Critical Powerpoint Final

7/28/2019 Critical Powerpoint Final

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Critical Approach in Reading

Critical Reading: What is it?

To read critically is to make judgments abouthow a text is argued. This is highly reflective skillrequiring you to stand back and gain some

distance from the text you are reading.


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Why do we need to take critical approach toreading?

Regardless of how objective, technical, or scientific thesubject matter, the author(s) will have made many decisionsduring the research and writing process, and each of thesedecisions is a potential for examination and debate, rather

than for blind acceptance.

You need to be prepared to step into the academic debateand to make your own evaluation of how much you arewilling to accept what you read.

Consider you read not as fact, but as the argument of thewriter. Taking this starting point you will be ready to engagein critical reading.


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Some Practical Tips

Critical reading occurs after some preliminary processesof reading. Begin by skimming research materials,especially introductions and conclusions, in order to

strategically chooses where to focus your critical efforts.

When highlighting a text or taking notes from it, teachyourself to highlight argument: those places in a textwhere an author explains her analytical moves, the

concepts she uses, how she uses them, how she arrivesat conclusions.


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Some Practical Tips

When you begin to think about how you might use a portionof a text in the argument you are forging in your own paper,try to remain aware of how this portion fits into the whole

argument from which it is taken.

When you quote directly from a source, use the quotationcritically. This means that you should not substitute thequotation for your own articulation of a point.

Critical reading skills are also critical listening skills. In yourlectures, listen not only for information but also for ways ofthinking.


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Critical Reading Strategies

1. Previewing:Learning about a text before really reading it.

Previewing enables readers to get a sense of what the text is

about and how it is organized before reading it closely.

This includes seeing what you can learn from the headnotesor other introductory material, skimming to gat an overviewof the content and organization, and identifying the

rhetorical content.


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2. Contextualizing:Placing a text in its historical, biographical,and cultural contexts.

Your understanding of the words on the page and theirsignificance is informed by what you have come to knowand value from living in a particular time and place.

But the texts you read were all written in the past,sometimes in a radically different time and place.

To read critically, you need to contextualize, to recognizethe differences between your contemporary values andattitudes and those represented in the text.


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3. Questioning to understand and remember:Askingquestions about the content.

These questions are designed to help you understand areading and respond to it more fully, and often thistechnique works.

You can write questions any time, but in difficult academicreadings, you will understand the material better and

remember it longer if you write a questions for everyparagraph or brief section.

Each question should focus on a main idea not onillustrations or details.


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4. Reflecting on challenges to your beliefs and values:Examining your personal responses.

The reading that you do for this class might challenge your

attitudes, your unconsciously held beliefs, or your positionson current issues.

As you read a text for the first time, mark an X in themargin at each point where you feel a personal challenge to

your attitudes, beliefs, or status.

Make a brief note in the margin about what you feel orabout what in the text created the challenge.


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5.Outlining and Summarizing:Identify the main ideas andrestating them in your own words.

These strategies are especially helpful strategies forunderstanding the content and structure of a readingselection.

Outlining reveals the basic structure of the text,summarizing synopsizes a selection main argument inbrief.

The key to both outlining and summarizing is being able todistinguish between the main ideas and the supportingideas and examples.


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6.Evaluating an argument:Testing the logic of a text aswell as its credibility and emotional impact.

An argument has two essential parts: a claim and

support. The claim asserts a conclusion an idea, anopinion, a judgment, or a point of view that the writerwants you to accept. The support includes reasons andevidence that give readers the basic for accepting theconclusions.

In order for an argument to be acceptable, the supportmust be appropriate to the claim and the statementsmust be consistent with one another.


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7.Comparing and contrasting related readings:Exploring likeness and differences between texts tounderstand them better.

Fitting a text into an ongoing dialectic helps increaseunderstanding of why an author approached a particularissue or question.


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Graphic Organizers


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Graphic Organizers


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Graphic Organizers


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Graphic Organizers

Critical Powerpoint Final

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