Critical Reading

|Critical Reading Towards Critical Writing                                                                                                                   |

|Written by Deborah Knott, New College Writing Centre                                                                                                        |
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|Critical writing depends on critical reading. Most of the papers you write will involve reflection on written texts - the thinking and research that has     |
|already been done on your subject. In order to write your own analysis of this subject, you will need to do careful critical reading of sources and to use   |
|them critically to make your own argument. The judgments and interpretations you make of the texts you read are the first steps towards formulating your own|
|approach.                                                                                                                                                   |
|Critical Reading: What is It?                                                                                                                               |
|To read critically is to make judgements about how a text is argued. This is a highly reflective skill requiring you to "stand back" and gain some distance |
|from the text you are reading. (You might have to read a text through once to get a basic grasp of content before you launch into an intensive critical     |
|reading.) THE KEY IS THIS:                                                                                                                                   |
|don't read looking only or primarily for information... [continues]

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