document as they read the article. If not, and preferably, provide copies.
You’ll also want to offer a brief introduction to the topic.
Ask the students to decide—as they are reading—if they “agree” or “disagree” with the statements being made—considering a decision, means thinking.
Liken it to the way a lawyer collects a defense.
When they are done reacting to the piece, facilitate a discussion of the essay.
What points did the author make well? Where did they fail? Do you agree? Etc.
Ask them to write a response.
Resume discussion for another 10-minutes.
Last question, did having your paper written out help you articulate your thoughts?

How to Eat a Poem

Purpose: When reading poetry, students so often feel pressure to find the “deeper” or “underlying” meaning. This exercise is meant to demonstrate that they can read poetry and get meaning from it, and that they don’t need to feel pressure about it.

Description: This exercise provides one way for students to “eat” a poem, meaning to digest a meaning from a poem for themselves. Basically, you’ll choose a contemporary poem and explain how to read a poem, then have students read according to that protocol.

Suggested Time: 35-50 Minutes

Step 1: Prepare for Lesson

For this lesson, you’ll need to pick out a poem to read to the class. I recommend picking out something contemporary that easily connects with students. Examples of this could be Tony Hoagland’s “Poor Britney Spears,” Kim Addonizio’s “First Poem for You,” Matthew Dickman’s “V,” Dorriane Laux’s “Facts about the Moon,” or Sherman Alexie’s “Heroes.” Obviously these are just examples -- there are tons more out there. The point is not to pick something too archaic or hard to understand; rather, choose poetry that is contemporary and digestible.
Make copies of the poem so that each student has one to read in class. Make sure that students have writing utensils ready.

Step 2: Dispell the Myth of the “Underlying Meaning”

To start this exercise you’ll need to give a brief talk or have them read something that dispels a myth that has been instilled in many young adults, the myth that poetry has some “hidden meaning.” Here’s an example of what I tell my students:

People often offer me this complaint when I talk to them about poetry: ‘I don’t understand poetry. Why do poets hide meaning? I wish they would just say what they mean!” Perhaps you’ve thought this (I did when I was in college).

But thinking that poets are trying to “hide” their meaning is misleading, and hiding meaning is not what poetry is about. If the best poets could hide their meaning the most, then the “best” poetry would be unreadable to anybody else. Instead, poetry is more exact in meaning than prose or plain speech.

Let me explain: if I say “I love you,” you have some vague idea of what I mean. But I’ve said that phrase to my parents, sister, brother, ex-girlfriends, former classes I taught, pet bird, favorite book, etc. The phrase has little meaning on its own. Sometimes it means “I want to get in your pants;” others it means “I commit my life to you,” or “you birthed me, that was pretty cool,” “I grew up with you and we are linked that way forever,” “you were the best classroom I‘ve taught,” “you whistle the Mardi Gras Mambo, that’s pretty cool.”

What I’ve just done is made my language more specific to its audience and to the rhetorical situation. Poetry is that magnified times 10 -- it is the most specific form of expression. Sure, there are many kinds of poetry, some easier and some harder to understand. Sometimes you will be able to verbalize a meaning, and sometimes you won’t, and that’s ok. Sometimes, maybe, you’ll feel like you know what the poem means, but won’t be able to describe it. But what makes poetry hard to understand is that you are zooming in to unpack the specific meaning of each word when you read it.

Step 3: Instruct Students on How to Read a Poem, They Read Chosen Poem

Read the poem first with your pen down. Read at a moderate pace -- slow enough to enjoy the language, but fast enough to follow the meaning of the sentences.
As you read the first time, try to play a video in your head of the images in the poem. Reading a poem should be like experiencing your own personal movie. This may not work for the entire poem, but do it as much as possible.
Reread the poem, this time with a pen in your hand. Underline your favorite images, and make a short note about why you connect with them. Put a star next to any parts you don’t understand.
Also, on this second read think about the tone of the poem as you read. Is the poem traumatic? Hilarious? Is the speaker yelling at you? whispering? Try to see if you can hear those things in your head.
Finally, let the poem affect you and write down how it makes you feel. Allow yourself to be moved, or to take something from the poem, or even to get angry with the poem. This requires letting your guard down and believing that a poem can do this. People have different “readings” of poems/literature - some will find the same poem offensive as another might find beautiful.

Step 4: Class Discussion of the Poem

Have a conversation about the poem with the students. Make sure to have the conversation on the student’s terms -- this means you should start by asking them what the poem meant to them, what images or lines they particularly enjoyed, or what video they saw in their heads while reading.
As you discuss with them, be sure to ask abou the poem’s rhetorical situaton, the audience of the poem, etc.
Also, be sure to ask them about the process of reading -- did it work for them? Did it not? Why or why not?

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1 Critical Reading

Elizabeth Browning; Karen Kyger; and Cate Bombick

Reading as a Conversation

What would happen if you walked by the tables in front of Duncan Hall on your first day at HCC, approached a group of strangers quietly chatting, and proceeded to announce to the group exactly what you were thinking at the moment? Most likely, the group would stop talking, look at you, laugh, and slowly move away. Let’s try another approach.

This time, you walk up and quietly join the group. You listen for a few minutes to figure out the topic being discussed and to understand the group members’ different perspectives before adding your own voice to the conversation. You have probably used this method many times throughout your life and have found it to work well, especially when joining a group of people you do not know very well. This method is the very same way to approach reading in your college courses.

To be a successful reader in college, you will need to move beyond simply understanding what the author is trying to say and think about the conversation in which the author is participating.

By thinking about reading and writing as a conversation, you will want to consider:

Who else has written about this topic?
Who are they?
What is their perspective or argument on this topic?
What type of evidence do they use to support their point of view?

In this chapter, we will introduce expectations for college reading, identify key strategies of skilled readers, and review the active reading process. Throughout the chapter, you will find links to samples, examples, and materials you may use.

We will also be introducing the concept of critical reading. Critical reading is moving beyond just understanding the author’s meaning of a text to consider the choices the author makes to communicate their message.

By learning to read critically, you will not only improve your comprehension of college-level texts, but also improve your writing by learning about the choices other writers have make to communicate their ideas. Honing your writing, reading, and critical thinking skills will give you a more solid foundation for success, both academically and professionally.

Understanding and using the strategies outlined in this chapter is an important part of your success in your ENGL-121 College Composition course. You will need strong reading skills in order to understand assignments, write papers and participate in class discussion. Here are the ENGL-121 objectives that are relevant to the reading process:

4) Maintain a controlling purpose for research and writing that emerges from a clearly-defined research question.

5) Locate, evaluate, and integrate appropriate sources accurately and fairly through paraphrase and direct quotation.

6) Critically engage sources through interpretation, analysis, and/or critique in service of developing and supporting logical, well-defined claims.

Taken together, these objectives prescribe an approach to reading that is driven by questions, that is sensitive to authors’ meaning, credibility, and relevance, and that does not take sources’ perspectives for granted but that evaluates the reliability of their claims.

In This Chapter

1. Expectations for Reading in College

2. What is critical reading?

3. Why do we read critically?

4. How do we read critically?

4.1 Start with Questions

4.2 Identify the Main Idea and Supporting Details

4.3 Decode Vocabulary

4.4 Utilize Metacognitive Strategies

4.5 read recursively, 5. the active reading process, 5.1 before you read, 5.2 while you read, 5.3 after you read.

6. Now what?

1. Expectations for Reading in College

How does reading in college differ from reading in high school.

In college, academic expectations change from what you may have experienced in high school. As the quantity of work expected of you increases, the quality of the work also changes. You must do more than just understand course material and summarize it on an exam. You will be expected to engage seriously with new ideas by reflecting on them, analyzing them, critiquing them, making connections, drawing conclusions, or finding new ways of thinking about them. Educationally, you are moving into deeper waters. Learning how to read and write strategically and critically will help you swim.

2. What is critical reading?

Reading critically does not simply mean being moved, affected, informed, influenced, and persuaded by a piece of writing. It refers to analyzing and understanding the overall composition of the writing as well as how the writing has achieved its effect on the audience.

This level of understanding begins with thinking critically about the texts you are reading. In this case, “critically” does not mean that you are looking for what is wrong with a work (although during your critical process, you may well do that). Instead, thinking critically means approaching a work as if you were a critic or commentator whose job it is to analyze a text beyond its surface.

These rhetorical strategies are covered in the next chapter . If you disagree with a text, what is the point of contention? If you agree with it, how do you think you can expand or build upon the argument put forth?

Consider the example below. Which of the following tweets below are critical and which are uncritical?

alt="A Tweet from Helvetica Smith that reads, 'I just finished # Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. Would love to know what y'all think about it!' Graine O'Donnell replies, 'Lean In inspired me to seek out mentors in my profession.' I Am Only One Me replies, 'This book revitalized my sense of purpose. I am inspired! # Lean In.' anna bo banna replies, 'I think the real-life situations experienced by working moms she uses to illustrate some of her points make the book relatable to a wide audience.' Billie da Kidd replies, 'she convinced me that I have been holding myself back at work!' Just Harold replies, 'Sheryl Sandberg is a Harvard-educated woman in a business run by her family. How much does her book apply to women without that level of privilege?'"

3. Why do we read critically?

Critical reading has many uses. If applied to a work of literature, for example, it can become the foundation for a detailed textual analysis. With scholarly articles, critical reading can help you evaluate their potential reliability as future sources.

Finding an error in someone else’s argument can be the point of destabilization you need to make a worthy argument of your own, illustrated in the final tweet from the previous image, for example. Critical reading can help you hone your own argumentation skills because it requires you to think carefully about which strategies are effective for making arguments, and in this age of social media and instant publication, thinking carefully about what we say is a necessity.

4. How to read critically

Reading does not come naturally. It is not an instinct that you were born with — rather, it is a cultural development that began 6,000 years ago when humans began to use symbols to represent ideas. The process of reading is learned through instruction and recruits brain mechanisms that evolved for other purposes.

In other words, you weren’t born to read. Reading is a learned skill that relies on interaction nature, nurture, and culture. It is a cognitive tool that is developed through learning and practice. So what reading strategies are already in your toolbox? What strategies can you add to your toolbox to become a more efficient and effective college reader?

4.1 Start with Questions

Questions to ask a text.

Inquiry-based learning methods, or question-based investigations, are often the basis for writing and research at the college level. Specific questions generated about the text can guide your critical reading process and help you when writing a formal analysis.

When reading critically, you should begin with broad questions and then work towards more specific questions; after all, the ultimate purpose of engaging in critical reading is to turn you into an analyzer who asks questions that work to develop the purpose of the text

In order to develop good questions before reading a text, you will want to think about your purpose for reading. As a college student, you’ll want to think about why your professor assigned this particular text? How does this text connect to topics you have been discussing in class or to other assigned readings?

For example, if you have been assigned to read UMBC President, Freeman Hrabowski’s essay entitled, “Colleges Prepare People for Life,” ask yourself why your professor assigned that particular text. Perhaps your professor wants you to read a variety of perspectives on the purpose of college. In that case, you’ll want to ask a question such as, What is Hrabowski’s view on the purpose of college? Perhaps, your professor is preparing you to write an argument essay and would like students to see how other authors have crafted their arguments. In that case, a good question might be, How does Hrabowski introduce other people’s views on this topic and how can that help me in my own writing?

Another effective questioning strategy is to turn the title or a sub-heading into a question by adding what, how, or why to the title or heading. You can turn the title into a question by adding how. The question becomes “How do colleges prepare people for life?” Once you have finished reading the essay, return to that question to see how well you can answer it using the information you learned from the text.

Example Questions to Ask Text; an upside-down triangle divided into horizontal sections. From largest to smallest, the sections read, 1. What general topic or issue is the writer covering? 2. What is the writer's thesis (or main argument)? 3. What points or examples does the writer use to support her thesis? 4. How does the writer organize those supporting points and examples throughout the text? 5. What specific details does the writer include? 6. What kind of diction (or word choice) does the writer use? How do these elements help to support the writer's thesis?

Questions For Further Inquiry

In addition to asking questions of the text and author, you will want to use a text to develop additional questions about the topic. This is a crucial step in the process of entering into an academic conversation. To develop questions for further inquiry, you should focus on open-ended questions that cannot be easily answered by a quick Internet search.

For example, if you are reading a text about changing the name of Washington’s NFL team, a question for future inquiry could be “What are the effects of media stereotypes?” A closed-ended question such as “What other NFL teams use Native Americans as a mascot?” would close the door to inquiry. The answer to the second question can be easily found using a quick search that ends your line of inquiry. Conversely, the first question can lead to a much deeper level of critical thinking about the topic.

As you read and learn more about the topic, you may want to develop additional questions even if this line of inquiry goes in a completely different direction from where you started. To develop questions for inquiry consider asking these types of questions:

Where are there holes or gaps in the logic or evidence in this text?
What else would you like to know about this topic beyond this text?
How are other authors writing about this topic?
Where are the disagreements between texts?

4.3 Decode Vocabulary

Understanding the vocabulary used in your college texts is a critical component of reading comprehension. Having strategies to use when you come across unfamiliar words will help you build and improve your vocabulary. You can sometimes determine the meaning of a word by looking within the word (at its root, prefix, or suffix) or around the word (at the clues given in the sentence or paragraph in which the word appears). If you are unable to determine the meaning of word in context, you may look up the definition.

Each academic discipline has its own terminology, and part of your success in all of your college courses will require you to move beyond simple memorization of word meanings to using these terms appropriately within the context of the situation. This means being aware that words have different meanings and connotations associated with them, and these meanings and connotations can change depending upon the situation in which they are being used.

Context Determines Meaning

Match the correct meaning of the word synthesis to the context in which it is being used:

Definition #1: the combination of ideas to form a theory or system.

Definition #2: the production of chemical compounds by reaction from simpler materials.

Context: Your English professor would like to see you use more synthesis within the body of your essay.

Answer: You may get a failing grade on your essay if you combine chemicals to form an explosion, so you better go with definition #1!

What strategies do I use when I read? What strategies do I need to add?

How many times have you read a page in a book, or even just a paragraph, and by the end of it thought to yourself, “I have no idea what I just read; I can’t remember any of it?” Almost everyone has done it, and it’s particularly easy to do when you don’t care about the material, are not interested in the material, or if the material is full of difficult or new concepts. If you don’t feel engaged with a text, then you will passively read it, failing to pay attention to substance and structure. Passive reading results in zero gains; you will get nothing from what you have just read.

On the other hand, critical reading is based on active reading because you actively engage with the text, which means thinking about the text before you begin to read it, asking yourself questions as you read it as well as after you have read it, taking notes or annotating the text, summarizing what you have read, and, finally, evaluating the text.

Completing these steps will help you to engage with a text, even if you don’t find it particularly interesting, which may be the case when it comes to assigned readings for some of your classes. In fact, active reading may even help you to develop an interest in the text even when you thought that you initially had none.

By taking an actively critical approach to reading, you will be able to do the following:

Stay focused while you read the text
Understand the main idea of the text
Understand the overall structure or organization of the text
Retain what you have read
Pose informed and thoughtful questions about the text
Evaluate the effectiveness of ideas in the text

Establish Your Purpose

Establishing why you read something helps you decide how to read it, which saves time and improves comprehension. Before you start to read, remind yourself what questions you want to keep in mind. (Review Start with a Question section in this chapter). Then establish your purpose for reading.

In college and in your profession, you will read a variety of texts to gain and use information (e.g., scholarly articles, textbooks, reviews). Some purposes for reading might include the following:

to scan for specific information
to skim to get an overview of the text
to relate new content to existing knowledge
to write something (often depends on a prompt)
to discuss in class
to critique an argument
to learn something
for general comprehension

Strategies differ from reader to reader. The same reader may use different strategies for different contexts because her purpose for reading changes. Ask yourself “why am I reading?” and “what am I reading?” when deciding which strategies work best.

Preview the Text

Once you have established your purpose for reading, the next step is to preview the text. Previewing a text involves skimming over it and noticing what stands out so that you not only get an overall sense of the text, but you also learn the author’s main ideas before reading for details. Thus, because previewing a text helps you better understand it, you will have better success analyzing it.

Questions to ask when previewing may include the following:

What is the title of the text? Does it give a clear indication of the text’s subject?
Who is the author? Is the author familiar to you? Is any biographical information about the author included?
If previewing a book, is there a summary on the back or inside the front of the book?
What main idea emerges from the introductory paragraph? From the concluding paragraph?
Are there any organizational elements that stand out, such as section headings, numbering, bullet points, or other types of lists?
Are there any editorial elements that stand out, such as words in italics, bold print, or in a large font size?
Are there any visual elements that give a sense of the subject, such as photos or illustrations?

Once you have formed a general idea about the text by previewing it, the next preparatory step for critical reading is to speculate about the author’s purpose for writing.

What do you think the author’s aim might be in writing this text?
What sort of questions do you think the author might raise?

Activate Your Background Knowledge on the Topic

All of us have a library of life experiences and previous reading knowledge stored in our brains, but this stored knowledge will sit unused unless we consciously take steps to connect to it or “activate” this knowledge.

After previewing a text, ask yourself, “What do I already know about this topic?” If you realize that you know very little about the topic or have some gaps, you may want to pause and do some quick Internet searches to fill in those gaps.

Although Wikipedia is usually not considered a credible source for an academic essay, it can be a helpful tool to discover what other people are saying about the topic, author, or publisher of a text. Internet searches, online encyclopedias, news websites may all be used to help you quickly learn some of the key issues related to the topic.

As you read, you should consider what new information you have learned and how it connects to what you already know. Making connections between prior knowledge and new information is a critical step in reading, thinking, and learning.

Reading with Purpose

Improve Comprehension through Annotation

Annotating a text means that you actively engage with it by taking notes as you read, usually by marking the text in some way (underlining, highlighting, using symbols such as asterisks) as well as by writing down brief summaries, thoughts, or questions in the margins of the page. If you are working with a textbook and prefer not to write in it, annotations can be made on sticky notes or on a separate sheet of paper.

Regardless of what method you choose, annotating not only directs your focus, but it also helps you retain that information. Furthermore, annotating helps you to recall where important points are in the text if you must return to it for a writing assignment or class discussion.

A scanned article titled 'Education's Hungry Hearts.' It is heavily annotated in blue pen.

Consider the Unique Qualities of the Text

The way you approach a text should vary based on the type of text you encounter. Reading a poem is very different from reading a chapter in a textbook. There are unique structures, elements, and purposes to the various texts you will encounter in college.

Below are some examples of active reading strategies employed with a variety of “texts” you might encounter in college including textbooks, scientific research, online media, artwork, and more. Notice how the readers approach the text differently based on the length, format, subject matter, and the reader’s own purpose for reading.

