Critical Reading

Reading for Meaning

 Requirements
 General
 Specific
 Value
As your eyes move across the text, you
actively construct meaning from it,
contributing your own relevant
knowledge and point of view while also
seeking to assimilate the text’s new
ideas and information.
Critical Reading Strategies
 Annotating
 Previewing
 Outlining
 Summarizing
 Paraphrasing
 Synthesizing
 Questioning to understand and remember
 Reflecting on challenges to your beliefs and
values
…continued…
 Exploring the significance of figurative
language
 Looking for patterns of opposition
 Evaluating the logic of an argument
 Recognizing emotional manipulation
 Judging the writer’s credibility
 Comparing and contrasting related
readings
Annotating
 Benefits
The simple of act of marking as you
read makes it more likely that you
will read attentively and closely.
To annotate a reading
1. Mark the text using notations
2. Write marginal comments
3. Layer additional markings
Taking Inventory of Annotations
Examine annotations for patterns
Regroup items
Consider patterns
Previewing
See what you can learn from the
headnotes or other introductory
material

Skim the text to get an overview of the

content and organization

Identify the genre and rhetorical

situation
Outlining
 Read each paragraph systematically,
identifying the topic and what is being
said about it. Don’t include
examples, specific details, quotations,
or other explanatory and supporting
material
 List the main ideas in the margin of
the text or on a separate piece of
paper
Summarizing
 Make an outline to segregate the
main ideas from supporting ones
 Write a paragraph or more that
presents the main ideas largely in
your own words
 Fill in connections between ideas to
make the summary coherent
Paraphrasing
 Reread the passage to be
paraphrased, looking up unknown
words in a college dictionary
 Relying on key words in a passage,
translate the information into your
own sentences
 Revise to ensure coherence
Synthesizing
 Find and read a variety of sources on your
topic, annotating the passages that give
you ideas about the topic
 Look for patterns among your sources,
possibly supporting or refuting your ideas
or those of other sources
 Write a paragraph or more synthesizing
your sources, using quotations, paraphrase,
and summary to present what they say on
the topic
Questioning to understand and
remember
 Pause at the end of each paragraph to
review the information
 Try to identify the most important
information – the main idea or gist of
discussion
 Write a question that can be answered by
the main idea or ideas in the paragraph
 Move on to the next paragraph, repeating
the process
Contextualizing
 Describe the historical and cultural
situation as it is represented in the
reading and other sources with which
you are familiar
 Compare the text’s historical and
cultural contexts to your own
historical and cultural situations
Reflecting on challenges to your
beliefs and values
 Identify the challenges by marking where in
the text you feel your beliefs and values are
being opposed, criticized or unfairly
criticized
 Select one or two of the most troubling
challenges you have identified and write a
few sentences describing why you feel as
you do. Do not attempt to defend your
feelings; instead, analyze them to see
where they come from
Exploring the significance of
figurative language
 Annotate and list all figures of speech
you find
 Group them and label each group
 Write to explore the meaning of the
patterns you have found
Looking for patterns of opposition
 Annotate the selection to identify the opposition, and
list the pairs on a separate page
 Put an asterisk next to the writer’s preferred word or
phrase in each pair of opposing terms
 Examine the patterns of preferred terms to discover
the system of values the pattern implies; then do the
same thing for unpreferred terms
 Write to analyze and evaluate these opposing points
of view or, in the case of a reading that does not take
a position, alternative systems of value
Evaluating the logic of an argument
 Test for appropriateness by checking to be sure that
each piece of evidence is clearly and directly related
to the claim that it is supposed to support
 Test for believability by deciding whether you can
accept as true facts, statistics, and expert testimony,
and whether you can accept generalizations based on
the examples given
 Test for consistency and completeness by ascertaining
whether there are any contradictions in the argument
and whether any important objections or opposing
arguments have been ignored
Recognizing emotional
manipulation
 Annotate places in the text where you
sense emotional appeals are being
used
 Write a few sentences identifying the
kinds of appeals you have found and
exploring your responses to them
Judging the writer’s credibility
 As you read and annotate, consider
the writer’s knowledge of the subject,
how well the writer establishes
common ground with readers, and
whether the writer deals fairly with
objections and opposing arguments
 Write a few sentences exploring what
you discover
Comparing and contrasting related
readings
 Read both selections to decide on a basis or
ground for comparison ir contrast
 Reread and annotate one selection to
identify points of comparison or contrast
 Reread the second selection, annotating for
the points you have already identified
 Write up your analyses of the two
selections, revising your analysis of the first
selection to correspond to any new insights
you have gained or write a point-by-point
comparison or contrast of the two
selections