CRITICAL READING Copyright © 1995–2004 by Pearson Education, publishing as Longman Publishers Fowler/Aaron, The Little, Brown Handbook, Ninth Edition

TECHNIQUES OF CRITICAL READING Writing: Making notes on your reading throughout the process. Previewing: Getting background; skimming Reading: Interacting with and absorbing the text Summarizing: Distilling and understanding content Forming your critical response: Analyzing: separating into parts Interpreting: inferring meaning and assumptions Synthesizing: reassembling parts; making connections Evaluating: judging quality and value Copyright © 1995–2004 by Pearson Education, publishing as Longman Publishers Fowler/Aaron, The Little, Brown Handbook, Ninth Edition 5.1

QUESTIONS FOR PREVIEWING Length Is the material brief enough for one sitting, or will you need more time? Facts of publication What is the date on the material? Is it a scholarly journal, popular book? Who sponsors the Web site? Content cues What do the title, summary or abstract, headings, illustrations, and other features tell you? Author What does the biographical information tell you about the author’s publications, interests, biases, and reputation in the field? Yourself Do you anticipate particular difficulties with the content? What biases of your own might influence your response to the text? Copyright © 1995–2004 by Pearson Education, publishing as Longman Publishers Fowler/Aaron, The Little, Brown Handbook, Ninth Edition 5.2

Guidelines for Analysis, Interpretation, and Synthesis What is the purpose of your reading? What questions do you have about the work, given your purpose? What elements of the work does the most interesting question highlight? What elements might you ignore as a result? How do you interpret the meaning and significance of the elements of the work that interest you? What are your assumptions about the work? What do you infer about the author’s assumptions? What patterns can you see in (or synthesize from) the elements? How do the elements relate? How does this whole work relate to other works? What do you conclude about the work? What does this conclusion add to the work? Copyright © 1995–2004 by Pearson Education, publishing as Longman Publishers Fowler/Aaron, The Little, Brown Handbook, Ninth Edition 5.3