Once you’ve finished reading, take time to review your initial reactions from your first preview of the text. Were any of your earlier questions answered within the text? Was the author’s purpose similar to what you had speculated it would be?

The following steps will help you process what you have read so that you can move onto the next step of analyzing the text.

Summarize the text in your own words (note your impressions, reactions, and what you learned)
Talk to someone about the author’s ideas to check your comprehension
Identify and reread difficult parts of the text
Review your annotations
Try to answer some of your own questions from your annotations
Connect the text to others you have read or researched on the topic

Once you understand the text, the next steps will be to analyze and synthesize the information with other sources and with your own knowledge. You will be ready to add your perspective, especially if you can provide evidence to support your viewpoint.

Just like with any new skill, developing your ability to read critically will require focus and dedication. With practice, you will gain confidence and fluency in your ability to read critically. You will be ready to join the academic conversations that surround you at HCC and beyond.

6. Now What?

After you have taken the time to read a text critically, the next step, which is covered in the next chapter , is to analyze the text rhetorically to establish a clear idea of what the author wrote and how the author wrote it, as well as how effectively the author communicated the overall message of the text.

Key Takeaways

College-level reading and writing assignments differ from high school assignments in quantity, quality, and purpose.
Managing college reading assignments successfully requires you to plan and manage your time, set a purpose for reading, implement effective comprehension skills, and use active reading strategies to deepen your understanding of the text.
Finding the main idea and paying attention to textual features as you read helps you figure out what you should know. Just as important, however, is being able to figure out what you do not know and developing a strategy to deal with it.
Ask and answer questions. When you begin reading a section, try to identify two to three questions you should be able to answer after you finish it. If you cannot answer a question, try to determine why. Active engagement in the inquiry process is critical to success in college.
College writing assignments place greater emphasis on learning to think critically about a particular discipline and less emphasis on personal and creative writing. Your focus becomes analyzing and synthesizing information to enter into academic conversations.
Do not read in a vacuum. Simply put, don’t rely solely on your own interpretation. Look for opportunities to discuss the reading in and out of class to help clarify and deepen your understanding.

Additional Instructional Overviews

The Reading Process
Close Reading in College
Student Success and Metacognition

CC Licensed Content, Shared Previously

English Composition I , Lumen Learning, CC-BY 4.0.

Rhetoric and Composition , John Barrett, et al., CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Writing for Success , CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Rhetoric and Composition , Bay College , CC-BY 4.0

Image Credits

Figure 1.1 “High School versus College Assignments,” Cate Bombick, Howard Community College, CC -0, derivative image from “High School Versus College Assignments,” Writing for Success , CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Figure 1.2 “Lean In Tweets,” Kalyca Schultz, Virginia Western Community College, CC-0.

Figure 1.3 “Example Questions to Ask a Text,” Kalyca Schultz, Virginia Western Community College, CC-0 .

Figure 1.4 “Sample Says/Does Annotation,” Karen Kyger, Howard Community College, CC-0.

Originally Composed by Elizabeth Browning; revised by Karen Kyger and Cate Bombick, Howard Community College Faculty

Critical Reading Copyright © 2021 by Elizabeth Browning; Karen Kyger; and Cate Bombick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Examining Sample Assignment 1: Summary and Analysis

In this chapter and in the next three, I walk through example assignments and how you might analyze them to better understand your task.

This assignment comes from one of my first-year writing classes. It’s a fairly typical early assignment in my first-year writing classes, one that asks students to read a text and engage with it in some way. In this case, the readings include the same one I use as a model in the first section of this book , though the actual assignment differs a bit.

The ability to read critically and summarize accurately is a crucial academic skill. The ability to use ideas from one text to guide understanding in another text is similarly crucial. This assignment helps you practice both of these skills.

Your summary will need to explain the key concepts in Mitchell’s article and to explain the main points in the article that you choose to work with. In class, we will work specifically on critical reading strategies to understand how authors make claims and connect those claims to one another. We will also work on techniques for writing strong summaries that accurately represent an author’s work.

Your summaries of these texts should be between 300 and 400 words of your final paper.

In this part of your paper, you will make connections between Mitchell’s concepts and the specific situation described in the article you have chosen. Specifically, you must try to explain the situation in your article using the terms “segregated coexistence” and “living in community” as Mitchell explains them. Think about questions like the following:

Does the article you have chosen describe a situation that could be considered “segregated coexistence”? If so, what is that situation and how well does it align with “segregated coexistence” as Mitchell describes it?
Similarly, does the article you have chosen describe a situation that could be considered “living in community”? If so, what is that situation and how well does it align with “living in community” as Mitchell describes it?
Are there ways in which Mitchell’s terms don’t apply or don’t cover the issue well enough? How so?

Note that this part of your paper should be between 400 and 500 words long, longer than your summaries. While accurately summarizing is important, readers at the college level are more interested in seeing your thinking, so this part should be longer than your summary.

When I comment on your summary and analysis, I will be looking to see how well you have met the goals of the assignment. That is, I will be looking for how accurately and thoroughly you have summarized the articles and how well you have explained and provided support for your analysis. If you only provide summaries of the articles without analysis, your project will not be successful. Instead, your project should demonstrate your critical reading and thinking skills.

Your summary and analysis will also need to meet the standard expectations of good college-level academic writing, which we will be working on during the term. Your purpose and focus will need to be clear and well explained. You will need to provide your reader with sufficient detail in your summary and your response so that your explanations are clear and thorough. You will also need to provide structural cues that enable your reader to follow the logic of your thinking. And your prose will need to be well written both stylistically and grammatically.

Examining the Verbs in Key Sentences

When I read this assignment, I find three key sentences that tell us what we’re supposed to do in this assignment.

Before going on, try to find the key sentences in the Summary and Analysis assignment. Then, read on to see if you agree with my choices.

Let’s look at them.

First Sentence for Examination

To start, there is a sentence summarizing the assignment at the top. Sentences pulled out like this are often important:

Summarize the ideas of “segregated coexistence” and “living in community” from Mitchell’s essay and analyze how those ideas apply to the situation described in an additional article (see sources below).

The verbs here are pretty direct: summarize and analyze.

What are you summarizing? Mitchell’s ideas
What are you analyzing? How those ideas apply to the situation in the second article you have chosen

Second Sentence for Examination

There’s another key sentence at the beginning of the “Summaries” section:

Your summary will need to explain the key concepts in Mitchell’s article and to explain the main points in the article that you choose to work with.

The verbs here are less helpful, at least until we look at the words around them.

When someone tells you that you “will need” to do something, you know that they mean that you “must” do it. If we substitute “must” for “will need,” we get a bit more help:

Your summary must explain the key concepts in Mitchell’s article and must explain the main points in the article that you choose to work with.

“Choose” is not terribly important for our purposes because it’s just identifying the second source that we are working with. “Explain,” however, seems to be very important.

Here we get a focus for our summary work:

Explain the key concepts in Mitchell’s article (which have been identified in the first sentence we analyzed)
Explain the main points in the article we’ve chosen

In this sentence, we have more detail about what “summarizing” looks like for this assignment.

Third Sentence for Examination

To understand the “analyzing” part of the assignment, we have a couple of sentences at the beginning of the “Analysis” section. I’m including two sentences since the second sentence begins with “specifically,” which indicates that it’s providing more detail about the first:

In this part of your paper, you will make connections between Mitchell’s concepts and the specific situation described in the article you have chosen . Specifically, you must try to explain the situation in your article using the terms “segregated coexistence” and “living in community” as Mitchell explains them.

These verbs require a bit of adjustment before our task will be clear. “Will make” doesn’t tell us much without the following word “connections,” without which we don’t know what we are making. However, “will make connections” can also be understood as simply “connect.” Here’s the sentence with this adjustment (eliminating a few more words to make the sentence grammatically correct:

In this part of your paper, you will connect Mitchell’s concepts and the specific situation described in the article you have chosen . Specifically, you must try to explain the situation in your article using the terms “segregated coexistence” and “living in community” as Mitchell explains them.

Similarly, “must try” doesn’t help us until we look at the words that tell us what we are trying to do. In this case, “must try to explain” is the idea we need to focus on. “Must try” in this sentence is an indication that our professor wants us to make effort, but explaining is really the work here:

In this part of your paper, you will connect Mitchell’s concepts and the specific situation described in the article you have chosen . Specifically, you must explain the situation in your article using the terms “segregated coexistence” and “living in community” as Mitchell explains them.

As with the sentence earlier, “have chosen” just indicates our second article, which is why I skipped that one.

The last “explains” is worth looking at in a bit more detail. In this case, the verb is not about your doing the explaining, but rather the fact that Mitchell has done some. From this sentence, we know that we must use the two identified terms in the same way that Mitchell does.

So, in the analysis part of our paper, we need to do the following:

Connect Mitchell’s concepts, which we summarized in the summary section of the paper, to the situation in our second article.
To do this effectively, we need to use Mitchell’s terms.

Applying Bloom

Having done this analysis, we now have a better sense of the intellectual work of this assignment:

Summary Part 1: Explain Mitchell’s key ideas
Summary Part 2: Explain the main points in our second article
Analysis: Use Mitchell’s ideas to explain the situation in our second article.

Before jumping into the next section, take what you know about the task in the sample assignment and see which types of knowledge and which cognitive processes you believe the assignment is looking for.

After you read the rest of this chapter, decide whether or not you agree with my analysis.

Kinds of Cognitive Processes

First, the verbs.

The summary section of the assignment focused on explaining the key ideas in both articles. It can be helpful to move “up” the pyramid or the side of the grid with the cognitive processes to help us figure this out.

We aren’t being asked to remember, since we can look up the information, but we are being asked to understand both Mitchell’s concepts and the main points from the second article. Notice that on the grid version, summarizing appears at the intersection of factual knowledge and the cognitive process of understanding.

When we look at connections, though, “understanding” doesn’t seem to be enough. Yes, we have to understand, but we’re trying to make those connections (remember the original wording?), and “understanding” seems to be more about making sense of ideas that others have already put together.

The next step is “ applying .” If we look only at the grid, applying doesn’t seem to work, but the pyramids explain this one a bit differently. If applying means to “use information in new situations” or “use information in a new (but similar) form,” the term seems to work, right? The assignment asks us to use Mitchell’s terms to explain the situation in the second article. That sounds like an application to me!

But what about “analysis” in the title of the assignment? Look at the explanation of analyzing on the grid: “Break material into constituent parts and determine how parts relate to one another and to an overall structure of purpose.” Similarly, the pyramids describe analyzing as making connections and exploring relationships.

We aren’t doing this kind of work if we look only at Mitchell’s article; there, we are simply explaining what Mitchell means (i.e., summarizing). But when we get to the second article, we have to do more than just apply Mitchell’s terms. We have to divide up the ideas in that article into ideas that are connected to “segregated coexistence” and ideas that are connected to “living in community.”

To do this successfully, we need to explain how these connections work. This means that it’s not enough to identify specific ideas as either one or the other. We also need to make those connections clear to our reader. Those explanations are kinds of analysis .

The verbs in the assignment do not ask us to make arguments or critique ideas, so Bloom’s “evaluate” doesn’t apply in this assignment. Similarly, we aren’t really “creating” something new, beyond the vague idea that what we write should be in our own words for the most part. These two cognitive processes don’t apply much, if at all, here.

To summarize, looking at the verbs and assignment, we seem to be working in the cognitive realms of understanding, applying, and analyzing.

Kinds of Knowledge

While the verbs tell us about the cognitive processes that we are being asked to use, the examination of those key sentences can also help us focus on the information that we will need to complete the task. While much of this was obvious as we explored the verbs, I’ll break it down a bit here to complete the example.

In this case, we will need to know/understand the following:

Mitchell’s key terms (“segregated coexistence” and “living in community”)
The main ideas in our second article
The connections between Mitchell’s concepts and the ideas in our second article

The first two would be factual knowledge, according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. We should be able to go to the article and find those ideas. We aren’t developing those terms or ideas; we are simply recording them. To do that, we have to understand them, but that’s a cognitive process, and we’ll come back to that in a minute.

The connections, however, aren’t factual. Our chosen article doesn’t use Mitchell’s terms directly, so we have to create those connections ourselves. If you look at the descriptions, you’ll see that this type of knowledge is called “ conceptual ,” which specifically is about organizing factual knowledge.

I don’t see anything here that is asking us to work with procedural (how to) knowledge or metacognition (thinking about thinking), so we are just working with the first two types of information.

Putting It Together

In this assignment, we are being asked to use factual and conceptual knowledge to understand, apply, and analyze.

The assignment comes in two parts. The first part is focused on summarizing Mitchell’s two key concepts and the main points from the second article. This part, then, stays firmly in the factual realm. We’re not supposed to talk about our opinions of any of these ideas or start making connections between them in this section. If we fail to present the factual information (e.g., we are missing one summary or the other; or we misread the article so our summary isn’t accurate), we will not succeed at this part. Also, because this is the more basic part of the assignment (lower on the pyramids and grid), if we don’t do this part accurately, odds are good that our analysis part won’t be as successful as we would like.

The second part, what the assignment calls “analysis,” is really a combination of applying and analyzing. We have to understand the main points, too, but mostly, we would do that in the first part of the assignment. In the “analysis,” we need to explain how the ideas in the second article can be categorized using Mitchell’s terms. We’re applying Mitchell, but we also have to explain if our assignment is going to be successful.

At this point, I have beaten this assignment into submission, but I’m hoping you can see the value in taking an assignment apart like this.

Reading and Writing Successfully in College: A Guide for Students Copyright © 2023 by Patricia Lynne is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Critical Reading

Introduction to critical reading.

Critical Appraisal and Analysis (Cornell University Library) This page includes questions for your initial appraisal and content analysis of a text. Initial appraisal questions relate to the text’s author, date of publication, edition, publisher and journal title. Content analysis questions address the intended audience, objectivity, evidence, style and critical reviews.

Critical Reading (Writing@CSU) “Exhibiting an inquisitive, “critical” attitude towards what you read will make anything you read richer and more useful to you in your classes and your life. This guide is designed to help you to understand and engage this active reading process more effectively so that you can become a better critical reader.”

What is Critical Reading? (Daniel J. Kurland) This page covers facts vs. interpretation and the reasons it is important to read critically.

READING AND UNDERSTANDING ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINES

So You’ve Got a Writing Assignment. Now What? (Corrine E. Hinton, WAC Clearinghouse) (PDF) In this chapter from Writing Spaces: Readings on Writings, Volume 1 , you will find “guidelines for interpreting writing assignments” including specific questions to ask yourself as you work through understanding an assignment.

Understanding Assignments (UNC Chapel Hill, The Writing Center) “The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment. While this sounds like a simple task, it can be a tough one. This handout will help you unravel your assignment and begin to craft an effective response. Much of the following advice will involve translating typical assignment terms and practices into meaningful clues to the type of writing your instructor expects. See our online demonstration for more tips.”

Understanding Your Assignment (Vanderbilt University, Writing Studio) (PDF) On this handout, you’ll find questions to help you better understand your assignment. Questions relate to the purpose of the assignment and the audience, evidence, formatting and style for your paper.

STRATEGIES FOR CRITICALLY READING TEXTS

Annotating Texts (UNC Chapel Hill, The Writing Center) Tips for effective annotating .

Critical Reading Strategies (University of Minnesota, Center for Writing) Reading effectively requires approaching texts with a critical eye: evaluating what you read for not just what it says, but how and why it says it. Effective reading is central to both effective research (when you evaluate sources) and effective writing (when you understand how what you read is written, you can work to incorporate those techniques into your own writing). Being an effective reader also means being able to evaluate your own practices, working to develop your critical reading skills.

Critical Reading and Writing (SUNY Empire State College, Online Writing Center) “The handouts and worksheets listed and linked to here are intended to help students learn to read critically and thoughtfully.” They can help you take better notes, interpret texts based on the author’s rhetorical choices, evaluate texts, and write critical responses.

Guide to Reading Primary Sources (Univ. of Pennsylvania, Office of Learning Resources)(PDF) This guide defines a primary source, explains how reading primary and secondary sources is different and offers strategies for reading primary sources.

Playing the Believing and Doubting Games (Seton Hall University) Peter Elbow’s believing and doubting games can allow you to better read and interpret arguments by siding with and siding against different points of view. This chart shows you what to look for when approaching the text from the believing and doubting angles.

Poetry: Close Reading (Purdue OWL) “Once somewhat ignored in scholarly circles, close reading of poetry is making something of a comeback. By learning how to close read a poem you can significantly increase both your understanding and enjoyment of the poem. You may also increase your ability to write convincingly about the poem. The following exercise uses one of William Shakespeare’s sonnets (#116) as an example. This close read process can also be used on many different verse forms. This resource first presents the entire sonnet and then presents a close reading of the poem below. Read the sonnet a few times to get a feel for it and then move down to the close reading.”

Reading Critically (Harvard University, Harvard Library) Harvard University suggests six reading strategies: previewing, annotating, outlining, finding patterns, contextualizing and comparing/contrasting.

The Writing Process: Annotating a Text (Hunter College, Rockowitz Writing Center) This handout discusses the goals of annotating and explains what types of notes you should be making on the page. A sample annotated text is also included with its own system of annotations: plain, bold, and italicized font to indicate descriptions, main ideas, and commentary.

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Critical Reading and Reading Strategy

What is critical reading.

Reading critically does not, necessarily, mean being critical of what you read.

Both reading and thinking critically don’t mean being ‘ critical ’ about some idea, argument, or piece of writing - claiming that it is somehow faulty or flawed.

Critical reading means engaging in what you read by asking yourself questions such as, ‘ what is the author trying to say? ’ or ‘ what is the main argument being presented? ’

Critical reading involves presenting a reasoned argument that evaluates and analyses what you have read. Being critical, therefore - in an academic sense - means advancing your understanding , not dismissing and therefore closing off learning.

See also: Listening Types to learn about the importance of critical listening skills.

To read critically is to exercise your judgement about what you are reading – that is, not taking anything you read at face value.

When reading academic material you will be faced with the author’s interpretation and opinion. Different authors will, naturally, have different slants. You should always examine what you are reading critically and look for limitations, omissions, inconsistencies, oversights and arguments against what you are reading.

In academic circles, whilst you are a student, you will be expected to understand different viewpoints and make your own judgements based on what you have read.

Critical reading goes further than just being satisfied with what a text says, it also involves reflecting on what the text describes, and analysing what the text actually means, in the context of your studies.

