Academic Reading &
Writing: Learning How to
Critically Read and Analyze
Texts
by Professor Chris L. Verschage
Oklahoma City Community College
Critical Reading
What is “Critical Reading”?
 Critical Reading, much like writing, is a process.
 We discover the ideas and views of others by looking
beneath the surface of the words and by thinking about
their meaning and significance.
 As we read, we weigh their claims, ask for definitions,
evaluate the information, look for proof, question their
assumptions, and make decisions regarding what they
have to say and how well they communicate it.
 In essence, we enter into a conversation with the writer,
and by doing this, we walk away from the experience
with a new appreciation and understanding of the
material that we were reading.
Learn to read as writers
 We need to approach other people’s work – not as a
reader – but as another writer.
 By reading the text as a writer, we learn to examine the
effectiveness of the writings of others and use the things
we learn to help clarify our own ideas and the choices
we make regarding organization, development and style.
 In every discipline, people learn a skill or craft by
studying those who are more skilled and successful:
 Singers listen to vocalists they admire.
 People in sports watch championship games.
 Actors evaluate their colleagues’ award-winning
performances.
 Medical students observe famous surgeons.
How does reading help become a
better writer?
 Understanding the ideas and opinions expressed by
other writers may spark interesting ideas for our own
writing.
 Discovering the various ways other writers have
organized and explained their material should give us
some new ideas about selecting our own strategies and
supporting evidence.
 Becoming familiar with the effective stylistic devices and
diction of other writers may also encourage us to use
language in ways we’ve never tried before.
Strategies for Reading Arguments
 Because argument begins in disagreements within a
particular social community, we should examine any
argument as if it is one voice within a larger
conversation.
 In helping us to examine and analyze any argument, we
should use the following strategies in sequence:
 Read as a believer.
 Read as a doubter.
 Consider alternative views and analyze sources of
disagreements.
 Use disagreement productively to prompt further
investigation.
Read as a Believer
 When we read as a believer, we practice what
psychologist Carl Rogers calls “empathetic listening.”
 Empathetic listening requires that we –
 see the world through the author’s eyes.
 adopt temporarily the author’s beliefs and values.
 suspend our skepticism and biases long enough to hear
what the author is saying.
Annotating What You Read
Learning to Annotate as We Read
 Annotate: To make or furnish critical or explanatory
notes or comments in the margin of the text. These
notes may also include using asterisks or other codes to
alert us to special materials.
 Close Reading: In this type of annotation, we are
focusing on content. Comments or notes that explain
the text. For example,
 Number and briefly list the steps in a process;
 Define a term in our own words or add a definition to help
with our understanding, or
 Summarize the ideas in a particular section.
 In essence, explain the material to ourselves.
Annotate (cont.)
 Active Reading: In this type of annotation, we are
focusing on making connections between the material
and what we already know or have experienced or
observed.
 Are there connections between the author’s views and
our own?
 Even if we don’t agree with the author, can we
understand where he or she is coming from? Why he or
she thinks or feels the way that he or she does?
 By connecting the material in the reading to our own
experiences, we are able to better understand the
material. (Discuss teachings of the cognitive
psychologist, Jean Piaget – brain like a file cabinet)
Annotating Symbols
Summarize the Author’s
Viewpoint
 After reading through the text as a believer, summarize
the author’s views and ideas using our own words.
 By being able to summarize the material, it
demonstrates our own level of understanding of the
material.
 How much of the material we actually understand?
 How well we understand the author’s stance and
perspective?
Writing a Summary
What is a “Summary”?
 When you write a summary, you capture what is
relevant, essential, or the key concepts and ideas of
what is present, and you rephrase it in your own words
and sentence structures.
What are three things you should
not do to a summary?
 Don’t make the summary too succinct and leave out
crucial details. Such a summary might be useless when,
days later, you try to make sense of it.
 Don’t use the actual words or phrases of the actual
author without both quotation marks and
documentation. This is plagiarism.
 Don’t insert your own personal views, feelings, thoughts,
or notes in a summary.
Reading as a Doubter
Read as a Doubter
 Now read through the same material, but this time as a
doubter.
 Critique and ask questions about the writing. For
example,
 Why did the writer begin this way?
 What is the point the writer is trying to make? What might
be some fallacies to this point of view?
 Why did the writer compare this event to that one? What is
the writer trying to say by making this comparison?
 Why did the writer use a personal example in this
paragraph?
 In other words, we want to begin to question the
motivation, reasoning, and rhetorical choices of the author.
Analyzing the Argument
What is “Analysis”?
 Analysis is an interactive process that involves four basic
stages:
 1. To break down what’s being analyzed into smaller
component parts;
 2. To identify and examine each of the parts;
 3. To identify and examine the relationship between
each of the parts; and
 4. To identify and examine how all of the parts work
together to formulate the whole.
What is “Interpretation”?
 Interpretation is an assumed part of the analysis
process. College professors and instructors will say,
“Analyze this,” but what they mean is “analyze and
interpret this.”
 Interpretation is when you ascribe meaning, purpose,
relevance, significance, or importance to whatever you
are analyzing.
 If I were to give the meaning, purpose, relevance,
significance or importance of the incredible Hulk in the
Avengers movie, then I’d interpreting that character.
Toulmin’s Model
 In analyzing arguments, we want to use the model
formulated by the modern philosopher, Stephen Toulmin.
 Toulmin rejected the prevailing models of argument
based on formal logic in favor of a very audience-based
courtroom model.
