What is the difference? If a reader "skims" the text, superficial characteristics and information are as far as the reader goes. A critical reading gets at "deep structure" if there is such a thing apart from the superficial text! What does it take to be a critical reader? There are a variety of answers available to this question; here are some suggested steps:. After all, authors design texts for specific audiences, and becoming a member of the target audience makes it easier to get at the author's purpose.
Learn about the author, the history of the author and the text, the author's anticipated audience; read introductions and notes. Critical readers seek knowledge; they do not "rewrite" a work to suit their own personalities. Your task as an enlightened critical reader is to read what is on the page, giving the writer a fair chance to develop ideas and allowing yourself to reflect thoughtfully, objectively, on the text.
This may seem obvious, but the title may provide clues to the writer's attitude, goals, personal viewpoint, or approach. Again, this appears obvious, but it is a factor in a "close reading.
If there is a word in the text that is not clear or difficult to define in context: look it up. The following takes a closer look at what students can do to improve critical reading skills. A large part of developing critical reading skills involves learning how to ask questions about a piece of writing. For instance, someone teaching critical reading skills to a group of students asks them to read a newspaper story about a candidate for a political office.
A student who is working on developing critical reading skills creates questions as he or she reads. For instance, the student may ask if the author has any motives for writing the article. If so, the author may be presenting biased information about the candidate. Another question may concern the validity of the facts within the article. Can they be verified by other sources? After answering these questions and others, a student is able to determine whether the newspaper story is factual as well as objective.
Some assignments may also require you to assess the strengths and weaknesses of an argument. Critical reading is an important step for many academic assignments.
Critically engaging with the work of others is often a first step in developing our own arguments, interpretations, and analysis. Critical reading often involves re-reading a text multiple times, putting our focus on different aspects of the text.
The first time we read a text, we may be focused on getting an overall sense of the information the author is presenting - in other words, simply understanding what they are trying to say. On subsequent readings, however, we can focus on how the author presents that information, the kinds of evidence they provide to support their arguments and how convincing we find that evidence , the connection between their evidence and their conclusions, etc.
What a text says — restatement. Talks about the same topic as the original text. What a text does — description. Focuses on aspects of the discussion itself. What a text means — interpretation. Analyzes the text and asserts a meaning for the text as a whole. TIP: An interpretation includes references to the content the specific actions referred to , the language the specific terms used , and the structure such as the relationship between characters. Take a critical stance: recognize that every text, author, and argument comes from a perspective and is subject to interpretation and analysis.
Pay close attention : read texts not just for what they say but also for how they say it.
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