As a critical reader you should reflect on:

What the text says: after critically reading a piece you should be able to take notes, paraphrasing - in your own words - the key points.
What the text describes: you should be confident that you have understood the text sufficiently to be able to use your own examples and compare and contrast with other writing on the subject in hand.
Interpretation of the text: this means that you should be able to fully analyse the text and state a meaning for the text as a whole.

Critical reading means being able to reflect on what a text says, what it describes and what it means by scrutinising the style and structure of the writing, the language used as well as the content.

Critical Thinking is an Extension of Critical Reading

Thinking critically, in the academic sense, involves being open-minded - using judgement and discipline to process what you are learning about without letting your personal bias or opinion detract from the arguments.

Critical thinking involves being rational and aware of your own feelings on the subject – being able to reorganise your thoughts, prior knowledge and understanding to accommodate new ideas or viewpoints.

Critical reading and critical thinking are therefore the very foundations of true learning and personal development.

See our page: Critical Thinking for more.

Developing a Reading Strategy

You will, in formal learning situations, be required to read and critically think about a lot of information from different sources.

It is important therefore, that you not only learn to read critically but also efficiently.

The first step to efficient reading is to become selective.

If you cannot read all of the books on a recommended reading list, you need to find a way of selecting the best texts for you. To start with, you need to know what you are looking for. You can then examine the contents page and/or index of a book or journal to ascertain whether a chapter or article is worth pursuing further.

Once you have selected a suitable piece the next step is to speed-read.

Speed reading is also often referred to as skim-reading or scanning. Once you have identified a relevant piece of text, like a chapter in a book, you should scan the first few sentences of each paragraph to gain an overall impression of subject areas it covers. Scan-reading essentially means that you know what you are looking for, you identify the chapters or sections most relevant to you and ignore the rest.

When you speed-read you are not aiming to gain a full understanding of the arguments or topics raised in the text. It is simply a way of determining what the text is about.

When you find a relevant or interesting section you will need to slow your reading speed dramatically, allowing you to gain a more in-depth understanding of the arguments raised. Even when you slow your reading down it may well be necessary to read passages several times to gain a full understanding.

See also: Speed-Reading for Professionals .

Following SQ3R

SQ3R is a well-known strategy for reading. SQ3R can be applied to a whole range of reading purposes as it is flexible and takes into account the need to change reading speeds.

SQ3R is an acronym and stands for:

This relates to speed-reading, scanning and skimming the text. At this initial stage you will be attempting to gain the general gist of the material in question.

It is important that, before you begin to read, you have a question or set of questions that will guide you - why am I reading this? When you have a purpose to your reading you want to learn and retain certain information. Having questions changes reading from a passive to an active pursuit. Examples of possible questions include:

What do I already know about this subject?
How does this chapter relate to the assignment question?
How can I relate what I read to my own experiences?

Now you will be ready for the main activity of reading. This involves careful consideration of the meaning of what the author is trying to convey and involves being critical as well as active.

Regardless of how interesting an article or chapter is, unless you make a concerted effort to recall what you have just read, you will forget a lot of the important points. Recalling from time to time allows you to focus upon the main points – which in turn aids concentration. Recalling gives you the chance to think about and assimilate what you have just read, keeping you active. A significant element in being active is to write down, in your own words, the key points.

The final step is to review the material that you have recalled in your notes. Did you understand the main principles of the argument? Did you identify all the main points? Are there any gaps? Do not take for granted that you have recalled everything you need correctly – review the text again to make sure and clarify.

Continue to: Effective Reading Critical Thinking

See also: Critical Analysis Writing a Dissertation Critical Thinking and Fake News

16 Introduction to Critical Reading

What is critical reading, introduction.

Good researchers and writers examine their sources critically and actively. They do not just compile and summarize these research sources (AKA: articles, chapters, texts, etc.) in their writing, but use them to create their own ideas, theories, and, ultimately, their own new understanding of the topic they are researching. Such an approach means not taking the information and opinions that the sources contain at face value and for granted, but to investigate, test, and even doubt every claim, every example, every story, and every conclusion. It means to engage in an active conversation with the sources and their authors. In order to be good researchers and writers, students needs to be critical and active readers.

Photo of a textbook on left, overlapped by a piece of notebook paper on the right, with an uncapped pen laying across both

Reading is at the heart of the research process. No matter what kinds of research sources and methods students use, students are always reading and interpreting texts. Most of us are used to hearing the word “reading” in relation to secondary sources, such as books, journals, magazines, websites, and so on. But even if students are using other research methods and sources, such as interviewing someone or surveying a group of people, they are reading: reading their subjects’ ideas and views on the topic being investigated. Even if students are studying photographs, cultural artifacts, and other non-verbal research sources, they are reading these types of sources, too, by trying to connect them to their cultural and social contexts and to understand their meaning. Principles of critical reading apply to those research situations as well.

Reading and writing are not two separate activities but should be seen as two tightly connected parts of the same whole. That whole is the process of learning and making of new meaning. It may seem that reading and writing are complete opposite of one another. According to the popular view, when we read, we “consume” texts, and when we write, we “produce” texts. But this view of reading and writing is true only if the reader sees reading as a passive process of taking in information from the text and not as an active and energetic process of making new meaning and new knowledge. Similarly, good writing does not magically appear but is usually based upon or influenced by ideas, theories, and stories that come from reading. So, if, as a college student, you have ever wondered why your writing teachers have asked you to read books and articles and write responses to them, it is because writers who do not read and do not actively engage with their reading, have little to say to others.

This section begins with the definition of the term “critical reading.” We will consider its main characteristics and briefly touch upon ways to become an active and critical reader. Next, we will discuss the importance of critical reading for research and how reading critically helps students become better researchers and makes the research process more enjoyable. Also in this section, a student-writer offers us an insight into his critical reading and writing processes. This section also shows how critical reading can and should be used for critical and strong writing.

PART I: Key Features of Critical Reading

Critical readers are able to interact with the texts they read through carefully listening, writing, conversation, and questioning. They do not sit back and wait for the meaning of a text to come to them, but they work hard in order to create such meaning. Critical readers are not made overnight. Becoming a critical reader will take a lot of practice and patience. Depending on a student’s current reading philosophy and experiences with reading, becoming a critical reader may require a significant change in one’s whole understanding of the reading process. The trade-off is worth it, however. By becoming a more critical and active reader, he/she will also become a better researcher and a better writer, hopefully, will find reading more enjoyable by becoming actively involved in the texts.

Photo of a woman playfully pretending to shove a shirtless man off of a rock cliff, surrounded by trees

Reading involves a fair measure of push and shove. You make your mark on the book and it makes its mark on you. Reading is not simply a matter of hanging back and waiting for a piece, or its author, to tell you what the writing has to say. In fact, one of the difficult things about reading is that the pages before you will begin to speak only when the authors are silent and you begin to speak in their place, sometimes for them—doing their work, continuing their projects—and sometimes for yourself, following your own agenda (1).

Notice that Bartholomae and Petrosky describe reading process in pro-active terms. Meaning of every text is “made,” not received. Readers need to “push and shove” in order to create their own, unique content of every text they read. It is up to the reader to make the pages “speak” by talking with and against the text, by questioning and expanding it.

Critical reading, then, is a two-way process. Readers are not simply consumers of words, waiting patiently for ideas from the printed page or a web-site to fill their heads and make them smarter. Instead, critical readers interact with what they read, asking questions of the author, testing every assertion, fact, or idea, and extending the text by adding their own understanding of the subject and their own personal experiences while reading.

The following are key features of the critical approach to reading:

No text, however well written and authoritative, contains its own, pre-determined meaning.
Readers must work hard to create meaning from every text.
Critical readers interact with the texts they read by questioning them, responding to them, and expanding them, usually in writing.
To create meaning, critical readers use a variety of approaches, strategies, and techniques which include applying their personal experiences and existing knowledge to the reading process.
Critical readers seek actively out other texts, related to the topic of their investigation.

The following section is an examination of these claims about critical reading in more detail.

PART II: Texts Present Ideas, Not Absolute Truths

In order to understand the mechanisms and intellectual challenges of critical reading, we need to examine some long-lasting assumptions about reading.

Perhaps the two most significant challenges facing anyone who wants to become a more active and analytical reader is understanding that printed texts do not contain inarguable truths and learning to questions and talk back to those texts. Students sometimes find that the biggest challenge they face in trying to become critical readers is getting away from the idea that they have to believe everything they read on a printed page. Years of schooling have taught many of us to believe that published texts present inarguable, almost absolute truths. The printed page has authority because, before publishing his or her work, every writer goes through a lengthy process of approval, review, revision, fact-checking, and so on. Consequently, this theory goes, what gets published must be true. And if it is true, it must be taken at face value, not questioned, challenged, or extended in any way.

Perhaps, the ultimate authority among the readings materials encountered by college belongs to the textbook. Students have had to read and almost memorize textbook chapters in order to pass an exam. We read textbooks “for information,” summarizing their chapters, trying to find “the main points” and then reproducing these main points during exams. And it is certainly possible to read textbooks critically and actively. But the challenges which many college students face while trying to become active and critical readers is that they read every text as if they were preparing for an exam on it, as if it was a source of unquestionable truth and knowledge prevents many from becoming active readers.

Treating texts as if they were sources of ultimate and unquestionable knowledge and truth represents the view of reading as consumption. According to this view, writers produce ideas and knowledge, and readers consume them. Of course, sometimes we have to assume this stance and read for information or the “main point” of a text. But it is critical reading that allows us to create new ideas from what we read and to become independent and creative learners.

Critical reading is a collaboration between the reader and the writer. Critical reading offers readers the ability to be active participants in the construction of meaning of every text they read and to use that meaning for their own learning and self-fulfillment. Not even the best researched and written text is absolutely complete and finished. Granted, most fields of knowledge have texts which are called “definitive.” Such texts usually represent our best current knowledge on their subjects. However, even the definitive works get revised over time, and they are always open to questioning and different interpretations.

PART III: Reading is a Rhetorical Tool

To understand how the claim that every reader makes his or her meaning from texts works, it is necessary to examine what is know as the rhetorical theory of reading. The work that best describes and justifies the rhetorical reading theory is Douglas Brent’s 1992 book Reading as Rhetorical Invention: Knowledge, Persuasion, and the Teaching of Research-Based Writing . Brent’s ideas do a good job demystifying critical reading’s main claims. Brent’s theory of reading as a rhetorical device puts significant substance behind the somewhat abstract ideas of active and critical reading, explaining how the mechanisms of active interaction between readers and texts actually work.

Black and white photograph of two people sitting on a bench near a street, reading newspapers

Simply reading “for the main point” will not necessarily make the reader “believe” what was read. Surely, such reading can fill one’s heads with information, but will that information become knowledge in a true sense, will it be persuasive, OR will the reader simply memorize it to pass the test and forget it as soon as we pass it? (All of us can probably recall many instances in which we read a lot to pass a test only to forget, with relief, what we read as soon as we left the classroom where that test was held.)
The purpose of reading and research is not to get as much as information out of a text as possible but to change and update one’s system of beliefs on a given subject (Brent 55-57). If readers are changed or moved by what they read and/or take action because of what wasread, then the text has become persuasive.

Brent further states, “The way we believe or disbelieve certain texts clearly varies from one individual to the next. If a group of people read a text that is remotely controversial to a group of people, some will be convinced by it and some not, and those who are convinced will be convinced in different degrees. The task of a rhetoric of reading is to explain systematically how these differences arise— how people are persuaded differently by texts” (18).

Critical and active readers not only accept the possibility that the same texts will have different meanings for different people, but they welcome this possibility as an inherent and indispensable feature of strong, engaged, and enjoyable reading process. To answer his own questions about what factors contribute to different readers’ different interpretations of the same texts, Brent offers us the following principles summarized below:

Readers are guided by personal beliefs, assumptions, and pre-existing knowledge when interpreting texts.
Readers react differently to the logical proofs presented by the writers of texts.
Readers react differently to emotional and ethical proofs presented by writers. For example, an emotional story told by a writer may resonate with one person more than with another because the first person lived through a similar experience and the second one did not, and so on.

The idea behind the rhetorical theory of reading is that when someone reads, he not only takes in ideas, information, and facts, but instead he “update[s] [his] view of the world.” We cannot force someone to update his/her worldview; therefore, the purpose of writing is to persuade and the purpose of reading is being persuaded. Persuasion is possible only when the reader is actively engaged with the text and understands that much more than simple retrieval of information is at stake when reading.

One of the primary factors that influence the decision to accept or not to accept an argument is what Douglas Brent calls a “repertoire of experience, much of [which] is gained through prior interaction with texts” (56). What this means is that when readers read a new text, they do not begin with a clean slate, an empty mind. However unfamiliar the topic of this new reading may seem to them, they approach it with a large baggage of previous knowledge, experiences, points of view, and so on. When an argument “comes in” into their minds from a text, this text, by itself, cannot change their view on the subject. Prior opinions and knowledge about the topic of the text they are reading will necessarily “filter out” what is incompatible with those views (Brent 56-57).

This, of course, does not mean that, as readers, we should persist in keeping our old ideas about everything and actively resist learning new things. Rather, it suggests that the reading process is an interaction between the ideas in the text in front of us and our own ideas and pre-conceptions about the subject of our reading. We do not always consciously measure what we read according to our existing systems of knowledge and beliefs, but we measure it nevertheless. Reading, according to Brent, is judgment; as in life, we do not always consciously examine and analyze the reasons for which we make various decisions, so evaluating a text often happens automatically or subconsciously (59).

Applied to research writing, Brent’s theory of reading means the following:

The purpose of research is not simply to retrieve data but to participate in a conversation about it. Simple summaries of sources is not research, and writers should be aiming for active interpretation of sources instead.
There is no such thing as an unbiased source. Writers make claims for personal reasons that critical readers need to learn to understand and evaluate.
Feelings can be a source of shareable good reason for belief. Readers and writers need to use, judiciously, ethical and pathetic proofs in interpreting texts and in creating their own.
Research is recursive. Critical readers and researchers never stop asking questions about their topic and never consider their research finished.

PART IV: Active Readers Look for Connections Between Texts

As stated above, one of the traits of active readers is their willingness to seek out other texts and people who may be able to help them in their research and learning. For many beginning researchers and writers, the inability to seek out such connections often turns into a roadblock on their research route.

For example, many times students are asked to investigate some problem on campus and to propose a solution to it. Usually, a project like this one involves both primary (interviews, surveys, etc.) and secondary (library, Internet, etc.) research. Conducting secondary research allows a writer to connect a local problem he or she is investigating and a local solution he or she is proposing with a national and even global context, and to see whether the local situation is typical or a-typical.

Let’s say a group of students investigates the issue of racial and ethnic diversity on their campus.

The students may have no trouble designing research questions and finding people to interview and survey. Their subjects may include students and faculty as well as a university official. Based on these sources, the group will have little trouble conducting and interpreting primary research that may lead them to conclude that their campus is not diverse enough and that most students would like to see the situation change.

The next step these writers would take is to look at the websites of some other schools similar in size and nature to theirs, to see how their university compares on the issue of campus diversity with others. Some statistics on the numbers of minorities at other colleges and universities that will allow them to create a certain backdrop for their primary research.

But good writing goes beyond the local situation. Good writing tries to connect the local and the national and the global. It tries to look beyond the surface of the problem, beyond simply comparing numbers and other statistics. It seeks to understand the roots of a problem and propose a solution based on a local and well as a global situation and research. However, the primary and secondary research that these students conducted may not allow them to make that step from analyzing local data to understanding their problem in context. They may need some other type of research sources.

So, instead of looking for sources about their specific campus, they may have to broaden their research by looking at diversity within a national or global context. They may need to generalize the problem and, instead of looking at a local example, to consider its implications for the issue they are studying overall. Such research will allow these writers to examine the problem as a whole and to see how it is being solved in other places. This, in turn, may help them to propose a local solution.

Critical readers and researchers understand that it is not enough to look at the research question locally or narrowly. After conducting research and understanding their problem locally, or as it applies specifically to them, active researchers contextualize their investigation by seeking out texts and other sources which would allow them to see the big picture.

PART V: Advice for Critical Readers

The first key to being a critical and active reader is to find something in the piece that interests, bothers, encourages, or just confuses you. Use this to drive your analysis. Remember there is no such thing as a boring essay, only a boring reader.

Reading something once is never enough so reading it quickly before class isn’t sufficient. Read it once to get your brain comfortable with the work; then read it again and actually try to understand what’s going on in it. You can’t read it too many times.
Ask questions. It seems like a simple suggestion but if you never ask questions you’ll never get any answers. So, while you‟re reading, think of questions and just write them down on a piece of paper lest you forget them after about a line and a half of reading.

Reading and writing are rhetorical processes, and one does not exist without the other. The goal of a good writer is to engage his or her readers into a dialogue presented in the piece of writing. Similarly, the goal of a critical and active reader is to participate in that dialogue and to have something to say back to the writer and to others. Writing leads to reading and reading leads to writing. We write because we have something to say, and we read because we are interested in ideas of others.

Reading what others have to say and responding to them help us make that all-important transition from simply having opinions about something to having ideas. Opinions are often over-simplified and fixed. They are not very useful because, if different people have different opinions that they are not willing to change or adjust, such people cannot work or think together. Ideas, on the other hand, are ever evolving, fluid, and flexible. Our ideas are informed and shaped by our interactions with others, both in person and through written texts. In a world where thought and action count, it is not enough to simply “agree to disagree.” Reading and writing, used together, allow us to discuss complex and difficult issues with others, to persuade and be persuaded, and, most importantly, to act.

Reading and writing are inextricably connected. The key to becoming an active, critical, and interested reader is the development of varied and effective reading techniques and strategies. This chapter will close with the words from the writer Alex Cimino-Hurt: “Being able to read critically is important no matter what you plan on doing with your career or life because it allows you to understand the world around you.”

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1.3: Critical Reading and Rhetorical Analysis

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Critical Reading and Rhetorical Analysis

Introduction.

Good researchers and writers examine their sources critically and actively. They do not just compile and summarize these research sources in their writing, but use them to create their own ideas, theories, and, ultimately, their own, new understanding of the topic they are researching. Such an approach means not taking the information and opinions that the sources contain at face value and for granted, but to investigate, test, and even doubt every claim, every example, every story, and every conclusion. It means not to sit back and let your sources control you, but to engage in active conversation with them and their authors. In order to be a good researcher and writer, one needs to be a critical and active reader.