 His model differs from formal logic in that it assumes
that –
 All assertions and assumptions are contestable by
“opposing counsel” and that
 All final “verdicts” about the persuasiveness of the opposing
arguments will be rendered by a neutral third party, a judge
or a jury.
Toulmin’s Model (cont.)
 Keeping in mind the “opposing counsel” forces us to
anticipate counter arguments and to question our
assumptions.
 Keeping in mind the “judge” and “jury” reminds us to
answer opposing arguments fully, without bitter deepseated ill will or enmity, and to present positive reasons
for supporting our case, as well as how to anticipate and
respond to the claim, reasons, and grounds of the
“opposing counsel.”
 Above all else, Toulmin’s model reminds us not to
construct an argument that appeals only to those who
already agree with us. In short, it helps us to tailor
arguments to our intended audience.
Identify the Parts of the
Argument
 Using Toulmin’s Model, identify the following parts of the
argument:
 Claim: The point of view being presented or argued.
 Qualifiers: A word or phrase used to limit the force of a
claim and to indicate the degree of its probable truth.
 Exceptions: Situations in which the claim may not hold
true or may not apply.
 Grounds (or Data):The supporting evidence that cause
us to make a claim or that’s produced to justify a claim
in response to an audience’s skepticism.
 Warrant: The value, belief, or principle that the
audience has to hold if the soundness of the argument is
to be guaranteed or warranted.
Identify the Parts (cont.)
 If there’s a chance that the audience will question or
doubt the warrant, then we need to back up the warrant
by providing an argument in its support.
 Backing: the argument that’s presented to support the
warrant.
 Conditions of Rebuttal: A resistant audience might
try to refute our argument. Specifically, they might
challenge –
 Our reasons and/or our grounds.
 Our warrant and/or our backing.
Specific Areas of Disagreements
 We can disagree with how a particular text has been
interpreted or understood. To disagree with a particular
interpretation does not mean that we disregard the text
itself, just in how it has been understood by a particular
group or individual.
 We can disagree about facts or reality. For example, is
something the author is presenting a “fact” or is it really an
interpretation? Is the person’s perspective of reality valid
or invalid? Real or fiction? What is it based upon?
 We can disagree about values, beliefs, or
assumptions. Are they valid? Are they shared with the
audience? On what are they based?
 We can disagree with how words may be defined or
whether some analogy is, in fact, appropriate.
Finally, Learn to Draw Inferences
 Inference: A statement that’s not explicitly stated in
the text, but it can be logically drawn, or concluded,
from what has been stated within the text.
 We can also draw inferences from things that we
experience, things we hear or see, as well as from things
that we read.
Consider Alternative Views
 Once you have read through a text and examined it both
from the perspective of a believer and as a doubter, then
consider alternative views.
 The purpose of examining alternative views is to gain a
deeper, fuller, more comprehensive understanding of the
overall issue and the various perspectives being
presented and argued.
 Then analyze the various sources of disagreements
between individuals and/or groups.
 Finally, use the information discovered through that
analysis of disagreement to productively prompt further
investigation and research.
In Summary,
 When reading and analyzing a text, we need –
 To read through it as a believer, in order to empathetically
listen to what the author is saying;
 To read through it as a doubter, in order to question and
critique the validity and support of the argument;
 To make sure we draw any necessary inferences, in order to
include within our analysis and understanding, even the
implied aspects of the argument;
 To consider alternative views, in order to gain a fuller, more
comprehensive understanding of the issue as a whole and
the various perspectives being argued;
 To analyze the sources of the disagreements, in order to
understand how the perspectives differ and on what points;
and finally,
 To use disagreement productively, in order to prompt
further investigation and research.
Synthesis & Evaluation
 Once we finish our analysis (and interpretation), then we
synthesize (or put together with a new view or level
of understanding) what we have analyzed.
 The final stage in the analysis process is to evaluate
(or ascribe a qualitative value to) it, such as asking the
question, “Was this good or bad? Why?” Much like an
employee may be evaluated by his or her manager or a
student’s work may be evaluated by an instructor, we
evaluate things based upon our analysis (and
interpretation) of it.
 Our analysis (and interpretation) and evaluation of the
person, place, or thing is then written down and
presented in an argument to an academic audience.
Academic Writing
What is “Academic Writing”?
 In academic writing (essays, research documents,
articles, proposals, etc.), information is often
incorporated within these writings that are borrowed and
properly cited from a variety of sources. The borrowed
and cited information is used to support and to give
credence or validity to the student’s views and ideas.
Two Types of Sources:
 In academic writing there are two types of sources that
are often used:
 Primary Sources: Firsthand accounts: historical
documents (letters, speeches, diaries, journals, etc.),
eyewitness reports, works of literature, reports on
experiments or surveys conducted by the writer, or your
own interviews, experiments, observations, or
correspondence.
 Secondary Sources: Secondhand reports that
analyze information drawn from other sources, both
primary and other secondary sources: a reporter’s
summary of a controversial issue, a historian’s account
of a battle, a critic’s reading of a poem, a physicist’s
evaluation of several studies.
Keep It Proportional
 Only 25-30% of your overall paper should consist of
documented material. The rest of your paper (70-75%)
should consist of your argument, your reasons, your
inferences, insight, connections, rationale, and any
“common knowledge” materials that you’ve decided to
use within your paper.
What is “Common Knowledge”?
 Common Knowledge consists of the standard or
basic information on a subject that we’d expect most
intelligent people to know. This includes the following
types of information:
 1. All historical facts. However, it does not include
the interpretation or explanation of those facts.
 2. All folk literature. Any literature traceable to an
author is not folk literature, even if it is familiar.
 3. All Commonsense Observations.