Strategies for reading critically

Before you write, you need to read and listen. So let us begin with strategies for reading critically. How do you become a thoughtful reader? Well, a thoughtful reader is one who must patiently read information concerned not only with simple comprehension of facts but also be mindful of inferring, interpreting, analysing and evaluating the ideas in a text. S/he must be aware that one must adopt different strategies for reading different types of texts. On the one hand, you are trying to understand a text on its own terms, and on the other hand, you are critically questioning the ideas and language in it.

The ideas given below are an adaptation from Axelrod and Cooper (2012).

• ·         Annotating: This entails recording your reactions to a text, your interpretation and questions as you read along. These are notes you write as you read along.
• ·         Taking inventory: Listing and grouping your annotations so that you find meaningful patterns. This would require looking for repetitions such as recurring images, stylistic features such as repeated words or phrases, repeated examples or illustration. These patterns may reveal something about the reading text.
• ·         Outlining: Listing the text’s main ideas or the gist of the text as well as important supporting details.

• ·         Summarizing: Distilling the main ideas or gist of a text.
• ·         Synthesizing: Integrating your own ideas with the information learned from other sources.
• ·         Contextualizing: Placing the reading text in its historical and cultural context and asking whether it would be useful for your context.
• ·         Explaining the significance of figurative language: This is when you examine how metaphors, similes, personification and other such literary devices are used in a text to convey meaning and evoke feelings.
• ·         Reflecting on challenges to our beliefs and value: This refers to texts which may contradict some of your core ideas and beliefs. Instead of dismissing these, it would be a good idea to think again about your ideas and belief system.
• ·         Evaluating the topic of an argument: This entails understanding whether the arguments presented by the writer is well reasoned and adequately supported.
• ·         Recognizing emotional manipulation: This is being aware whether the text is unfairly manipulating you, based on false or exaggerated claims.
• ·         Judging the writer’s credibility: This means identifying whether the writer represents different points of view and has satisfactory information about what s/he is writing about.

These strategies of critically reading texts, would aid you immensely in the writing process and make you a reflective writer with a vision and with considered and rational opinions. Similar strategies would be applicable when you are listening to a lecture.

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