This section of the first learning module concerns the importance of critical and active reading. It is also about the connection between critical reading and active, strong writing. Much of the discussion you will find in this chapter is fundamental to research and writing, no matter what writing genre, medium, or academic discipline you read and write in. Every other approach to research writing and every other research method and assignment offered in other courses is, in some way, based upon the principles discussed in this chapter.

Reading stands at the heart of the research process. No matter what kinds of research sources and methods you use, you are always reading and interpreting text. Most of us are used to hearing the word “reading” in relation to secondary sources, such as books, journals, magazines, Web sites, and so on. But even if you are using other research methods and sources, such as interviewing someone or surveying a group of people, you are reading. You are reading their subjects’ ideas and views on the topic you are investigating. Even if you are studying photographs, cultural artifacts, and other non-verbal research sources, you are reading them, also, by trying to connect them to their cultural and social contexts and to understand their multiple meanings. Principles of critical reading, which we are about to discuss in this chapter, apply to those research situations as well.

I like to think about reading and writing not as two separate activities, but as two tightly connected parts of the same whole. That whole is the process of learning and the creation of new meaning. It may seem that reading and writing are complete opposites of one another. According to the popular view, when we read, we “consume” texts, and when we write, we “produce” texts. But this view of reading and writing is true only if you see reading as a passive process of taking in information from the text and not as an active and energetic process of making new meaning and new knowledge. Similarly, good writing does not originate in a vacuum, but instead is usually based upon, or at least influenced by, other ideas, theories, and stories that come from reading. So if, as a college student, you have ever wondered why your writing teachers have asked you to read books and articles and write responses to them, it is because writers who do not read and do not actively engage with their reading, have little to say to others.

Life presents us with a variety of reading situations which demand different reading strategies and techniques. Sometimes, it is important to be as efficient as possible and read purely for information or “the main point.” At other times, it is important to just “let go” and turn the pages following a good story, although this sometimes means not thinking deeply about the story you are reading. At the heart of writing and research, however, lies the kind of reading known as critical reading. The critical examination of sources is what makes their use in research possible and what allows writers to create rhetorically effective and engaging texts. (4)

Key Features of Critical Reading

Critical readers are able to interact with the texts they read through carefully listening, writing, conversation, and questioning. They do not sit back and wait for the meaning of a text to come to them, but work hard in order to create such meaning. Critical readers are not made overnight. Becoming a critical reader will take a lot of practice and patience. Depending on your current reading philosophy and experiences with reading, becoming a critical reader may require a significant change in your whole understanding of the reading process. The trade-off is worth it, however. By becoming a more critical and active reader, you will also become a better researcher and a better writer. Last but not least, you will enjoy reading and writing a whole lot more because you will become actively engaged in both.

Critical reading, then, is a two-way process. As reader, you are not a consumer of words, waiting patiently for ideas from the printed page or a web-site to fill your head and make you smarter. Instead, as a critical reader, you need to interact with what you read, asking questions of the author, testing every assertion, fact, or idea, and extending the text by adding your own understanding of the subject and your own personal experiences to your reading.

The idea behind the rhetorical theory of reading is that when we read, we not only take in ideas, information, and facts, but in the process we also “update our view of the world.” This is what it means to be a monitoring citizen. You cannot force someone to update his or her worldview, and therefore, the purpose of writing is persuasion and the purpose of reading is being persuaded. Persuasion is possible only when the reader is actively engaged with the text and understands that much more than simple retrieval of information is at stake when reading. (4)

The following are key features of the critical approach to reading:

No text, however skillfully written or authoritative, contains its own, pre-determined meaning. Audiences bring their education, situated knowledge, and experience to bear on texts in order to better understand their meanings.
Readers must work hard to create meaning from every text. All complex texts contain surface meaning and subtext. Often, readers have to think of the bigger picture in making sense of how a subject can influence broader culture.
Critical readers interact with the texts that they read by questioning them, responding to them, and expanding them, usually in writing.
Critical readers actively search for related texts to place these works in conversation with each other to advance important ideas. Consider how subjects from your other courses and experiences connect to the sources you are reading. (5)

From Reading to Writing

As stated earlier in this chapter, actively responding to difficult texts, posing questions, and analyzing ideas presented in them is the key to successful reading. The goal of an active reader is to engage in a conversation with the text that he or she is reading. In order to fulfill this goal, it is important to understand the difference between reacting to the text and responding to it.

Reacting to a text is often done on an emotional—rather than on an intellectual—level. It is often quick and shallow. For example, if we encounter a text that advances arguments with which we strongly disagree, it is natural to dismiss those ideas out of hand as flawed and unworthy of our attention. Doing so would be reacting to the text based only on emotions and on our pre-determined opinions about its arguments. It is easy to see that reacting in this way does not take the reader any closer to understanding the text. A wall of disagreement that existed between the reader and the text before the reading continues to exist after the reading.

Responding to a text, on the other hand, requires a careful study of the ideas presented and the arguments advanced in it. Critical readers who possess this skill are not willing to simply reject or accept the arguments presented in the text after the first reading right away. To continue with our example from the preceding paragraph, a reader who responds to a controversial text rather than reacting to it might apply several of the following strategies before forming and expressing an opinion about that text.

Read the text several times, taking notes, asking questions, and underlining key places. Look for “starring sentences,” or those phrases or passages that use language in creative, memorable ways to underline key points.
Study why the author of the text advances ideas, arguments, and convictions, so different from the reader’s own. For example, is the text’s author advancing an agenda of some social, political, religious, or economic group of which he or she is a member?
Study the purpose and the intended audience of the text.
Study the history of the argument presented in the text as much as possible. For example, modern texts on highly controversial issues such as the death penalty, abortion, or euthanasia often use past events, court cases, and other evidence to advance their claims. Knowing the history of the problem will help you to construct a more comprehensive meaning of a difficult text.
Study the social, political, and intellectual context in which the text was written. Good writers use social conditions to advance controversial ideas. Compare the context in which the text was written to the one in which it is read. For example, have social conditions changed, thus invalidating the argument or making it stronger?
Consider the author’s (and your own) previous knowledge of the issue at the center of the text and your experiences with it. How might such knowledge or experience have influenced your reception of the argument?

Taking all these steps will help you to move away from simply reacting to a text and towards constructing informed and critical response to it. (6)

Strategies for Connecting Reading and Writing

If you want to become a critical reader, you need to get into the habit of writing as you read. You also need to understand that complex texts often require multiple close readings. During the second and any subsequent readings, however, you will need to write, and write a lot. The following are some critical reading and writing techniques which active readers employ as they work to create meanings from texts they read.

Students should get into the habit of composing extended responses to readings. Writing students are often asked to write one or two-page exploratory responses to readings, but they are not always clear on the purpose of these responses and on how to approach writing them. By writing reading responses, you are continuing the important activities of critical reading which you began when you compiled notes on the salient points of the text you are analyzing. You are extending the meaning of the text by creating your own commentary to it and perhaps even branching off into creating your own argument inspired by your reading. Your teacher may give you a writing prompt, or ask you to come up with your own topic for a response. In either case, realize that reading responses are supposed to be exploratory; they are designed to help you delve deeper into the text you are reading than mere note-taking or underlining will allow.

When writing extended responses to the readings, it is important to keep one thing in mind, and that is their purpose. The purpose of these exploratory responses, which are often rather informal, is not to impress your classmates and your teacher with “big” words and complex sentences. On the contrary, it is to help you understand the text you are working with at a deeper level. The verb “explore” means to investigate something by looking at it more closely. Investigators get leads, some of which are fruitful and useful and some of which are dead-ends. As you investigate and create the meaning of the text you are working with, do not be afraid to take different directions with your reading responses. In fact, it is important to resist the urge to make conclusions or think that you have found out everything about your reading. When it comes to exploratory reading responses, lack of closure and presence of more leads at the end of the piece can actually be a good thing. Of course, you should always check with your teacher for standards and formatting with regard to reading responses. (6)

Guidelines for Writing a Successful Response

Try the following guidelines to write a successful response to a reading:

Remember that your goal is often exploration. The purpose of writing a response is to construct the meaning of a difficult text. It is not to get the job done as quickly as possible and in as few words as possible.
As you write, “talk back to the text.” Make comments, ask questions, and elaborate on complex thoughts. This part of the writing becomes much easier if, prior to writing your response, you had read the assignment with a pen in hand and marked important places in the reading.
If your teacher provides a response prompt, make sure that you understand it. Then, try to answer the questions in the prompt to the best of your ability. While you are doing that, do not be afraid to introduce related texts, examples, or experiences. Active reading is about making connections, and your readers will appreciate your work because it will help them understand the text better.
While your primary goal is exploration and questioning, make sure that others can understand your response. While it is sometimes fine to be informal in your response, make every effort to write in a clear, error-free language that is amenable to academic writing at the collegiate level.
Involve your audience in the discussion of the reading by asking questions, expressing opinions, and connecting to responses made by others.

Many of the weekly assignments in this section of ENC 1102, which include quizzes and class-wide discussions, have a minimum guideline of at least eight paragraphs in length. For most student writers, this roughly equates to composing a two-page essay. Students should become comfortable with composing sufficiently insightful, clearly written analyses in this format, as the two-page document is a common length for writing outside of the classroom and in the workplace.

Now, it is time to practice what you have learned concerning the formal approaches to rhetorical theory and critical reading. Before you take this week’s quiz, critically read and analyze the following essay on the prevalence and consequences of fake news. When you feel that you have a stronger understanding of what Professor Pablo Boczkowski is saying about our contemporary information culture, navigate to the quiz and record your response to the questions in the prompt. (7)

Chapter 3: Research and Critical Reading. Authored by : Dr. Pavel Zemliansky. Located at : threerivers.digication.com/mod/Introduction. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Dec. 5, 2019

Better writing assignments start with critical reading praxis.

Laying the Foundation: Graduate Student Projects in Teaching & Learning

In this blog feature, we present the work of Rice graduate students completing coursework in our Certificate in Teaching and Learning .

Today, we’re featuring the project of Mallory Pladus, a PhD Candidate in English at Rice. As part of her coursework in UNIV 501 “Research on Teaching and Learning,” Mallory pursued the research question “What types of reading and writing assignments promote critical literacy?” Based on her findings she compiled an annotated bibliography, wrote a synthesis of the research, and developed a research poster. We asked Mallory to share her findings and analysis through this blog post.

In the spring I conducted a research project with the CTE that began as an effort to learn more about writing assignments in undergraduate courses, specifically for English and writing-focused courses, but with an interest in assignments across disciplines as well. I approached the project from the vantage point of an instructor at a loss, remembering having puzzled over the question of what kind of writing work to assign when I had the chance to experiment with curriculum design as a first-time grad student instructor.

In that teaching experience, I wanted to take seriously the question of how my course could be evidence of a pedagogical cornerstone: to help student writers feel more confident in how their thinking comes through on the page. I thought a lot about the standard essay form, its strengths and weaknesses: it combines lessons on argumentation, literary evidence, and form; it’s (rotely?) institutionalized across disciplines. In the research I did last term, I was still less interested in deposing the essay, and more interested in researching answers to these two questions: What types of assignments help students arrive at a point where they can claim, with a feeling of authenticity, in this paper, I argue that… ? And what are the major principles in composition pedagogy that might help me and other instructors create more interesting and more effective assignments for students?

The findings were elucidating toward those ends. The field of composition pedagogy shows the positive influence of genre studies, which encourages instructors to make explicit the social function , the rhetorical situation , and the discourse community of the genres they’ve assigned.[1] Instructors who opt to not buck the traditional essay assignment, for example, should unpack with students who the essay is for, what conventions readers expect from it, and why the genre exists at all. I especially like the call to encourage students to write to a real or imagined community beyond the instructor. I remember valuing a version of this advice I received as an undergrad writer - to keep front and center the questions of who (is this for?) and why (write this at all?).

Above all, though, the standout lesson from the field - discussed as repetitiously as the content of the advice itself - is that student writers benefit most from writing early and often, through assignments that are sequenced, frequent, and recursive. I think most instructors know this, but could stand to be reminded. Effective assignments encompass opportunities for reflection, metacognition, and revision. They might call for post-script writing, for example; they might sequence an essay in staged parts; they might compel students to submit revisions after dialoguing with peers. In an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education by Doug Hesse, he summarily states the logic subtending all of these principles: “Students learn to write by writing.”[2]

For me, these conventional precepts - though helpful - omit one key term. Don’t students also learn to write by reading? One of my favorite things about teaching English is that part of the disciplinary groundwork is to attend carefully to language - to interpret texts as a series of decisions to a set of ends. For writing instruction, this helps. We impart to students the significance of these decisions, and we get to establish close engagement with language as a course norm. Hesse does acknowledge this aspect of successful writing classrooms too, as he notes that student writing benefits when students feel equipped to read texts as deep examples - not just of how to turn a phrase (though that too), but of carefully plotted rhetorical moves.

From experience, as a graduate fellow at Rice’s CAPC, I’m often reminded that my job to help a student improve a piece of writing comes down to making sure the student has really understood the assigned reading. When I think of common areas for improvement - an essay repeats key claims, doesn’t engage thoughtfully or confidently with source materials, lacks overall heft - they all tend to signal that a student’s first act in revision should be to return to the text. Through this work consulting on student essays, I’ve also learned that students frequently collapse the terms “critical” and “criticize”; when asked to “critique” an author’s argument, for example, students proceed to expose its flaws. These two observations suggest a need for and one potential barrier to implementing critical reading as part of our writing instruction. The pedagogy scholars, Robert Diyanni and Anton Borst, whose work I describe more below, define critical reading well: it is the capacity to “analyze a text, understand its logic, evaluate its evidence, interpret it creatively, and ask searching questions of it” (3).

Toward my first research question, about how to help students write with a greater feeling of authenticity, critical reading offers one answer. Before students can fill in the blanks that follow the template “ In this paper, I argue that …” they need to form a considered response to a source text, and this work begins with meaningful comprehension. Further, the language that Diyanni and Borst use to define critical reading resonates with this goal of authentic argumentation. As they highlight the abilities to “interpret [a text] creatively” and to “ask searching questions of it,” they describe the act of reading from a specific subject position. Course writing assignments (“ I will argue”) then allow students to develop ideas that began with reading.

My second research question pertained to the field of composition studies. In the research I conducted on writing assignments, I was surprised to not find more content on the relationship between critical reading and critical writing. There are, however, two notable exceptions to this point - one old, one new. In a study from 1990, Reading-to-Write: Exploring a Cognitive and Social Process , Linda Flower, et. al. explain that according to research in cognitive learning, the mind distinguishes between reading to do something and reading to learn something (6). When a person reads a set of instructions, for instance, they scan for usable content to extract. Conversely, the act of reading with a bent toward writing, “is guided by the need to produce a text of one’s own” (7).

In Critical Reading Across the Curriculum , DiYanni and Borst make a case for the significance of critical reading, with greater implications for pedagogy. They explain that CR entails two primary parts: to read responsibly (to accurately attend to a text) and to read responsively (to talk back to a text via marginalia and annotation). The contributor Pat C. Hoy argues that “We would do well to clarify for our students this entwining relationship, reminding them...that the most persuasive writing is predicated on acts of clear-headed critical reading” (25). Hoy offers the practical example of one such reading assignment as a precursor to writing: guide students to distill an essay; have them write one cogent sentence in the margin to capture the meaning of each paragraph.

Both Reading to Write and Critical Reading Across the Curriculum stress the importance of meeting a text on its own terms - of understanding its major moves and claims (as opposed to quickly mining it, and before beginning the work of critiquing it). Both provoke the need for instructors to prompt students to read better, with an eye toward writing. In addition to the example Hoy provides of the distillation assignment, instructors could experiment with reading journals, dialectical notebooks (that stage a conversation between the reader and the source text), and descriptive outlining (in which students unpack both what a text says and how it says it).[3] These examples attest to the overlaps between reading and writing assignments. Similarly, as we emphasize the importance of drafting, editing, and revising in the writing classroom, we can also emphasize active reading and active reading assignments as the first stage of the writing work we already know to teach as a process.

[1] From Dan Melzer’s Assignments Across the Curriculum: A National Study of College Writing (2014). For more on genre theory, see Mary Soliday’s Everyday Genres: Writing Assignments Across the Disciplines (2011).

[2] “We Know What Works in Teaching Composition” (2017).

[3] See Susan M. Leist, Writing to Teach; Writing to Learn in Higher Education (University Press of America, 2006), for a more detailed description of these and other assignments.

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Ania Kowalik

Reading Critically and Actively

Critical reading is a vital part of the writing process. In fact, reading and writing processes are alike. In both, you make meaning by actively engaging a text. As a reader, you are not a passive participant, but an active constructor of meaning. Exhibiting an inquisitive, "critical" attitude towards what you read will make anything you read richer and more useful to you in your classes and your life. This guide is designed to help you to understand and engage this active reading process more effectively so that you can become a better critical reader.

Reading a Text--Some Definitions

You might think that reading a text means curling up with a good book, or forcing yourself to study a textbook. Actually, reading a text can mean much more. First of all, let's define the two terms of interest here--"reading" and "text."

What Counts as Reading?

Reading is something we do with books and other print materials, certainly, but we also read things like the sky when we want to know what the weather is doing, someone's expression or body language when we want to know what someone is thinking or feeling, or an unpredictable situation so we'll know what the best course of action is. As well as reading to gather information, "reading" can mean such diverse things as interpreting, analyzing, or attempting to make predictions.

What Counts as a Text?

When we think of a text, we may think of words in print, but a text can be anything from a road map to a movie. Some have expanded the meaning of "text" to include anything that can be read, interpreted or analyzed. So a painting can be a text to interpret for some meaning it holds, and a mall can be a text to be analyzed to find out how modern Americans behave in their free time.

How Do Readers Read?

Those who study the way readers read have come up with some different theories about how readers make meaning from the texts they read.

Being aware of how readers read is important so that you can become a more critical reader. In fact, you may discover that you are already a critical reader.

The Reading Equation

Prior Knowledge + Predictions = Comprehension

When we read, we don't decipher every word on the page for its individual meaning. We process text in chunks, and we also employ other "tricks" to help us make meaning out of so many individual words in a text we are reading. First, we bring prior knowledge to everything we read, whether we are aware of it or not. Titles of texts, authors' names, and the topic of the piece all trigger prior knowledge in us. The more prior knowledge we have, the better prepared we are to make meaning of the text. With prior knowledge we make predictions, or guesses about how what we are reading relates to our prior experience. We also make predictions about what meaning the text will convey.

Related Information: How can Reaching Comprehension Make Us Better Writers?

