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1.2: Critical Reading Strategies

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    Critical Reading Strategies

    Critical reading skills are life skills that you will need in your professional and personal lives. Reading critically will help you comprehend, interpret, evaluate and analyze a text. These skills will not only help you in school, but also in your personal or professional life when you have to complete complex forms for insurance or taxes or in reading contracts to buy a car or a house. Critical reading will also help you negotiate more effectively as you will have a good grip on all aspects of the material that you have read. Reading critically does not mean that you are looking for negative aspects of the text (although that might also be a part of your critique). Instead, you are analyzing the text closely and considering audience, purpose, diction, tone, main ideas, themes, style, voice, point of view, irony etc.

    The following video, "Critical Reading" discusses the three critical reading strategies of separating fact from opinion, detecting propaganda, and identifying errors in reasoning.

    The following critical reading strategies will help you go beyond the surface level to a deeper analysis of the text:

    • As you read, keep the following in mind:
      • What is the CONTEXT in which this text was written? (This writing contributes to what topic, discussion, or controversy? Context is bigger than this one written text.)
      • Who is the intended AUDIENCE?
      • What is the author’s PURPOSE? To entertain? To explain? To persuade? (There’s usually more than one purpose, and essays almost always have an element of persuasion.)
      • How is this writing ORGANIZED? Compare and contrast? Classification? Chronological? Cause and effect? Argumentation? (There’s often more than one organizational form.)
      • What is the author’s TONE? (What are the emotions behind the words? Angry? sad? ironic? sarcastic? objective? persuasive? Are there places where the tone changes or shifts?)
      • What TOOLS does the author use to accomplish her/his purpose? Facts and figures? Direct quotations? Fallacies in logic? Personal experience? Repetition? Sarcasm? Humor? Brevity?
      • What is the author’s THESIS—the main argument or idea, condensed into one or two sentences?
    • Foster an attitude of intellectual curiosity. You might not love all of the writing you’re asked to read and analyze, but you should have something interesting to say about it, even if that “something” is critical.

    The following video on "Critical Reading" created by Coventry University demonstrates a few active reading strategies and critical reading questions:

    Before you read, consider the purpose, preview the text, and make some predictions.

    Contributors

    This page titled 1.2: Critical Reading Strategies is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Sravani Banerjee, Elizabeth Eckford, Nicholas Goodwin, Robin Hahn, and Binh Vo (Open Educational Resource Initiative at Evergreen Valley College) .