Critical Reading

Critical reading is crucial to critical writing.  It means that you are engaging in what you read by asking yourself questions such as ‘what is the author trying to say?’ or ‘what is the main argument being presented?’ It also involves presenting a reasoned argument that evaluates and analyses what you have read.

Reading with a critical perspective signifies that you will:

• examine the evidence or arguments presented
• check out any influences on the evidence or arguments
• check out the limitations of study design or focus
• examine the interpretations made 
• decide to what extent you are prepared to accept or refute the authors’ arguments, opinions, or conclusions

As a critical reader, you should reflect on:

• What the text says:  After critically reading a piece of text, you should be able to take notes, or paraphrasing – in your own words – the key points.
• What the text describes: You should be confident that you have understood the text sufficiently to be able to use your own examples and compare/contrast with other writing on the subject in hand.
• Interpretation of the text: you should be able to fully analyze the text and state a meaning for the text as a whole.

To read critically, you must think critically. This task involves analysis, interpretation and evaluation. Each of these processes helps you to interact with the text in different ways: highlighting important points and examples, taking notes, testing answers to your questions, brainstorming, outlining, describing aspects of the text or argument, reflecting on your own reading and thinking and raising objections to the ideas or evidence presented.

Being critical, therefore – in an academic sense – means advancing your understanding!

Source: www.utsc.utoronto.ca/twc/sites/utsc.utoronto.ca.twc/files/resource-files/CriticalReading.pdf

The following resources provide additional information on critical reading:

Articles

• Akin, F., Koray, O. and Tavukçu, K. (2015). How effective is critical reading in the understanding of Scientific Texts? Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 174, pp. 2444-2451. 
• Carey MA, Steiner KL, Petri WA Jr (2020) Ten simple rules for reading a scientific paper. PLoS Computational Biology, 16, 7, e1008032.
• Flynn, L. L. (1989). Developing critical reading skills through cooperative problem solving. The Reading Teacher, 42, 9, pp. 664-668.
  
• Heick, T. (2020). How To Read A Book: 3 Strategies & Questions For Critical Reading. 
• Priyatni, Endah Tri, and Martutik (2020). The Development of a Critical–Creative Reading Assessment Based on Problem Solving. Original Research, May, p. 1-9.
• Ven, Inge van de (2017). Creative Reading in the information age: paradoxes of close and distant reading. The Journal of Creative Behavior, December, p. 1-6.

Books

• Flemming, L. (2014). Reading keys. 4th ed. Independence, Ky.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1133589952.
• Pirozzi, R., Starks-Martin, G., and Dziewwisz, J. (2014). Critical Reading, critical thinking: a contemporary issues approach. 4th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education. ISBN-13: 978-0205100156.

Book Chapters

• Carillo, E. C. (2018). Modeling Reading through annotation. In: Teaching readers in Post-Truth America. pp. 63-92. ISBN 978-1607327912. (available in JStor database)

Vídeos

• Advance Consulting for Education (2014). Teaching Critical Reading Skills. 
• Coventry University. Centre for Academic Writing (2016). Critical reading. 
• TED-Ed. (2016). 5 tips to improve your critical thinking. 
• Watchwellcast (2012). How to take great notes. 
• Badenhorst, Cecile (2020). Reading strategies (critical reading). 
• Marran, Mohammad (2017). Critical reading, thinking and writing. 
• Specht, Doug (2020). Critical reading. 
• University of Warwick (2019). Critical reading (study skills). 
• Walden University Skills Center (2017). Success strategies: critical reading. 

Websites

• Charles Darwin University (2020). Note-taking.
• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Writing Center (n.d.). Reading to write. 
• University of Leicester (2009). What is critical reading. Student Learning Development. 
• University of New South Wales (2019). Note-taking skills. 
• University of New South Wales (2019). Techniques and tips for listening and note taking: techniques and tips. 
• University of Sussex (2020). Making notes. 
• University of Sussex (2020). Note-making styles. 
• AVID Open Access (n.d. ). Explore critical reading and viewing in a digital age.
• SkillsYouNeed (2021). Critical reading and reading strategy.