When you have successfully comprehended the text you are reading, you should take this comprehension one step further and try to apply it to your writing process. Good writers know that readers have to work to make meaning of texts, so they will try to make the reader's journey through the text as effortless as possible. As a writer you can help readers tap into prior knowledge by clearly outlining your intent in the introduction of your paper and making use of your own personal experience. You can help readers make accurate guesses by employing clear organization and using clear transitions in your paper.

Related Information: Making Predictions

Whether you realize it or not, you are always making guesses about what you will encounter next in a text. Making predictions about where a text is headed is an important part of the comprehension equation. It's alright to make wrong guesses about what a text will do--wrong guesses are just as much a part of the meaning-making process of reading as right guesses are.

Related Information: Tapping into Prior Knowledge

It's important to tap into your prior knowledge of subject before you read about it. Writing an entry in your writer's notebook may be a good way to access this prior knowledge. Discussing the subject with classmates before you read is also a good idea. Tapping into prior knowledge will allow you to approach a piece of writing with more ways to create comprehension than if you start reading "cold."

Cognitive Reading Theory

When you read, you may think you are decoding a message that a writer has encoded into a text. Error in reading comprehension, in this model, would occur if you as a reader were not decoding the message correctly, or if the writer was not encoding the message accurately or clearly. The writer, however, would have the responsibility of getting the message into the text, and the reader would assume a passive role.

Related Information: Reading has a Model

Let's look at a more recent and widely accepted model of reading that is based on cognitive psychology and schema theory. In this model, the reader is an active participant who has an important interpretive function in the reading process. In other words, in the cognitive model you as a reader are more than a passive participant who receives information while an active text makes itself and its meanings known to you. Actually, the act of reading is a push and pull between reader and text. As a reader, you actively make, or construct, meaning; what you bring to the text is at least as important as the text itself.

Related Information: Reading is an active, constuctive, meaning-making process

Readers construct a meaning they can create from a text, so that "what a text means" can differ from reader to reader. Readers construct meaning based not only on the visual cues in the text (the words and format of the page itself) but also based on non-visual information such as all the knowledge readers already have in their heads about the world, their experience with reading as an activity, and, especially, what they know about reading different kinds of writing. This kind of non-visual information that readers bring with them before they even encounter the text is far more potent than the actual words on the page.

Related Information: Reading is hypothesis based

In yet another layer of complexity, readers also create for themselves an idea of what the text is about before they read it. In reading, prediction is much more important than decoding. In fact, if we had to read each letter and word, we couldn't possibly remember the letters and words long enough to put them all together to make sense of a sentence. And reading larger chunks than sentences would be absolutely impossible with our limited short-term memories.

So, instead of looking at each word and figuring out what it "means," readers rely on all their language and discourse knowledge to predict what a text is about. Then we sample the text to confirm, revise, or discard that hypothesis. More highly structured texts with topic sentences and lots of forecasting features are easier to hypothesize about; they're also easier to learn information from. Less structured texts that allow lots of room for predictions (and revised and discarded hypotheses) give more room for creative meanings constructed by readers. Thus we get office memos or textbooks or entertaining novels.

Related Information: Reading is multi-level

When we read a text, we pick up visual cues based on font size and clarity, the presence or absence of "pictures," spelling, syntax, discourse cues, and topic. In other words, we integrate data from a text including its smallest and most discrete features as well as its largest, most abstract features. Usually, we don't even know we're integrating data from all these levels. In addition, data from the text is being integrated with what we already know from our experience in the world about all fonts, pictures, spelling, syntax, discourse, and the topic more generally. No wonder reading is so complex!

Related Information: Reading is Strategic

We change our reading strategies (processes) depending on why we're reading. If we are reading an instruction manual, we usually read one step at a time and then try to do whatever the instructions tell us. If we are reading a novel, we don't tend to read for informative details. If we a reading a biology textbook, we read for understanding both of concepts and details (particularly if we expected to be tested over our comprehension of the material.)

Our goals for reading will affect the way we read a text. Not only do we read for the intended message, but we also construct a meaning that is valuable in terms of our purpose for reading the text.

Strategic reading also allows us to speed up or slow down, depending on our goals for reading (e.g. scanning newspaper headlines v. Carefully perusing a feature story).

Strategies for Reading More Critically

Although you probably already read critically in some respects, here are some things you can do when you read a text to improve your critical reading skills.

Most successful critical readers do some combination of the following strategies:

Summarizing

Previewing a text means gathering as much information about the text as you can before you actually read it. You can ask yourself the following questions:

What is my Purpose for Reading?

If you are being asked to summarize a particular piece of writing, you will want to look for the thesis and main points. Are you being asked to respond to a piece? If so, you may want to be conscious of what you already know about the topic and how you arrived at that opinion.

What can the Title Tell Me About the Text?

Before you read, look at the title of the text. What clues does it give you about the piece of writing? It may reveal the author's stance, or make a claim the piece will try to support. Good writers usually try to make their titles do work to help readers make meaning of the text from the reader's first glance at it.

Who is the Author?

If you have heard the author's name before, what comes to your mind in terms of their reputation and/or stance on the issue you are reading about? Has the author written other things of which you are aware? How does the piece in front of you fit into to the author's body of work? What is the author's political position on the issue they are writing about? Are they liberal, conservative, or do you know anything about what prompted them to write in the first place?

How is the Text Structured?

Sometimes the structure of a piece can give you important clues to its meaning. Be sure to read all section headings carefully. Also, reading the opening sentences of paragraphs should give you a good idea of the main ideas contained in the piece.

Annotating is an important skill to employ if you want to read critically. Successful critical readers read with a pencil in their hand, making notes in the text as they read. Instead of reading passively, they create an active relationship with what they are reading by "talking back" to the text in its margins. You may want to make the following annotations as you read:

Mark the Thesis and Main Points of the Piece

Mark key terms and unfamiliar words, underline important ideas and memorable images, write your questions and/or comments in the margins of the piece, write any personal experience related to the piece, mark confusing parts of the piece, or sections that warrant a reread, underline the sources, if any, the author has used.

Mark the thesis and main points of the piece. The thesis is the main idea or claim of the text, and relates to the author's purpose for writing. Sometimes the thesis is not explicitly stated, but is implied in the text, but you should still be able to paraphrase an overall idea the author is interested in exploring in the text. The thesis can be thought of as a promise the writer makes to the reader that the rest of the essay attempts to fulfill.

The main points are the major subtopics, or sub-ideas the author wants to explore. Main points make up the body of the text, and are often signaled by major divisions in the structure of the text.

Marking the thesis and main points will help you understand the overall idea of the text, and the way the author has chosen to develop her or his thesis through the main points s/he has chosen.

While you are annotating the text you are reading, be sure to circle unfamiliar words and take the time to look them up in the dictionary. Making meaning of some discussions in texts depends on your understanding of pivotal words. You should also annotate key terms that keep popping up in your reading. The fact that the author uses key terms to signal important and/or recurring ideas means that you should have a firm grasp of what they mean.

You will want to underline important ideas and memorable images so that you can go back to the piece and find them easily. Marking these things will also help you relate to the author's position in the piece more readily. Writers may try to signal important ideas with the use of descriptive language or images, and where you find these stylistic devices, there may be a key concept the writer is trying to convey.

Writing your own questions and responses to the text in its margins may be the most important aspect of annotating. "Talking back" to the text is an important meaning-making activity for critical readers. Think about what thoughts and feelings the text arouses in you. Do you agree or disagree with what the author is saying? Are you confused by a certain section of the text? Write your reactions to the reading in the margins of the text itself so you can refer to it again easily. This will not only make your reading more active and memorable, but it may be material you can use in your own writing later on.

One way to make a meaningful connection to a text is to connect the ideas in the text to your own personal experience. Where can you identify with what the author is saying? Where do you differ in terms of personal experience? Identifying personally with the piece will enable you to get more out of your reading because it will become more relevant to your life, and you will be able to remember what you read more easily.

Be sure to mark confusing parts of the piece you are reading, or sections that warrant a reread. It is tempting to glide over confusing parts of a text, probably because they cause frustration in us as readers. But it is important to go back to confusing sections to try to understand as much as you can about them. Annotating these sections may also remind you to bring up the confusing section in class or to your instructor.

Good critical readers are always aware of the sources an author uses in her or his text. You should mark sources in the text and ask yourself the following questions:

Is the source relevant? In other words, does the source work to support what the author is trying to say?
Is the source credible? What is his or her reputation? Is the source authoritative? What is the source's bias on the issue? What is the source's political and/or personal stance on the issue?
Is the source current? Is there new information that refutes what the source is asserting? Is the writer of the text using source material that is outdated?

Summarizing the text you've read is an valuable way to check your understanding of the text. When you summarize, you should be able to find and write down the thesis and main points of the text.

Annotating the thesis and main points

Analyzing a text means breaking it down into its parts to find out how these parts relate to one another. Being aware of the functions of various parts of a piece of writing and their relationship to one another and the overall piece can help you better understand a text's meaning. To analyze a text, you can look at the following things:

Assumptions
Author Bias

Analyzing Evidence

Consider the evidence the author presents. Is there enough evidence to support the point the author is trying to make? Does the evidence relate to the main point in a logical way? In other words, does the evidence work to prove the point, or does is contradict the point, or show itself to be irrelevant to the point the author is trying to make?

Related Information: Source Evaluation

Analyzing Assumptions

Consider any assumptions the author is making. Assumptions may be unstated in the piece of writing you are assessing, but the writer may be basing her or his thesis on them. What does the author have to believe is true before the rest of her or his essay makes sense?

Example: "[I]f a college recruiter argues that the school is superior to most others because its ratio of students to teachers is low, the unstated assumptions are (1) that students there will get more attention, and (2) that more attention results in a better education" (Crusius and Channell, The Aims of Argument , Mayfield Publishing Co., 1995).

Analyzing Sources

If an author uses outside sources to back up what s/he is saying, analyzing those sources is an important critical reading activity. Not all sources are created equal. There are at least three criteria to keep in mind when you are evaluating a source:

Is the Source Relevant?
Is the Source Credible?
Is the Source Current?

Analyzing Author Bias

Taking a close look at the author's bias can tell you a lot about a text. Ask yourself what experiences in the author's background may have led him or her to hold the position s/he does. What does s/he hope to gain from taking this position? How does the author's position stand up in comparison to other positions on the issue? Knowing where the author is "coming from" can help you to more easily make meaning from a text.

Re-reading is a crucial part of the critical reading process. Good readers will reread a piece several times, until they are satisfied they know it inside and out. It is recommended that you read a text three times to make as much meaning as you can.

The First Reading

The first time you read a text, skim it quickly for its main ideas. Pay attention to the introduction, the opening sentences of paragraphs, and section headings, if there are any. Previewing the text in this way gets you off to a good start when you have to read critically.

The Second Reading

The second reading should be a slow, meditative read, and you should have your pencil in your hand so you can annotate the text. Taking time to annotate your text during the second reading may be the most important strategy to master if you want to become a critical reader.

The Third Reading

The third reading should take into account any questions you asked yourself by annotating the margins. You should use this reading to look up any unfamiliar words, and to make sure you have understood any confusing or complicated sections of the text.

Responding to what you read is an important step in understanding what you read. You can respond in writing, or by talking about what you've read to others. Here are several ways you can respond critically to a piece of writing:

Writing a Response in Your Writer's Notebook
Discussing the Text with Others

Writing a response in your writer's notebook

One way to make sure you have understood a piece of writing is to write a response to it. It may be beneficial to first write a summary of the text, covering the thesis and main points in an unbiased way. Pretend you are reporting on the "facts" of the piece to a friend who has not read it, the point being to keep your own opinion out of the summary. Once you have summarized the author's ideas objectively, you can respond to them in your writer's notebook. You can agree or disagree with the text, interpret it, or analyze it. Working with your reading of the text by responding in writing is a good way to read critically.

Keeping a writer's notebook

A writer's notebook, or journal, is a place in which you can respond to your reading. You should feel free to say what you really think about the piece you are reading, to ask questions, and to express frustration or confusion about the piece. The writer's notebook is a place you can come back to when it is time to write an assignment, to look for your initial reactions to your readings, or to pull support for an essay from personal experience you may have recorded. Writing about what you are reading is a way to become actively engaged in the critical reading process.

Discussing the text with others

Cooperative activities are important to critical reading just as they are to the writing process. Sharing your knowledge of a text with others reading the same text is a good way to check your understanding and open up new avenues of comprehension. You can annotate a text on your own first, and then confer with a group of classmates about how they annotated their texts. Or, you can be sure to participate in class discussion of a shared text--verbalizing your ideas about a text will reinforce your reading process.

Critically Reading Assignment Sheets

It is important to have read your assignment sheet critically before you begin to write. Consider the following things:

Analyze your Assignment Sheet Carefully

Pay attention to the length of the essay, and other requirements, plan your time well.

You may want to annotate your assignment sheet like you would any other piece of writing. Look for key terms like analyze, interpret, argue, summarize, compare, contrast, explain, etc. These terms will tell you your purpose for writing. Be sure to know how your instructor is using key words on the assignment sheet. If you don't understand something about the assignment, be sure to ask your instructor. It's vital to understand the assignment completely before you begin writing.

Be sure to have a firm grasp on what you must do to meet the requirements of the assignment. Know how long the essay must be, because this will affect the thesis and focus of the paper. Short papers dictate a narrow focus, whereas longer paper allow for a larger focus.

Know also what formatting requirements are in place, such as font size, margins and other constraints.

Know when the assignment due date is and be sure to allow enough time for all thinking, reading, researching , drafting and revising. Be aware of your instructor's policy on due dates. Most instructors do not accept late papers.

Reading for Meaning

After you've read an essay once, use the following set of questions to guide your re-readings of the text. The question on the left-hand side will help you describe and analyze the text; the question on the right hand side will help focus your response(s).

Remember that not all these questions will be relevant to any given essay or text, but one or two of them may suggest a direction or give a focus to your overall response.

When one of these questions suggests a focus for your response to the essay, go back to the text to gather evidence to support your response.

Walker, Debra, Kate Kiefer, & Stephen Reid. (1995). Critical Reading. Writing@CSU . Colorado State University. https://writing.colostate.edu/guides/guide,cfm?guideid=31

2a. Critical Reading

An introduction to reading in college.

While the best way to develop your skills as a writer is to actually practice by writing, practicing critical reading skills is crucial to becoming a better college writer. Careful and skilled readers develop a stronger understanding of topics, learn to better anticipate the needs of the audience, and pick up sophisticated writing “maneuvers” and strategies from professional writing. A good reading practice requires reading text and context, which you’ll learn more about in the next section. Writing a successful academic essay also begins with critical reading as you explore ideas and consider how to make use of sources to provide support for your writing.

Questions to ask as you read

If you consider yourself a particularly strong reader or want to improve your reading comprehension skills, writing out notes about a text—even if it’s in shorthand—helps you to commit the answers to memory more easily. Even if you don’t write out all these notes, answering these basic questions about any text or reading you encounter in college will help you get the most out of the time you put into your reading. It will also give you more confidence to understand and question the text while you read.

Is there context provided about the author and/or essay? If so, what stands out as important?

Context in this instance means things like dates of publication, where the piece was originally published, and any biographical information about the author. All of that information will be important for developing a critical reading of the piece, so track what’s available as you read.

If you had to guess, who is the author’s intended audience ? Describe them in as much detail as possible.

Sometimes the author will state who the audience is, but sometimes you have to figure it out by context clues, such as those you tracked above. For instance, the audience for a writer on Buzzfeed is very different from the audience for a writer for the Wall Street Journal —and both writers know that, which means they’re more effective at reaching their readers. Learning how to identify your audience is a crucial writing skill for all genres of writing.

In your own words, what is the question the author is trying to answer in this piece? What seems to have caused them to write in the first place?

In nonfiction writing of the kind we read in Writing 121, writers set out to answer a question. Their thesis/main argument is usually the answer to the question, so sometimes you can “reverse engineer” the question from that. Often, the question is asked in the title of the piece.

In your own words, what’s the author’s main idea or argument ? If you had to distill it down to one or two sentences, what does the author want you, the reader, to agree with?

If you’ve ever had to write a paper for a class, you’re probably familiar with a thesis or main argument. Published writers also have a thesis (or else they don’t get published!), but sometimes it can be tricky to find in a more sophisticated piece of writing. Trying to put the main argument into your own words can help.

How many examples and types of evidence did the author provide to support the main argument? Which examples/evidence stood out to you as persuasive?

It’s never enough to just make a claim and expect people to believe it—we have to support that claim with evidence. The types of evidence and examples that will be persuasive to readers depends on the audience, though, which is why it’s important to have some idea of your readers and their expectations.

Did the author raise any points of skepticism (also known as counterarguments)? Can you identify exactly what page or paragraph where the author does this?

As we’ll see later when the writing process, respectfully engaging with points of skepticism and counterarguments builds trust with the reader because it shows that the writer has thought about the issue from multiple perspectives before arriving at the main argument. Raising a counterargument is not enough, though. Pay careful attention to how the writer responds to that counterargument—is it an effective and persuasive response? If not, perhaps the counterargument has more merit for you than the author’s main argument.

In your own words, how does the essay conclude ? What does the author “want” from us, the readers?

A conclusion usually offers a brief summary of the main argument and some kind of “what’s next?” appeal from the writer to the audience. The “what’s next?” appeal can take many forms, but it’s usually a question for readers to ponder, actions the author thinks people should take, or areas related to the main topic that need more investigation or research. When you read the conclusion, ask yourself, “What does the author want from me now that I’ve read their essay?”

Reading Like Writers: Critical Reading

Reading as a creative act.

“The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again. It came into him life; it went out from him truth. It came to him short-lived actions; it went out from him immortal thoughts. It came to him business; it went from him poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It can stand, and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar”

Consider the discourse community when you read and write in your college classes
Analyze any reading for text and context
Read like a writer so you can write for your readers

illustration of a worm and an apple on top of a stack of two books.

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to apply the concept of discourse community to honing your college-level critical reading skills.

Good writers are good readers, so let’s start there. When you can confidently identify the audience, context, and purpose of a text —position it within its discourse community—you’ll be a stronger, savvier reader.

Strong, savvy readers are more effective writers because they consider their own audience, context, and purpose when they write and communicate, which makes their writing clearer and to the point.

So the goal of this lesson is to help you read like a writer!

The Savvy Reader

Good writers are good readers! And good readers. . .

get to know the author
get to know the author’s community + audience
accurately summarize the author’s argument
look up terms you don’t know
“listen” respectfully to the author’s point of view
have a sense of the larger conversation
think about other issues related to the conversation
put it in current context
analyze and assess the author’s reasoning, evidence, and assumptions

Why read critically? While the best way to develop your skills as a writer is to actually practice by writing, practicing critical reading skills is crucial to becoming a better writer. Careful and skilled readers develop a stronger understanding of topics, learn to better anticipate the needs of the audience, and pick up writing “maneuvers” and strategies from professional writing.

