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Ewa Bandura
A Miniguide for Writing a Critical Text Evaluation What is critical reading? What makes a critical reader? Critical reading is not simply close and careful reading. To read critically, you must recognize and analyse evidence upon the page, i.e. content, language, and structure of the text, and consider their effect on the meaning, as well as infer from the text its purpose and bias, and the author’s background and assumptions. Only when you understand the author’s viewpoint, purpose, and methods of support are you ready to critique the piece effectively. A critical reader is aware of how a particular perspective on the events and a particular selection of facts can lead to a particular understanding. A critical reader is an active constructor of meaning. When you think critically you are being active; you are not passively accepting everything you read and hear, but questioning, evaluating, making judgements, finding connections, categorising, and challenging the author’s position, having done a careful analysis of the text. This means being open to other points of view and not being blinded by your own biases. It also means being aware of your opinions and assumptions (positive and negative) concerning the text you are reading so you can evaluate it honestly. A critical reader has the following characteristics: • awareness of a set of interrelated critical questions; • ability to ask and answer critical questions at appropriate times; • desire to actively use the critical questions. (Adapted from: http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/reading/critread/index. cfm; http://www.criticalreading.com; http://www.uefap.com/reading/ readframcrit.htm) What is critical analysis? How to evaluate critically? Checklists of questions provide useful language and help to structure critical evaluation. In order to analyse textual features you may ask: • What kinds of evidence does the author use (personal experience, descriptions, statistics, other authorities, analytical reasoning, or other)? • Are the ideas developed logically and convincingly? • What is the author’s overall purpose (to enquire, to convince, to persuade, to negotiate)? • Is the language free of emotion-arousing words? Is it ambiguous?