Lesson 1:

Reading Critically

Critical Reading = Active + Process of Discovery

What is Critical Reading

 Critical reading means not easily believing information offered to you by a text. “Read not to
contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but
to weigh and consider” as Francis Bacon (1908) stated in The Essays.
 It is an active process of discovery because when you read critically, you are not just receiving
information, but also making an interaction with the writer. The interaction happens when you
question the writer’s claims and assertions and when you comment on the writer’s ideas.
 The following are some suggested ways to help you become a critical reader.
o Annotate what you read
o Outline the text
o Summarize the text
o Evaluate the text

Lesson 2:

Thinking Critically

Love Is a Fallacy by Max Shulman

 Being able to evaluate sound arguments as part of your engagement with the text and with the
author will make you a critical thinker. That requirement was further emphasized by Ramage,
Bean, and Johnson (2006) when they identified the following requirements in critical thinking.
o The ability to pose problematic questions
o The ability to analyze a problem in all its dimensions
o The ability to find, gather, and interpret data, facts and other information
o The ability to imagine alternative solutions to the problem
o The ability to write an effective argument justifying your choice while acknowledging
counter-arguments

Lesson 1:

The Pre-Writing Process

1. Figure out the relationships of the ideas you grouped together

2. You may use a graphic representation to show how your ideas are related to each other
3. Examine the ideas that you mapped out and identify which ideas are broad and/or general and
which ideas are specific.
4. Pinpoint one topic
5. Understand why you are writing the paper that you are going to write
 6. Think about the people who will possibly read your paper

Choosing a topic

 Freewriting - When you wrote two or more paragraphs about anything under the sun. This is
an effective technique to generate ideas because you are not constrained by the rules in writing
yet, and so, you can creatively include any idea that you can think of.
 Brainstorming - This technique that aims to generate as many topics as you can, can be done
individually or in a group. As the name implies, you rummage through your head to produce
something
 Clustering - This technique provides a graphic representation of your ideas, allowing you to
visualize the connections of your ideas. Write your main topic at the center of your paper then
encircle or box it. Think of subtopics and place them around the center circle until you feel that
you have developed all the subtopics fully.

- The next step is to make sure that you focus on one idea that you are going to discuss thoroughly
in your paper.

- Once you have narrowed down your topic, ponder on the reason why you are writing.

- The last step in pre-writing is knowing your purpose and identifying your reader or audience.

Analyzing your Audience

 Who are your readers?

 Are they familiar with the topic or subject?
 How much do they know about your topic?
 How much background do you need to provide?
 What are their interests and how could you relate your topic to their interest?
 What is their general attitude toward your topic?
 Do they have beliefs that you may have to consider in writing your paper?
 Do they have misconceptions and biases that you have to address?
 What are you reader’s expectations from you?

Tone - refers to the general mood of the essay.

Lesson 2:

Avoiding Plagiarism

What is plagiarism?

• deliberate copying of somebody else’s work and claiming that work to be his/her own

• using somebody else’s work or ideas without proper acknowledgement or citation; and

• copying the text without paraphrasing it

Paraphrasing - one of the ways to avoid plagiarism.

- means rendering the essential ideas in a text (sentence or paragraph) using your own words.
- more detailed than summary

- another way to avoid plagiarism is to directly quote the sentence or the paragraph.

direct quotation - is preferred to a paraphrase when the author’s ideas are so important that
paraphrasing them will change the essence of those ideas.

Lesson 3: Writing and Rewriting

 Developing Your Thesis Statement

Thesis Statement - a claim or stand that you will develop in your paper.

- controlling idea of your essay

- gives your readers idea of what your paper is all about

- should not merely announce something or state a fact

Strong thesis statement - usually contains an element of uncertainty, risk, or challenge.

- should offer a debatable claim that you can prove or disprove in your essay

- should be debatable enough to let your readers agree or disagree with you

 Organizing Your Paper

- As a writer, your main aim is to organize your ideas in a logical order.

Organizing ideas - finding the connections of one point to another and establishing a link from one idea
to another.

- The challenge for you as a writer is to be able to “weave back and forth between generalizations and
specifics”

Outlining - an effective way of ensuing the logical flow of your ideas.

Introduction - provides a background of your topic, poses a question regarding the topic, explains how
the question is problematic and significant, and gives the writer’s thesis statement.

- can be one or two paragraphs, depending on the ideas that you are presenting

- the two-paragraph introduction is suggested if your topic is complex. The first paragraph provides the
background of your topic; the second states the thesis statement

Body - This is where the bulk of the essay is found and where you develop an answer pr propose a
solution to the thesis statement that you have given in the introduction.

- you have to support the main points and include other details that would support your thesis
statement

Conclusion - should bring together the points made in your paper and emphasize your final point.

- may also leave a thought-provoking idea that you wish your audience to consider.
- synthesize your main points and emphasize your thesis statement

How to Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words by Paul Roberts

 Why College Football should be abolished

 Avoid the obvious content
 Take the less usual side
 Slip out of abstraction
 Get rid of obvious padding
 Call a fool a fool
 Beware of pat expressions
 Colorful words
 Colored words
 Colorless words

The Post-Writing Process

 According to Murray (2005), “Writing is revising.” Columnist Ellen Goodman (quoted in Nadell,
Langan, and Comodromos 2005:60) seems to echo that statement when she said that “what
makes [her] happy is rewriting… It’s like cleaning houses, getting rid of all the junk, getting things
in the right order, tightening up.”
 There are two processes involved in post-writing: revising and editing.
 According to Murray (2005:273), revising is “re-seeing the entire draft so that the writer can deal
with the large issues that must be resolved before he or she deals with the line-by-line, word-by-
word issues involved in editing.”

Murray (2005:273-275) provided this checklist for revising:

Subject

 Do I have something to say?

 Are there readers who need to hear what I have to say?

Focus

 Does the draft make a clear dominant point?

 Are there clear, appropriate limits to the draft that include what is important and exclude what
is unnecessary?

Authority

 Are the writer’s credentials to write this draft established and clear?

Context

 Is the context of the draft clear?

Voice

 Does the draft have an individual voice?

  Is the voice appropriate to the subject?
 Does the voice support and extend the meaning of the draft?

Reader

 Can you identify a reader who will need to read the draft?
 Are the reader’s questions answered where they will be asked?
 Does the draft fulfill the reader’s expectations of that form? Does the draft fulfill the reader’s
expectations of that form?

Structure

 Will the lead attract and hold a reader?

 Does each point lead to the next point?
 Does each section support and advance the meaning?
 Is the reader’s hunger for specific information satisfied?

Documentation

 Does each reader have enough evidence to believe each point in the draft?

Quantity

 Where does the draft need to be developed?

 Where does it need to be cut?