Reading Like Writers

How do you read like a writer? When you read like a writer, you are practicing deeper reading comprehension. In order to understand a text, you are reading not just what’s in it but what’s around it, too: text and context.

Practice: Reading Like Writers

In-class discussion : Advertisements are helpful for practicing reading like writers because advertisers make deliberate choices with text and images based on audience (target consumer), context (where they are reaching them), and purpose (buy this product).

But I’m not trying to sell a product! How can I use my newfound understanding of audience, context, and purpose to improve my writing?

It’s true! You aren’t selling a product. You aren’t (I hope) trying to manipulate your audience. You aren’t relying on discriminatory assumptions or stereotypes to appeal to your audience. But when you write, let’s say, an essay, you are asking readers to “buy into” your point of view. The goal doesn’t have to be for them to agree with you; it can be for your readers to respectfully consider, understand, or sympathize with your point of view or analysis of an issue. The point is you’re thinking of your reader when you write, and that will make your writing process smoother and your writing clearer.

Writing for Your Readers

When you write for your readers, you. . .

Learn from your reading and communication experience: What makes texts work? How are ideas conveyed clearly?
Analyze the writing situation: What are the goals and purpose for a writing project? Who is your audience?
Explore and play as you draft: What are different ways to respond? Can you use a better word or phrase?
Consider your audience: What might a reader expect to see? What does your reader need to understand your point of view? What questions might a reader have?

poster on a wall that reads "ask more questions"

Writing as a process of inquiry

Just as you want your readers to take you seriously, you want to approach texts with an open and curious mind. Whatever the topic, it was important enough for this person to want to write on it. While we don’t have to agree with the point someone is making, we can respect their opinion and appreciate reading a different perspective.

Approach reading and writing in college in a learning zone. Be open, be curious, ask questions, seek answers. Share, stretch, experiment.

Guides and Worksheets

Use this guide for any of your college reading!
Learn a basic study skill–annotating or taking notes on your readings

Critical Reading Guide: Text + Context

Title of the text: Author:

Reading the text: Comprehension

Main idea . In one sentence, summarize the main point or argument of the text.

Claim . Identify one claim in the text.

Key points . Paraphrase a key point, example, or passage that interested you.

Evidence . In your own words, describe 1-2 compelling examples or pieces of evidence that support the point/argument of the text.

Conclusion . What is the ultimate takeaway the text gives us on the topic/issue?

Personal experience . What is your experience of the topic? Have you had problems related to it?

Vocabulary . What is a word or phrase in the text you didn’t know? Look it up. What does it mean?

Inquiry . What is one thing you need more information about? Or, what is one question you have about the content of the text?

Reading for context: Rhetorical analysis

The author . Do an internet search on the author. What did you find out?

Ethos . Do you trust the author on the topic/issue? Why or why not?

Container . When and where was the text first published? Who will read/see it?

Audience . How does the author address or appeal to their readers? What tone does the author use in the text?

Bias . What knowledge, values, or beliefs does the author assume the reader shares?

Types of evidence . What types of evidence does the author use? Types of evidence include facts, examples, statistics, statements by authorities (references to or quotes from other sources), interviews, observations, logical reasoning, and personal experience

Structure . How does the author organize the text?

Purpose . What question does the author seek to answer in the text? In other words, why do you think they wrote this piece?

Mark-up Assignment: The Savvy Reader Practice

The object is to fill the empty space of the margins with your thoughts and questions to the text. By reading sympathetically (reading to understand what the writer is saying) and critically (reading to analyze and critique what the writer is saying), you are reading mindfully and creatively. You are finding those passages that you are drawn to, asking questions that you have, and beginning to develop your reaction, response, and ideas about a topic or issue. It’s a useful tool in the “getting started” phase of the writing process. Learning how to read effectively will be an invaluable skill in your college career and beyond because it means engaging in a task actively rather than passively.

Choose 1-2 paragraphs from READING X to fully annotate. This passage should be one that interests you, i.e. seems important, confusing, and/or prompted agreement, disagreement, or questions for you.

Circle any word you think is crucial for the passage, including ones you cannot easily define.
Underline phrases or images you think crucial for the meaning of the passage/essay.
Put a bracket around ideas or assertions you find puzzling or questionable.
Then write notes around the margins of the passage defining these terms, identifying the important ideas, or raising questions with the bracketed phrases. For each item you have circled, underlined, or bracketed, there should be a margin note. For this assignment, your margin notes should be substantive: they should meaty statements and full questions.

Photocopy or clear, legible photograph of paragraphs with your annotations or type up the paragraphs and annotate.

Writing as Inquiry Copyright © 2021 by Kara Clevinger and Stephen Rust is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Reading & Writing Purposes

Introduction: critical thinking, reading, & writing, critical thinking.

The phrase “critical thinking” is often misunderstood. “Critical” in this case does not mean finding fault with an action or idea. Instead, it refers to the ability to understand an action or idea through reasoning. According to the website SkillsYouNeed [1]:

Critical thinking might be described as the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking.

In essence, critical thinking requires you to use your ability to reason. It is about being an active learner rather than a passive recipient of information.

Critical thinkers rigorously question ideas and assumptions rather than accepting them at face value. They will always seek to determine whether the ideas, arguments, and findings represent the entire picture and are open to finding that they do not.

Critical thinkers will identify, analyze, and solve problems systematically rather than by intuition or instinct.

Someone with critical thinking skills can:

Understand the links between ideas.
Determine the importance and relevance of arguments and ideas.
Recognize, build, and appraise arguments.
Identify inconsistencies and errors in reasoning.
Approach problems in a consistent and systematic way.
Reflect on the justification of their own assumptions, beliefs and values.

Read more at: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/critical-thinking.html

Critical thinking—the ability to develop your own insights and meaning—is a basic college learning goal. Critical reading and writing strategies foster critical thinking, and critical thinking underlies critical reading and writing.

Critical Reading

Critical reading builds on the basic reading skills expected for college.

College Readers’ Characteristics

College readers are willing to spend time reflecting on the ideas presented in their reading assignments. They know the time is well-spent to enhance their understanding.
College readers are able to raise questions while reading. They evaluate and solve problems rather than merely compile a set of facts to be memorized.
College readers can think logically. They are fact-oriented and can review the facts dispassionately. They base their judgments on ideas and evidence.
College readers can recognize error in thought and persuasion as well as recognize good arguments.
College readers are skeptical. They understand that not everything in print is correct. They are diligent in seeking out the truth.

Critical Readers’ Characteristics

Critical readers are open-minded. They seek alternative views and are open to new ideas that may not necessarily agree with their previous thoughts on a topic. They are willing to reassess their views when new or discordant evidence is introduced and evaluated.
Critical readers are in touch with their own personal thoughts and ideas about a topic. Excited about learning, they are eager to express their thoughts and opinions.
Critical readers are able to identify arguments and issues. They are able to ask penetrating and thought-provoking questions to evaluate ideas.
Critical readers are creative. They see connections between topics and use knowledge from other disciplines to enhance their reading and learning experiences.
Critical readers develop their own ideas on issues, based on careful analysis and response to others’ ideas.

The video below, although geared toward students studying for the SAT exam (Scholastic Aptitude Test used for many colleges’ admissions), offers a good, quick overview of the concept and practice of critical reading.

Critical Reading & Writing

College reading and writing assignments often ask you to react to, apply, analyze, and synthesize information. In other words, your own informed and reasoned ideas about a subject take on more importance than someone else’s ideas, since the purpose of college reading and writing is to think critically about information.

Critical thinking involves questioning. You ask and answer questions to pursue the “careful and exact evaluation and judgment” that the word “critical” invokes (definition from The American Heritage Dictionary ). The questions simply change depending on your critical purpose. Different critical purposes are detailed in the next pages of this text.

However, here’s a brief preview of the different types of questions you’ll ask and answer in relation to different critical reading and writing purposes.

When you react to a text you ask:

“What do I think?” and
“Why do I think this way?”

e.g., If I asked and answered these “reaction” questions about the topic assimilation of immigrants to the U.S. , I might create the following main idea statement, which I could then develop in an essay: I think that assimilation has both positive and negative effects because, while it makes life easier within the dominant culture, it also implies that the original culture is of lesser value.

When you apply text information you ask:

“How does this information relate to the real world?”

e.g., If I asked and answered this “application” question about the topic assimilation , I might create the following main idea statement, which I could then develop in an essay: During the past ten years, a group of recent emigrants has assimilated into the local culture; the process of their assimilation followed certain specific stages.

When you analyze text information you ask:

“What is the main idea?”
“What do I want to ‘test’ in the text to see if the main idea is justified?” (supporting ideas, type of information, language), and
“What pieces of the text relate to my ‘test?'”

e.g., If I asked and answered these “analysis” questions about the topic immigrants to the United States , I might create the following main idea statement, which I could then develop in an essay: Although Lee (2009) states that “segmented assimilation theory asserts that immigrant groups may assimilate into one of many social sectors available in American society, instead of restricting all immigrant groups to adapting into one uniform host society,” other theorists have shown this not to be the case with recent immigrants in certain geographic areas.

When you synthesize information from many texts you ask:

“What information is similar and different in these texts?,” and
“What pieces of information fit together to create or support a main idea?”

e.g., If I asked and answered these “synthesis” questions about the topic immigrants to the U.S. , I might create the following main idea statement, which I could then develop by using examples and information from many text articles as evidence to support my idea: Immigrants who came to the United States during the immigration waves in the early to mid 20th century traditionally learned English as the first step toward assimilation, a process that was supported by educators. Now, both immigrant groups and educators are more focused on cultural pluralism than assimilation, as can be seen in educators’ support of bilingual education. However, although bilingual education heightens the child’s reasoning and ability to learn, it may ultimately hinder the child’s sense of security within the dominant culture if that culture does not value cultural pluralism as a whole.

Critical reading involves asking and answering these types of questions in order to find out how the information “works” as opposed to just accepting and presenting the information that you read in a text. Critical writing involves recording your insights into these questions and offering your own interpretation of a concept or issue, based on the meaning you create from those insights.

Crtical Thinking, Reading, & Writing. Authored by : Susan Oaks, includes material adapted from TheSkillsYouNeed and Reading 100; attributions below. Project : Introduction to College Reading & Writing. License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
Critical Thinking. Provided by : TheSkillsYouNeed. Located at : https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright . License Terms : Quoted from website: The use of material found at skillsyouneed.com is free provided that copyright is acknowledged and a reference or link is included to the page/s where the information was found. Read more at: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/
The Reading Process. Authored by : Scottsdale Community College Reading Faculty. Provided by : Maricopa Community College. Located at : https://learn.maricopa.edu/courses/904536/files/32966438?module_item_id=7198326 . Project : Reading 100. License : CC BY: Attribution
image of person thinking with light bulbs saying -idea- around her head. Authored by : Gerd Altmann. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/light-bulb-idea-think-education-3704027/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
video What is Critical Reading? SAT Critical Reading Bootcamp #4. Provided by : Reason Prep. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hc3hmwnymw . License : Other . License Terms : YouTube video
image of man smiling and holding a lightbulb. Authored by : africaniscool. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/photos/man-african-laughing-idea-319282/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved

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5 Active, Critical Reading

Your brain uses a variety of techniques when you are reading. These are helpful in letting you read quickly. However, sometimes your brain may “fill in the blanks” to add information that isn’t there. Therefore, reading for detail, information, and opinion can require more attention, especially if the information is new. In college you may find an increased amount of reading, especially in your introductory courses when you are learning new terminology, definitions, and theories in your field of study. For this reason, active reading is important to help you remember what you’ve read and then recall it later.

Learning Objectives

After completing this chapter, you will be able to

Define active and critical reading
Employ strategies to be a more effective reader
Take notes using the Cornell method

Purposes for Reading

The purpose of reading can be personal or academic.

Chart listing personal and academic or workplace reasons to read

Active Reading

When you read actively, you are engaging with the text in a deeper and more complex way than when you are reading just for pleasure or for personal reasons. Active readers are concerned about understanding and remembering what they’ve read, so they make sure to focus on the text by making notes and highlighting important terms and ideas.

Watch the following Learning Portal video on strategies you can use to become a more active reader [1] .

Critical Reading

Active reading will help you understand and retain what you’ve read. However, in college you are often asked to evaluate, analyze, and assess a reading by comparing what you’ve read to your previous knowledge and to other texts on the subject.

Some students may wonder why they have to use critical reading skills. Why can’t the instructor just provide the true answers or methods in one PowerPoint or textbook? Sometimes it is possible – and necessary – to provide detailed, accurate information in one handbook: for example, pharmacology manuals, accounting standards, and engineering manuals.

However, in many cases, you will be required to assess the accuracy, point-of-view, bias, currency, and reliability of texts and information you encounter online and in traditional texts. Also, you need to be exposed to other points of view on a topic, including those you don’t agree with.

Employers in many fields of work expect college graduates to quickly analyze and assess information in the workplace and judge its usefulness. Often new information will need to be applied immediately at work.

For all of these reasons, critical reading is an essential skill.

Critical reading requires you to read not only for facts and opinion, but to also assess, analyze, and make judgements about the texts.

Reading critically includes asking the following questions:

How does the structure, word choice, and writing style affect your opinion of the writing?
How do facts and opinions in this text compare or contrast with other information you’ve read or heard?
Is the evidence provided primarily objective or subjective ? Is it reliable and persuasive?
Is the writer’s argument sound and valid or does it contain assumptions or logical fallacies ?
Is the reading a current, relevant, accurate, and authoritative source of information? What is the writer’s purpose or point of view on the topic? See the Researching chapter of this e-text for more information on how to evaluate the reliability of a reading.

Strategies for Effective Reading

College reading assignments may require much more in-depth attention and may be more time-consuming than reading you have done in your leisure time or for personal reasons. Use these strategies to help you become a more active and effective reader.

1. Preparing to Read

If you are reading a chapter in a textbook, first familiarize yourself with the textbook as a whole. Glance through the table of contents, sections of the book, introductions, glossary of terms and practice quizzes. Then explore the assigned chapter. Determine how much time you need to set aside to read it by considering how long and complex the chapter is. Look at any headings, illustrations, tables, and review questions. Read the introduction and summary. Get an understanding of the “gist” or main points of the reading before you start reading closely for specific details.

Before you begin reading, remember your purpose. Has your professor provided specific questions for you to answer? Will you be quizzed on this material? Do you need to form a point of view on the material so that you can participate in a class discussion? Make a list of questions that you hope to answer in your readings; this will improve your focus as you read. Reading Plan to read the required section twice.

2. Reading for Gist

The first time you read, read the entire chapter or article all the way through. Focus on gaining an understanding of the main point, or gist, of the reading. What is it about? What is the most important information? If a point of view is expressed, how is that opinion supported?

To make the reading more meaningful, try to visualize the reading as images in your mind, or reflect on your personal experiences and prior knowledge of the subject.

3. Reading for Details

Once you have a good understanding of the article in general, now you can read for specific information.

Take the first question you have prepared or from the assignment; begin to read the chapter and stop when you have found the answer. Highlight it or write it down in short form and leave space for further notes. Keep reading the chapter, answering the questions as you go.

Sometimes your teacher will ask you to find the main idea of a text or paragraph. This can be challenging and confusing. Here are some steps to follow:

Read the entire text or paragraph to understand the gist. Look at the title, headings, and/or illustrations for a clue to the main idea.
Read the last paragraph or sentences; usually the summary of the main idea will be there.
Sometimes you will need to re-read the text to identify the main idea.
Answer these questions about the reading: What is the focus or main topic of this text? What is the writer’s point of view? Are alternate points of view given? What evidence is provided to support the author’s point of view?
Answer these questions about the topic: Who? What? Where? When? And How?

Whatever your purpose, during the second reading maintain focus on the reading by keeping an internal summary and reread sentences or sections as necessary, and use annotation techniques (circling, highlighting, and making notes in the margins) to draw attention to important details, key ideas, and important vocabulary words.

Highlight main ideas and important details, but avoid highlighting entire sentences or minor points or examples. Highlight only the most important information. In the margins, add questions and comments about information that intrigues or confuses you. You can also add images and diagrams to enhance your understanding. Use margin notes to personalize the text. Circle and then look up any unknown words that you think are important to the subject – remember, you don’t need to know every word in a reading to understand it, but you do need to know relevant technical terms. Keep a list of new vocabulary in a special notebook or Word document.

4. Reviewing

After you’ve completed a thorough reading, you may want to take notes on what you’ve read. Taking notes is an excellent way to solidify your learning and to ensure that you can find key information quickly when you need it.

Watch the following Learning Portal video to learn about the importance of taking notes to improve your learning [2] :

Many people recommend using the “Cornell Note-Taking” method to take notes. This method can be used to take notes from readings and also to take notes from class lectures. The image below gives an example of how a page can be broken down during the note-taking process [3] :

An example of the Cornell Notetaking Method - a note book page divided into 3 columns: cue, note and summary.

Watch the following Learning Portal video to learn how to use the Cornell note-taking method [4] :

Once you’ve completed your notes, you can use them to help you study. If you were reading to answer specific questions, cover up the answer and key ideas you have written on the right-hand side of your Cornell notes. Can you still answer the question? Check your mental review against what you have written.

In class, add any additional information from your instructor to your notes.

The following reading tips come from A Guide for Successful Students , an open resource available under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license [5] .

Additional Reading Tips

Pace yourself : Figure out how much time you have to complete the reading assignment.

Divide your work : Divide the assignment into smaller blocks rather than trying to read the entire assignment in one sitting.

Schedule your reading : Set aside blocks of time, preferably at the time of day when you are most alert, to do your reading assignments.

Prioritize your work : Read the most difficult assignments early in your reading time when you are freshest.

Choose your environment : Choose to read in a quiet, well-lit space. Read in an upright position at a desk or on a couch. Your position should be comfortable and your body supported.

Avoid distractions : Active reading takes place in your short-term memory. Every time you move form task to task, you have to “reboot” your short-term memory and you lose the continuity of active reading.

Avoid reading fatigue : Work for about fifty minutes and then give yourself a break for 5-10 minutes. Put the book down, walk around, get a snack, stretch, or do some deep kneed bends. Short physical activity will do wonders to help you feel refreshed.

Make it interesting : Try connecting the material you are reading with your class lectures or with other chapters. Ask yourself where you disagree with the author. Approach finding answers to your questions like an investigative reporter. Carry on a mental conversation with the author.

