Why Critically Read?
In the article “The importance of teaching academic reading skills in first-year university courses,” Julian Hermida (2009) explained, “Learning a discipline involves developing familiarity with the ways of being, thinking, writing, and seeing the world of those experts in the discipline. Reading academic texts published by those disciplinary experts permits students to immerse in the culture of the discipline and facilitates learning its conventions, discourse, skills, and knowledge” (Erickson, Peters, & Strommer, 2006, p.122). However, this is only possible if students take a deep approach to reading. First, however, it is critical for students to familiarize themselves with the conventions of academic articles.
To read something critically means to apply certain processes, models, and questions that result in enhanced clarity and comprehension. It moves from just "skimming" the text to doing a deeper dive into the information, and considering the rhetorical situation and rhetorical context of the text, i.e., diction, tone, organization, formatting, audience, purpose, style, context in which it was written, etc.
What does it take to be a critical reader?
What does "critical reading" look like?
It means to determine the following:
Below is additional information to help you continue to develop you critical reading and analysis skills throughout the course.