Critical Reading

Reading is an essential part of any academic study. During

your course, you will have to:
• Read a lot of books, journal articles, and reports
• Absorb all this material and continue reading even
more
• Eventually remember it all

So:
Be selective – you are not expected to read everything
Be purposeful – be aware of why you are reading
Be active – interact with the text by asking questions

To help you achieve this, remember there are four stages of reading:

Overviewing – This is used to see whether a book or article is relevant. You can
do this by reading the blurb on the back cover, looking through the table of
contents, or by reading the abstract.
Skimming – This is used to get a general idea of the author’s arguments. A good
strategy for skimming an article is to read the abstract, the introduction, the
conclusion, and the first couple of sentences of each paragraph.
Scanning – This is a more in-depth examination of a text for specific information.
This can involve looking up particular phrases or keywords in the index and then
reading about them in the text, or looking at the headings of particular sections
and reading the introduction to these sections.
Intensive Reading - This is used to create a complete and unambiguous
understanding of the author’s message. The material should be understood at
different levels: a comprehension level; a structural level; and an analytical level.

Some useful questions to ask when reading intensively are:

o What do the writers want me to accept? Why? Try to pinpoint exactly what an
author is arguing, which usually comes near the beginning of an article or chapter.
o Are there relevant and sufficient reasons for arguing their point? What are the
reasons that writers give to support their points? Refer back to a writer’s main
argument and decide if the reasons given support what is being said.
o Is the argument logical? It should be the case that any piece of writing will state
the argument at the beginning and then there will be reasons following this which
either support or contradict the initial argument. This will be drawn together in the
conclusion.
o Are there any exceptions? The writer might make specific claims or general ones,
and yet this may not apply to all the cases.
o What is the source? Who was the book or article written for? Why? What results
would this organisation have wanted?
o How accurate are the data? It is important that any statistics or other data that
may be used are accurate and objective. How old are the data that are being
quoted?
o What conclusions does the writer come to? Try and determine whether the
conclusion can be drawn from what the author has previously argued.

Critical Reading Form

You may find it useful to fill in the following form (or keep these questions in mind)
when you are reading from books or articles:
- Author, date, title publication details, library code

- Why am I reading this? What do I want to find out?

- In general, what are the authors trying to say? What is their argument?

- What are the authors saying that is relevant to what I want to find out?

- How convincing is what they are saying?

- How can I make use of this?

CODE:
(1)= Return to this for detailed analysis; (2) = An important general text;
(3) = Of minor importance; (4) = Not relevant.
(Adapted from Wallace & Wray, 2016, p. 42)

Additional Resources
Greetham, B. (2018) How to Write Better Essays. 4th edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Wallace, M. & Wray, A. (2016) Critical Reading and Writing for Postgraduates. 3rd edn.
London: Sage Publications