The Learning Portal/Le Portail d’Apprentissage. (2016, August 31). How to use active reading techniques [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVZLUQSPuhc ↵
The Learning Portal/Le Portail d’Apprentissage. (2021, February 4). Why you should take notes to improve learning [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxFbMqxXCVE ↵
Veillieux, H. (2022, April 12). Cornell-NT-Method_infographic [Digital Image]. In Active, Critical Reading . Confederation College. https://bit.ly/3jBswHy . CC BY 4.0 . ↵
The Learning Portal/Le Portail d’Apprentissage. (2016, September 1). How to use the Cornell note-taking method [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrKfZ5VYWCQ ↵
Stewart, I., & Maisonville, A. (2019). Chapter 12: Reading. In A guide for successful students . St. Clair College. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/studyprocaff/ . CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 . ↵

factual and not biased by personal feelings or opinions

Influenced by personal opinions and feelings rather than by verifiable facts

Something that is accepted as true and not questioned even though no verifiable evidence is provided

Errors in reasoning like inaccurate cause/effect statements, unproven generalizations, irrelevant points, and circular reasoning.

CS 050: Academic Writing and Grammar Copyright © by Confederation College Communications Department and Paterson Library Commons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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4 – Critical Writing

Critical writing depends on critical thinking. Your writing will involve reflection on written texts: that is, critical reading.

[Source: Lane, 2021, Critical Thinking for Critical Writing ]

Critical writing entails the skills of critical thinking and reading. At college, the three skills are interdependent, reflected in the kinds of assignments you have to do.

Now let’s look at some real university-level assignments across different majors. Pay attention to the highlighted words used in the assignment descriptions.

As you can tell, all the assignments have both critical reading and writing components. You have to read a lot (e.g., “Use at least 5 current Economics research articles,” “refer to 2 other documents,” and “Select 4-5 secondary sources”) and critically before you form your own opinions and then start to write. Sometimes reading is for ideas and evidence (i.e., reasons, examples, and information from sources), and other times reading is to provide an evaluation of information accuracy (e.g., research designs, statistics). Without critical thinking and reading, critical writing will have no ground. Critical thinking and reading are the prerequisites for critical writing. A clear definition of critical writing is provided below.

What is Critical Writing?

Critical writing is writing which analyses and evaluates information, usually from multiple sources, in order to develop an argument. A mistake many beginning writers make is to assume that everything they read is true and that they should agree with it, since it has been published in an academic text or journal. Being part of the academic community, however, means that you should be critical of (i.e. question) what you read, looking for reasons why it should be accepted or rejected, for example by comparing it with what other writers say about the topic, or evaluating the research methods to see if they are adequate or whether they could be improved.

[Source: Critical Writing ]

If you are used to accepting the ideas and opinions stated in a text, you have to relearn how to be critical in evaluating the reliability of the sources, particularly in the online space as a large amount of online information is not screened. In addition, critical writing is different from the types of writing (e.g., descriptive writing) you might have practiced in primary and secondary education.

The following table gives some examples to show the difference between descriptive and critical writing (adapted from the website ). Pay attention to the different verbs used in the Table for the comparisons.

You might feel familiar with the verbs used in the column describing critical writing. If you still remember, those words are also used to depict the characteristics of critical thinking and reading.

ACTIVITY #1:

Read the two writing samples, identify which one is descriptive writing and which one is critical writing, and explain your judgment.

Sample 1: Recently, President Jacob Zuma made the decision to reshuffle the parliamentary cabinet, including the firing of finance minister, Pravin Gordhan. This decision was not well received by many South Africans.

Sample 2: President Zuma’s firing of popular finance minister, Gordhan drastically impacted investor confidence. This led to a sharp decrease in the value of the Rand. Such devaluation means that all USD-based imports (including petrol) will rise in cost, thereby raising the cost of living for South Africans, and reducing disposable income. This puts both cost and price pressure on Organisation X as an importer of USD-based goods Y, requiring it to consider doing Z. Furthermore, political instability has the added impact of encouraging immigration, particularly amongst skilled workers whose expertise is valued abroad (brain drain).

[Source: Jansen, 2017, Analytical Writing vs Descriptive Writing ]

Further, to write critically, you also have to pay attention to the rhetorical and logical aspects of writing:

Writing critically involves:

Providing appropriate and sufficient arguments and examples
Choosing terms that are precise, appropriate, and persuasive
Making clear the transitions from one thought to another to ensure the overall logic of the presentation
Editing for content, structure, and language

An increased awareness of the impact of choices of content, language, and structure can help you as a writer to develop habits of rewriting and revision.

Regarding the content, when writing critically, you cannot just rely on your own ideas, experiences, and/or one source. You have to read a wide range of sources on the specific topic you are exploring to get a holistic picture of what others have discussed on the topic, from which you further make your own judgment. Through reading other sources, you not only form your own judgment and opinions but also collect evidence to support your arguments. Evidence is so important in critical writing. In addition to the collection of evidence, you also need to use different ways (e.g., quoting, paraphrasing, and synthesizing) to integrate the evidence into your writing to increase your critical analysis.

Using quotes is always an issue. Some students like to quote a lot and/or too long throughout their papers, and others do not know why they quote. Remember that when you use direct quotations, you are using others’ ideas, not yours. You should limit the use of quotes to the minimum because readers are always interested in your opinions. In other words, you need to use quotes critically.

When you quote directly from a source, use the quotation critically. This means that you should not substitute the quotation for your own articulation of a point. Rather, introduce the quotation by laying out the judgments you are making about it, and the reasons why you are using it. Often a quotation is followed by some further analysis.

[Source: Knott , n.d., Critical Reading Towards Critical Writing ]

Barna (2017) stated that “A good rule of thumb is that the evidence should only be about 5-10% of the piece.” Further, according to the EAP Foundation.org , you need to avoid doing a laundry list in critical writing:

You cannot just string quotes together (A says this, B says that, C says something else), without looking more deeply at the information and building on it to support your own argument.

This means you need to break down the information from other sources to determine how the parts relate to one another or to an overall structure or purpose [analysing], and then make judgements about it, identifying its strengths and weaknesses, and possibly ‘grey areas’ in between, which are neither strengths nor weaknesses [evaluating]. Critical reading skills will help you with this, as you consider whether the source is reliable, relevant, up-to-date, and accurate.

When and Why do you quote?

When should you use quotes?

Using quotations is the easiest way to include source material, but quotations should be used carefully and sparingly. While paraphrasing and summarizing provide the opportunity to show your understanding of the source material, quoting may only show your ability to type it.

Having said that, there are a few very good reasons that you might want to use a quote rather than a paraphrase or summary:

Accuracy: You are unable to paraphrase or summarize the source material without changing the author’s intent.
Authority: You may want to use a quote to lend expert authority for your assertion or to provide source material for analysis.
Conciseness: Your attempts to paraphrase or summarize are awkward or much longer than the source material.
Unforgettable language: You believe that the words of the author are memorable or remarkable because of their effectiveness or historical flavor. Additionally, the author may have used a unique phrase or sentence, and you want to comment on words or phrases themselves.

When you decide to quote, be careful of relying too much upon one source or quoting too much of a source and make sure that your use of the quote demonstrates an understanding of the source material. Essentially, you want to avoid having a paper that is a string of quotes with occasional input from you.

[Source: Decide when to Quote, Paraphrase and Summarize ]

How do you quote?

With a complete sentence
With “according to”
With a reporting verb
With a “that” clause
As part of your sentence

Citing the islands of Fiji as a case in point, Bordo notes that “until television was introduced in 1995, the islands had no reported cases of eating disorders. In 1998, three years after programs from the United States and Britain began broadcasting there, 62 percent of the girls surveyed reported dieting” (149-50). Bordo’s point is that the Western cult of dieting is spreading even to remote places across the globe.

[Source: Lane, 2020, Quoting: When and How to Use Quotations ]

The firm belief which has been widely advertised is that “international students should be given equal rights and respect while studying abroad” (Lane, 2020, p. 19).

Smith, an agent working at an international company, put forward the seriousness of economic recession brought by the COVID-19 pandemic: “our economy will soon collapse, followed by business failures, elevated unemployment, and social turbulence ” (2021, p. 87).

Dominguez (2002) suggested, “teachers should reflect on their teaching constantly and proactively” to avoid teacher burnout and attrition (pp. 76-79).

According to the IEP student manual, “To study in the IEP you must be 18 years old and your English level must be ‘high beginner’ or higher” (p. 6).

[Source: Five Ways to Introduce Quotations ]

Now move on to the language aspect of critical writing, you should pay attention to the analytical verbs used in critical writing.

Analytical verbs are verbs that indicate critical thinking. They’re used in essays to dissect a text and make interpretive points, helping you to form a strong argument and remain analytical. If you don’t use analytical verbs, you may find yourself simply repeating plot points, and describing a text, rather than evaluating and exploring core themes and ideas.

[Source: What are Analytical Verbs? ]

The use of analytical verbs is also important to show your precision and appropriateness in language use. For example, instead of using says and talks, replace those verbs with states, discusses, or claims. Not only does it enhance the formality of the language, but also it helps to create the tone of writing. This further means that you have to understand the specific meaning, purpose, and function of each verb in a specific context as shown in the table below.

[Source: Impressive Verbs to use in your Research Paper ]

The verbs listed under each category are NOT synonyms and are different based on context. Please ensure that the selected verb conveys your intended meaning.

It is recommended that you check out Academic Phrasebank for more advanced and critical language use.

The accuracy of language use that is important for critical writing is also reflected in the use of hedges .

Hedging is the use of linguistic devices to express hesitation or uncertainty as well as to demonstrate politeness and indirectness.

People use hedged language for several different purposes but perhaps the most fundamental are the following:

to minimize the possibility of another academic opposing the claims that are being made
to conform to the currently accepted style of academic writing
to enable the author to devise a politeness strategy where they are able to acknowledge that there may be flaws in their claims

[Source: What Is Hedging in Academic Writing?]

There are different types of hedges used in writing to make your claim less certain but more convincing. For example, what is the difference between the two sentences as shown below?

No hedging: We already know all the animals in the world.

With hedging: It’s possible that we may already know most animals in the world.

[Source: Hedges and Boosters ]

Check this table for different types of hedges.

[Source: Features of academic writing]

Practice how to tone down the arguments.

ACTIVITY #2

Add hedges to the following arguments.

Except for the content and language aspects of critical writing, the last aspect is the organization, including both the overall structure and the paragraph level.

Here is one example of a critical writing outline.

One easy-to-follow outline format is alphanumeric, which means it uses letters of the alphabet and numbers to organize text.

For example:

Hook: _____________________
Transition to thesis: _____________________
Thesis statement with three supporting points:_____________________
Topic sentence: _____________________
Evidence (data, facts, examples, logical reasoning): _____________________
Connect evidence to thesis: _____________________
Restate thesis: _____________________
Summarize points: _____________________
Closure (prediction, comment, call to action): _____________________

[Source: Academic Writing Tip: Making an Outline ]

1. Introduction

Thesis statement

2. Topic one

First piece of evidence
Second piece of evidence

3. Topic two

4. Topic three

5. Conclusion

Summary/synthesis
Importance of topic
Strong closing statement

[Source: Caulfield, 2021, How to Write an Essay Outline]

ACTIVITY #3:

The following essay was adapted from a student’s writing. Please identify the components of each paragraph.

Artificial Intelligence: An Irreplaceable Assistant in Policy-making

Do you understand artificial intelligence (AI)? Are you excited that humans can create these machines that think like us? Do you ever worry that they develop too advanced to replace humans? If you have thought about these questions, you are already in the debate of the century. AI is a term used to describe machine artifacts with digital algorithms that have the ability to perceive contexts for action and the capacity to associate contexts to actions (Bryson & Winfield, 2017). The 21st century has witnessed a great number of changes in AI. As AI shows its great abilities in decision-making, humans are relying more on AI to make policies. Despite some concerns about the overuse of AI, AI is no longer to be replaced in policy-making because it has the capabilities that humans cannot achieve, such as transparent decision-making and powerful data processing.

AI has the capacity to use algorithms or systems to make the decision-making process more transparent (Walport & Sedwill, 2016). Many decisions made by humans are based upon their intuition rather than the direct result of the deliberate collection and processing of information (Dane et al., 2012). Intuition is useful in business when considering the outcome of an investment or a new product. However, in politics, the public would often question whether the policy is biased, so a transparent decision-making process should be used instead of intuition. AI can make political decisions more transparent by visualizing digital records (Calo, 2017). AI can make decisions without any discrimination and can have the public better understand of the policies.

In addition, AI can process a large amount of information at a speed faster than the cognitive ability of the most intelligent human policymakers (Jarrahi, 2018). A qualified policy must be based on facts reflected by data, so researching data is an essential part of policy-making. There are two main challenges for the human decision-makers in this area: (1) The amount of data is too large and (2) the relationship between data is too complex. Handling these two problems is where AI is superior. The high computing power of AI makes it an effective tool for retrieving and analyzing large amounts of data, thus reducing the complexity of the logic between problems (Jarrahi, 2018). Without AI, the policymakers would be overwhelmed by tons of data in this modern information age. It is almost impossible for them to convert those data into useful information. For example, data provided to the politician who is responsible for health care is mostly from the electronic health record (HER). HER is just the digital record transported from paper-based forms (Bennett et al., 2012). AI can analyze the data to generate clinical assessments, symptoms, and patient behavior and then link that information with social factors such as education level and economic status. According to the information from AI, the policy maker can make policies for healthcare improvement (Bennett et al., 2012). With the assistance of AI, the government can not only collect data easier but also utilize those data as operable Information.

However, while AI shows its great abilities in policy-making, it also brings considerable risks to contemporary society, and the most significant one is privacy. The only source for AI systems to learn human behavior is data, so AI needs to collect enormous quantities of information about users in order to perform better. Some scholars claim that the main problem with AI data collection is the use of data for unintended purposes. The data is likely to be processed, used, or even sold without the users’ permission (Bartneck et al, 2021). The 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal showed how private data collected through Facebook can be used to manipulate elections (Bartneck et al, 2021). While privacy is a crucial problem, this is a handleable problem and we cannot deny the benefits brought by using AI. The most appropriate way to solve this problem is to establish a complete regulatory system. In fact, many policies have been made to protect user privacy in AI data collection. One of safeguard in this area is to restrict the centralized processing of data. Researchers are also conducting a lot of research in this area and have achieved some technological breakthroughs. For example, open-source code and open data formats will allow a more transparent distinction between private and transferable information, blockchain-based technologies will allow data to be reviewed and tracked, and “smart contracts” will provide transparent control over how data is used without the need for centralized authority (Yuste & Goering, 2017).

In conclusion, although there may be some privacy-related issues with AI policies, the powerful data collection capabilities and transparent decision-making process of AI will bring many benefits to humans. In the future, AI is more likely to continue to serve as an assistant to humans when making policies under a complete and strict regulatory system.

Bartneck, Christoph. Lütge, Christoph. Wagner, Alan. Welsh, Sean. (2021). Privacy Issues of AI, pp.61-70. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-51110-4_8.

Bennett C, Doub T, Selove R (2012) EHRs Connect Research and Practice: Where Predictive Modeling, Artificial Intelligence, and Clinical Decision Support Intersect https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1204/1204.4927.pdf. Accessed 1 April 2021.

Bryson J and Winfield A (2017) Standardizing Ethical Design Considerations for Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems. http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/~jjb/ftp/BrysonWinfield17-oa.pdf. Accessed 1 April 2021.

Calo, R (1993) Artificial Intelligence Policy: A Primer and Roadmap. https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/51/2/Symposium/51-2_Calo.pdf , Accessed 1 April 2021.

Dane, Erik., Rockmann, Kevin. W., & Pratt, Michael G. (2012). When should I trust my gut? Linking domain expertise to intuitive decision-making effectiveness. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 119(2), 187—194.

Jarrahi, M. (2018). Artificial intelligence and the future of work: Human-AI symbiosis in organizational decision making, Business Horizons, Volume 61, Issue 4, Pages 577-586, ISSN 0007-6813, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2018.03.007.

Walport M, & Sedwill M. (2016). Artificial intelligence: opportunities and implications for the future of decision making. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attach ment_data/file/566075/gs-16-19-artificial-intelligence-ai-report.pdf, Accessed 1 April 2021.

Rafael, Y., & Sara, G. (2017). Four ethical priorities for neurotechnologies an AI https://www.nature.com/news/four-ethical-priorities-for-neurotechnologies-and-ai 1.22960. Accessed 1 April 2022.

Apart from the overall structure of critical writing, it is also important to pay attention to the paragraph-level structure. There are different paragraph models for critical writing.

Model 1: TED model for writing critical paragraphs

Paragraph model for critical writing

Often in assignments, you are expected to critically evaluate – this means to assess the relevance and significance of concepts relating to a specific topic or assignment question. Introduce your point. Give examples from reading. Is there support for your argument or can you identify weaknesses? Are there different perspectives to compare and contrast? Build your explanation and create your objective, reasoned argument (case or thesis) based on the evaluation from different perspectives. You will include your conclusion and point of view, communicating your stance, having made a judgment on research you have found and its significance in contributing to answering your assignment question.

Use the TED model to integrate critical thinking into your writing:

Each example of evidence in your writing should have a clear purpose or function. Be explicit and tell the reader what it contributes to your reasoning.

Professional practice is more complex than simply applying theory to practice, since it involves a professional juggling of situational demands, intuition, experiences and knowledge (Schön, 1991). Practitioners do not apply research findings in a simple deductive process; they need time to think, translate and relate the research findings to their particular setting. The extent to which a given piece of evidence is utilised by an individual in practice depends on their sense of the situation and this inevitably involves professional judgement.

Topic (in red); Evidence (in orange); Further explanation (in blue); Discussion (in green)

Model 2: WEED model for writing critical paragraphs

This is a model for writing critical paragraphs. It’s taken from Godwin’s book called ‘Planning your Essay’. Each paragraph should be on a single topic, making a single point. A paragraph is usually around a third of a page.

W is for What

You should begin your paragraph with the topic or point that you’re making so that it’s clear to your lecturer. Everything in the paragraph should fit in with this opening sentence.

E is for Evidence

The middle of your paragraph should be full of evidence – this is where all your references should be incorporated. Make sure that your evidence fits in with your topic.

E is for Examples

Sometimes it’s useful to expand on your evidence. If you’re talking about a case study, the example might be how your point relates to the particular scenario being discussed.

