Critical Reading Guide
The first step in critical reading is having a good understanding what is written in a particular text. If you only “sort of get it”, you will not be ready to move on to the higher cognitive demands of critical reading.
Read the text thoroughly and then reread any parts that you feel you don't fully understand. You may find it helpful to read the text once through without writing any notes. On your second read, take notes and mark the main idea or claims of each section of the text. Ways you can annotate the text include:
To check your understanding of the text, it is a good idea to try to write a very brief summary of the text. If you are unable to do this, you need to go back and reread the text again.
Once you've thoroughly read and understood the text, you are ready to read it critically. Here, reading “critically” does not mean that you will only look for negatives in the text. The type of criticism involved here entails taking a text apart and asking questions so that you can understand and evaluate the background, the context, and the effect of the text before you.
While reading critically, you should have a list of questions that you are trying to answer. Here are some questions that will help guide your thinking in a critical manner:
General Comprehension Questions about the Argument and Content:
· What “conversation” is this text part of? What are the key terms necessary to understand the debate? Who are the main “players” involved in discussing this issue?
· What claim is being made? What are the main points the writer presents?
· What evidence is used to support those claims? Is it sufficient and reliable?
· What are the implications of the writer’s position if you were to carry it out? What would be the outcome of taking this position or course of action?
Questions about the text
· What genre is the text? How does that shape its structure and style?
· What tone does the writer take toward the issue? What specific phrases, figures of speech or sentence structures convey this tone?
· What is the physical medium through which the reader will encounter the text? (Book, paper magazine article, online pdf, internet article, etc). Does that impact the structure or style of the piece?
Questions about the writer
· What is the author’s purpose in writing this?
· What needs or concerns might be influencing the writer? Why might he/she have chosen to write about this topic? Do they have anything “at stake” in taking this position or writing about this subject?
· What assumptions does the writer make about the audience or the topic? Does the writer assume his/her reader agrees or disagrees with him/her?
· What does the author VALUE? If he/she is opposed to something, what might he/she favor instead?
Questions about the reader
· What is the reader’s (or your) purpose in reading this?
· Who is the intended reader or audience? (How do you know?)
· What lenses (theoretical frameworks) do we readers view the text with? What assumptions do we make about the writer’s meaning?
· What does the reader VALUE? Are those values in harmony or conflict with those of the writer? Identify the values that might conflict.
Questions about the context(s)
· What is the social context shaping this text? Who is the author in relation to his/her readers? Is this an authority figure, a scholar, a journalist? How does that effect your interpretation of the text?
· What is the cultural context shaping this text? Is the author a member of a particular group or nationality? Does that affect his/her position? Does the text reveal cultural biases?
· What is the historical context shaping the text? When is this text written in relation to other important writings on the subject? What historical events have influenced the writing?
Based partly on blog entry by Doug Eskew, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~eskew/eskewblog/critical.html