Suggestions for Critical Reading
The following are concrete strategies and hints for improving your critical reading skills from teachers of college writing at the University of Oregon.
A. Initial approach to the text: Pre-reading. Taking five to ten minutes to pre-read the text will save you time by preparing you to read the text effectively. It will give you some context for the argument, which will help you understand difficult passages and get a general sense of where the text ends up before you dig into a reading of the entire work.
Look at the title and author of the text. Based on its title, what do you expect the text to be about? Pick apart the title; what else can you tell from the title? What do you think about the author’s word choice? Who is the author? What do you know about him or her? What do you know about the historical context within which this text was written?
Look at the text. How does it look? How long is it? Is it divided into subsections? Are there many quotations? Footnotes?
Read the first few paragraphs and the conclusion. What does the general subject matter appear to be? What, do you gather, is the thesis or argument of the text?
Briefly skim the text. How is the text structured? What kind of text is it? A personal narrative? A political treatise? An analysis of history? Does its structure suit the argument? What else can you say about the author’s strategy?
B. Reading the text. Now that you have pre-read the text, you need to read the text, slowly, carefully, thoughtfully, critically. Here are some hints:
Slow down. College-level texts contain abstract, difficult passages that need rereading and which sometimes will be clarified by other sections. Interact with the text by asking questions, expressing disagreements.
Get into the dictionary habit. Mark the words whose meaning you cannot tell from the context and look them up. Not only will you get more out of your reading, but you will develop your vocabulary.
Lose your highlighter and find your pencil. Highlighting makes you a passive reader. Instead, use your pencil to indicate why a passage is important. Is it a new major point? A significant piece of support? A summary of the opposition? A counterargument? A strong or weak point? Use the margins for this type of notation and commentary. It’s a much better guide than colored pages.
Talk back to the text; question the author. Use your margins to carry on a conversation with the text. Record your responses: “Huh?!” “Yes!” “But what about…?” “BS!” “Exactly!” “What is happening?” “I'm not convinced” “Reminds me of that Simpsons episode…” You get the idea. When you talk back to the text, you can expand on the original ideas.
Reconstruct the rhetorical context. Get in the habit of asking yourself questions such as these: What audience is the author addressing? What occasion prompted this writing? What is the author’s purpose? Often you will encounter texts that are dense and difficult for you to absorb. This is likely because you are (most often) probably not the original intended audience. Try to determine who is. In this way you can account for the jargon, presentation, tone, and format the author uses.
Translate or “unpack” difficult passages. When you stumble over a difficult passage, try putting it in your own words. In this way you can unpack the meaning of particularly dense language.
Determine the thesis and main points. When you’re through reading, you can go back and look at your notes in the margin to determine the thesis, main points of the piece of writing, and conclusion. Look for signal phrases like, “I will argue that,” “in conclusion,” et cetera.
Evaluate the evidence. What grounds are given for your agreement? Do you think they are valid? Which are suspicious or underdeveloped? Is there rhetoric that clouds the issues at hand rather than clarifies them? Is the author fair to the opposition? If data is given as evidence, is there reason to question the source?
Identify the assumptions. Any process of giving reasons has to stop somewhere. Are these ideas “self-evident”? If not, why are you expected to accept them at face value? Do you? Sometimes certain ideas are not stated at all but are assumed to be the case without needing to be stated. Find places in the writer’s argument where unstated assumptions are being used.
Assess your level of agreement. Has the author convinced you of his or her conclusion? What are the implications of this argument? Why does it matter? Why should you care? What follows from the argument if you accept it unconditionally? In this final assessment, first try to focus on the reasons given and then consider how they bear upon the assumptions and beliefs you already brought to the issue before having read the article.
Read as a writer. We learn to write not just by putting pen to paper but by reading attentively. While reading, notice metaphors that truly create an image in your mind, analogies that bring home a point, personal experience that conveys immediacy, and economical language that builds credibility. Create your own criteria for good writing and apply it to what you read as well as to what you write.
Read synoptically. Juxtapose this reading with others on the same subject. Compare and contrast. Seek confirmation. Seek disagreement. Seek synthesis. Think about what you find when you examine different viewpoints and arguments on the same subject.