D is for Do

You should conclude your paragraph with the implications of your discussion. This gives you the opportunity to add your commentary, which is very important in assignments that require you to use critical analysis. So, in effect, each paragraph is like a mini-essay, with an introduction, main body, and conclusion.

Example: a good critical paragraph

Exposure to nature and green spaces has been found to increase health, happiness, and wellbeing. Whilst trees and greenery improve air quality by reducing air pollutants, green spaces facilitate physical activity, reduce stress, and provide opportunities for social interaction (Kaplan, 1995; Lachowycz,and Jones, 2011; Ward Thompson et al., 2012; Hartig et al., 2014; Anderson et al., 2016). Older adults have described increased feelings of wellbeing while spending time in green spaces and walking past street greenery (Finaly et al., 2015; Orr et al., 2016). They are more likely to walk on streets which are aesthetically pleasing (Lockett, Willis and Edwards, 2005) while greenery such as flowers and trees play an important role in improving the aesthetics of the environment (Day, 2008). Therefore, greater integration of urban green spaces and street greenery in cities may have the potential to increase physical activity and wellbeing in older adults.

What (in red), Evidence (in orange), Do (in blue).

[Source: Learning Hub, 2021 ]

Please identify the paragraph-level components in the following paragraphs. You can use different colors to indicate different components.

Social Media plays a key role in slowing the spread of vaccine misinformation. According to Nikos-Rose (2021) from the University of California, individuals’ attitudes towards vaccination can negatively be influenced by social media. They can simply post a piece of misleading information to the public, and the deceived ones will share it with their families and friends. The role of media can also help boost the public’s confidence in the vaccination. The media can provide valuable information for the public to know that the vaccine is safe. Almost everyone in the modern era lives with a cell phone now. People on social media can also share their experiences after getting vaccinated. Influences can help boost the public’s confidence. Just as voters would receive “I voted” after casting their ballots, vaccination distribution sites can provide “I got vaccinated” stickers. This can encourage individuals to post on the media that they have received the vaccine (Milkman, 2020). Furthermore, those who spread misleading information should be fined by the authorities. This punishment would be sufficient for them to learn their lesson. People who oversee data and information in social media should be concerned about the spread of misleading information on social media. After deleting the false information, they should put up a notice stating that is fake. This will help the public to understand which information should be trusted or not. Moreover, people who find misleading information online should report it to the administration. This could help prevent false info from circulating on the internet.

Recent studies showed that the contamination of land and water can also negatively affect the production of crops and the food systems as the safety of products can be compromised by the chemicals used by fracking. In addition, the amount of freshwater required for the mixture of the fracking fluids can generate a lack of water supply to the local agricultural industries. The fresh water is the 90-97 % of the fracking fluids, and the water deployed is not possible to recycle efficiently. In fact, the wastewater became a further challenge to the agricultural sector as it can make the soil dry and unusable for crops (Pothukuchi et al. 2018). The challenges faced by the agricultural sector are reflected in the farmlands and livestocks as well. For example, in Pennsylvania, the Dairy farming is one of the major agricultural sectors. This particular sector requires unpolluted water and pasturelands to enable the cows to produce milk. Since 1996 this sector began to fail, but the largest decrease in cows that produce milk took place between 2007 and 2011. It was the exact same period when the fracking industries reached their peak in this area (Pothukuchi et al. 2018). Another piece of evidence is related to the air pollution caused by fracking, specifically, the pollution of agricultural pollinators such as bees. The population of air caused by fracking has led to a huge degradation of that volatiles endangering the local and global food production. Those outcomes are closely related to the low level of planning abilities in rural areas, where fracking usually takes place. Particularly, the gap between fracking industry actors and local officials didn’t allow the development of a proper level of policies and regulations.

References:

Academic writing tip: Making an outline. (2020, December 8). The International Language Institute of Massachusetts. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://ili.edu/2020/12/08/academic-writing-tip-making-an-outline/

Caulfield, J. (2021, December 6). How to Write an Essay Outline | Guidelines & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/essay-outline/

Choudhary, A. (n.d.). Impressive Verbs to use in your Research Paper. Editage. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://www.editage.com/all-about-publication/research/impressive-Verbs-to-use-in-your-Research-Paper.html

Critical reading towards critical writing. (n.d.). University of Toronto. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/researching/critical-reading/

Critical writing. (n.d.). Teesside University. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://libguides.tees.ac.uk/ld.php?content_id=33286287

Critical writing. (n.d.-b). EAP FOUNDATION.COM. Https://www.eapfoundation.com/writing/critical/

Decide when to quote, paraphrase and summarize. (n.d.). University of Houston-Victoria. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://www.uhv.edu/curriculum-and-student-achievement/student-success/tutoring/student-resources/a-d/decide-when-to-quote-paraphrase-and-summarize/

Features of academic writing. (n.d.). UEFAP. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from http://www.uefap.com/writing/feature/hedge.htm

Five ways to introduce quotations. (n.d.). University of Georgia. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://dae.uga.edu/iep/handouts/Five-Ways-to-Introduce-Quotations.pdf

Jansen, D. (2017, April). Analytical writing vs descriptive writing. GRADCOACH. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://gradcoach.com/analytical-vs-descriptive-writing/

Hedges and Boosters. (n.d.). The Nature of Writing. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://natureofwriting.com/courses/introduction-to-rhetoric/lessons/hedges-and-boosters/topic/hedges-and-boosters

How to write critically. (n.d.). Teesside University. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://libguides.tees.ac.uk/ld.php?content_id=31275168

Lane, J. (2021, July 9). Critical thinking for critical writing. Simon Fraser University. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://www.lib.sfu.ca/about/branches-depts/slc/writing/argumentation/critical-thinking-writing

LibGuides: Critical Writing: Online study guide. (n.d.). Sheffield Hallam University. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://libguides.shu.ac.uk/criticalwriting

What are analytical verbs? (n.d.). Twinkl. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://www.twinkl.com/teaching-wiki/analytical-verbs

What is hedging in academic writing? (2022, May 3). Enago Academy. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from https://www.enago.com/academy/hedging-in-academic-writing/

Critical Reading, Writing, and Thinking Copyright © 2022 by Zhenjie Weng, Josh Burlile, Karen Macbeth is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Dasbender--critical-thinking, critical reading.

This is a step-by-step practice in critical reading skills. It is the first in a series of critical reading lessons.

Critical Reading Exercise #1

Unit one: critical reading.

Critical Reading:

Critical reading is an essential skill needed for college. It requires practice, and an adherence to several steps in order for the reader to be successful in reading at a college-level.

Critical Reading Assignment: For this assignment, you will need to demonstrate the ability to read critically at the college level. You will need to do the following: Read through the critical reading steps, and then read the attached essay, carefully following the steps. You will need to submit a copy of your annotated reading to Canvas. A rubric for this assignment has been attached.

To read efficiently and critically, follow the steps below:

Step One: Previewing the text

Previewing the text provides the reader with an idea of what to expect from the text. The preview should identify any key concepts or ideas as well as the basic layout of the argument. To preview the text look at the title, subtitle, any headings, the first and last paragraphs, illustrations, and visuals. Once your preview the article, ask yourself the following questions:

Where is the article going? What do you think it is about?
What is its purpose? Audience? Genre?

Step Two: Read through the article and think about your initial response

You will need to read the text several times. The first time your read it, pay attention to the content of the text. This should be a surface level reading only. Afterwards, ask yourself the following questions:

What is your initial reaction to the text?
What accounts for your reaction?

Step Three: Annotating

Read the article again, but this time with a specific purpose. Now that you know what the article is about, you need to examine how it makes its point. Identify any patterns in the text by examining the grammar, structure, and diction. Ask yourself the following questions:

What do these patterns reveal?
How do these patterns reinforce the explicit meaning of the text?

Step Four: Thinking about how the text works

Reading through the article again, pay attention to what each paragraph says and does. Write these down separately in sentence form. By identifying what each paragraph says in a sentence and putting those sentences together, you will compose a summary of the content in the text. By identifying what each paragraph does in sentence and putting those sentences together, you will compose a summary of the structure of the text

English 101 E-Text: Writing for the Rhetorical Situation by Emily Wicker Ligon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License

Girl reading, Alper Çugun, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License

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20 Close and Critical Reading

Mariya Gluzman and Wynne Ferdinand

Introduction

Close and critical reading (CCR) skills are essential; they are not only required to succeed in school but to excel in one’s career. Often, students are simply expected to know how to read a complex text without ever being shown how to do it or being guided through the process. College assignments often mention “close reading of a text”, but most courses do not devote any significant amount of time to actually develop this skill.

Before evaluating students’ work that relies on their ability to read critically, students should be offered opportunities to develop critical reading skills via formative and low-stakes assessments.

CCR is a set of related and sequential skills needed to engage with a text, understand, and analyze it. Close reading requires one to read the text carefully and deliberately, paying attention to word usage, structure, voice, and themes in order to make sense of its intended meaning. Being able to identify important terms and ideas is an important part of close reading.

To read critically means to understand how different ideas in the text relate to each other, to reconstruct any arguments advanced by the author and to evaluate those arguments, and to also offer critiques of the ideas and arguments presented in the text.

Reading and analyzing a legal text: a low-stakes critical reading assignment using guided digital annotation

This low-stakes assignment helps students master critical reading skills while learning to read legal documents and case files. In this sample activity designed by the Transforming the Justice Core Project team, the primary document of the Naim v Naim (1955) Virginia Supreme Court case is annotated using the Hypothes.is browser extension.

Activity purpose

The main purpose of this assignment is two-fold:

To engage with a legal text on a deeper level;
To master close reading skills required for higher stakes assignments in the course.

Course Learning Outcomes addressed by this assignment

Contextualize and analyze struggles for justice.
Analyze and explain a text or work using methods appropriate for the genre, medium, and/or discipline.

View the full activity (PDF)

Create a concept map for a reading: a critical reading activity.

This sample activity created by the Transforming the Justice Core team is very flexible. It can be implemented as a group activity during a live in-person or synchronous class meeting, or completed asynchronously either by students working in teams or independently. It entails reading a text closely, extracting necessary information from it, and mapping it out using a basic concept map. This can be done using pen and paper or any number of digital technologies, from Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides, to Google Jamboard or Padlet.

Activity Purpose

The main purpose of this activity is to guide students as they apply CCR and visualization skills to foster a deeper understanding of a text.

This activity uses the text of the decision rendered by the Warren Court in the Brown v Board of Ed landmark US Supreme Court case . This is a public domain text provided by the National Archives website.

The process

Provide students with a template of a concept map where the main idea from the text (or the one you want students to focus on) is identified. Provide 2-3 nodes for supporting ideas or concepts and ask student to find those in the reading and add them to the map by using their own words or by supplying direct quotes from the text.

Concept Map template

Creating a reading glossary

One important element of close reading is understanding all the words used in a text, especially any terms applicable to a particular discipline that the text represents. Some texts will provide definitions or explanations for most special terms, in some others, the meanings of these terms can be gleaned from the context in which the terms occur. And in others yet, it might be difficult to figure out the meaning, so a savvy reader would look up the definitions of those terms and practice using them.

Creating their own glossary can be an excellent active learning experience for students. In addition to figuring out how to define important terms and explain them in their own words, students will also develop a habit of stopping when they encounter an unfamiliar word and looking up its meaning before proceeding.

The main purpose of this activity is for students to get into the habit of identifying special terms or words they do not understand and defining them for later use.

For this activity, students are asked to examine a foundational text found in the Justice eReader, The structure and important features of the Supreme Court , which is a section in a chapter titled The Supreme Court and a Nation of Liberties .

Ask students to go through this short text and pay attention to any special terms. Ask them to define a list of terms (below) as well as 2-3 additional terms that they were not familiar with by finding a definition/explanation in the text itself or by searching a dictionary or an encyclopedia. Once each student completes their glossary, they can either share it with their classmates via a peer-produced document (e.g. a Google Doc) or a course blog, or they can just submit it directly to the instructor for review.

Terms to define :

chief justice
associate justice
appointment (to the court)

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🌷 Critical reading examples. Critical Reading. 2022-10-25
Sample of Critical Review
Critical Reading Strategies
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Critical Reading

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Introduction to Critical Reading
Critical Reading (Critical Review) by group 3 (3F)
Critical thinking and research assignment. Week 3
Critical reading summarize by Mirzhan Yerkinbekov
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Critical Reading Activities
Handout 1: Active Reading - Mark up the Text. Underline key ideas - for example, topic sentences. Box or circle words or phrases you want to remember. Place a checkmark or a star next to an important idea. Place a double check mark or double star next to an especially significant idea.
PDF Teaching Critical Reading
Strategies for critical reading can vary by discipline, text-type, and the purpose of the particular reading assignment. Textbooks, research reports, epic poems, ethnographies, eyewitness journals, and scholarly articles all demand different processes that we ... work through all the sample problems, or just a few of them make notes as you read
PDF Critical Reading to Build an Argument
Critical reading strategies Gilroy (2018) lists six critical reading strategies, which we divide into two categories: micro and macro processes. Micro processes require you to think critically about features of the text in front of you, whereas macro processes help you connect it to other ideas. We'll discuss each strategy separately, but
PDF Critical Reading Assignment (CRA)
Purpose. In this assignment, you will: refine your critical reading and analytic reasoning skills by carefully identifying the components of an academic argument in an academic source. The source assigned to your track can be found on your course TritonEd webpage. summarize, in your own words, the main points of an academic argument.
Critical Reading
Figure 1.1 "High School versus College Assignments" summarizes other major differences between high school and college assignments.; High School Reading: College Reading: Primary Types: Textbook, literature: Primary Types: Textbook, literature, persuasive analysis, research, multimedia sources, self-selected material: Student Expectations: Read to find the main idea, share opinions, and ...
Examining Sample Assignment 1: Summary and Analysis
Examining Sample Assignment 1: Summary and Analysis ... In class, we will work specifically on critical reading strategies to understand how authors make claims and connect those claims to one another. We will also work on techniques for writing strong summaries that accurately represent an author's work.
Critical Reading
Read the sonnet a few times to get a feel for it and then move down to the close reading.". Reading Critically (Harvard University, Harvard Library) Harvard University suggests six reading strategies: previewing, annotating, outlining, finding patterns, contextualizing and comparing/contrasting. The Writing Process: Annotating a Text (Hunter ...
Critical Reading & Reading Strategies
Critical Thinking is an Extension of Critical Reading. Thinking critically, in the academic sense, involves being open-minded - using judgement and discipline to process what you are learning about without letting your personal bias or opinion detract from the arguments. Critical thinking involves being rational and aware of your own feelings ...
Introduction to Critical Reading
Critical reading is a collaboration between the reader and the writer. Critical reading offers readers the ability to be active participants in the construction of meaning of every text they read and to use that meaning for their own learning and self-fulfillment. Not even the best researched and written text is absolutely complete and finished.
1.3: Critical Reading and Rhetorical Analysis
Critical readers are able to interact with the texts they read through carefully listening, writing, conversation, and questioning. They do not sit back and wait for the meaning of a text to come to them, but work hard in order to create such meaning. Critical readers are not made overnight.
Better Writing Assignments Start with Critical Reading Praxis
In Critical Reading Across the Curriculum, DiYanni and Borst make a case for the significance of critical reading, with greater implications for pedagogy. ... Hoy offers the practical example of one such reading assignment as a precursor to writing: guide students to distill an essay; have them write one cogent sentence in the margin to capture ...
Guide: Reading Critically and Actively
Critical reading is a vital part of the writing process. In fact, reading and writing processes are alike. In both, you make meaning by actively engaging a text. As a reader, you are not a passive participant, but an active constructor of meaning. Exhibiting an inquisitive, "critical" attitude towards what you read will make anything you read ...
Examples of Critical Reading
That distinction, between saying and doing, lies at the heart of critical reading. To read critically means to extract information actively from a text, rather than taking the author's own statements as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In some cases, it can mean doubting the factual accuracy of the author's statements.
2a. Critical Reading
While the best way to develop your skills as a writer is to actually practice by writing, practicing critical reading skills is crucial to becoming a better writer. Careful and skilled readers develop a stronger understanding of topics, learn to better anticipate the needs of the audience, and pick up writing "maneuvers" and strategies from ...
Introduction: Critical Thinking, Reading, & Writing
College reading and writing assignments often ask you to react to, apply, analyze, and synthesize information. ... which I could then develop by using examples and information from many text articles as ... Critical reading involves asking and answering these types of questions in order to find out how the information "works" as opposed to ...
Chapter 1
Understand the main idea of the text. Understand the overall structure or organization of the text. Retain what you have read. Pose informed and thoughtful questions about the text. Evaluate the effectiveness of ideas in the text. Specific questions generated by the text can guide your critical reading process.
Active, Critical Reading
Use these strategies to help you become a more active and effective reader. 1. Preparing to Read. If you are reading a chapter in a textbook, first familiarize yourself with the textbook as a whole. Glance through the table of contents, sections of the book, introductions, glossary of terms and practice quizzes. Then explore the assigned chapter.
2
Critical reading is a more ACTIVE way of reading. It is a deeper and more complex engagement with a text. Critical reading is a process of analyzing, interpreting and, sometimes, evaluating. When we read critically, we use our critical thinking skills to QUESTION both the text and our own reading of it.
PDF CRITICAL READING FOR LAW STUDENTS
Problematizing and rhetorical reading strategies can be applied to any type of reading to produce better comprehension and recall. That said, as previously noted, most of your reading assignments in law school - especially in your 1L year - will be cases. Effective case reading requires pre-reading, reading, and post-reading strategies.
Critical reading
Intensive reading: reading a short section of text slowly and carefully. When reading and analysing a source closely, use our set of critical thinking questions (PDF) to help you engage critically. Spreeder is an online tool useful for skim-reading text whilst still gaining an understanding of the context. You can adjust the number of words ...
4
Critical writing depends on critical thinking. Your writing will involve reflection on written texts: that is, critical reading. [Source: Lane, 2021, Critical Thinking for Critical Writing] Critical writing entails the skills of critical thinking and reading. At college, the three skills are interdependent, reflected in the kinds of assignments ...
Critical Reading
Critical reading is an essential skill needed for college. It requires practice, and an adherence to several steps in order for the reader to be successful in reading at a college-level. Critical Reading Assignment: For this assignment, you will need to demonstrate the ability to read critically at the college level.
20 Close and Critical Reading
This low-stakes assignment helps students master critical reading skills while learning to read legal documents and case files. In this sample activity designed by the Transforming the Justice Core Project team, the primary document of the Naim v Naim (1955) Virginia Supreme Court case is annotated using the Hypothes.is browser extension.