Critical Reading Strategies

 Before Reading
- Determine which type of academic text (article, review, thesis, etc.) you are reading
- Determine and establish your purposes for reading.
- Identify the author’s purpose for writing.
- Predict or infer the main idea or argument of the text based on its title.
- Identify your attitude towards the author and the text.
- State what you already know and what you want to learn about the topic.
- Determine the target audience.
- Check the publication date for relevance.
- Check the reference list while making sure to consider the correctness of the formatting style.
- Use a concept map or a graphic organizer to note your existing ideas and knowledge on the topic.
 During Reading
 Annotate important parts of the text. (Annotating a text can help you determine essential ideas or information,
main ideas or arguments, and new information or ideas.)
- Write keywords or phrases on the margins in bullet form.
- Write something or brief notes on the page margin where important information is found.
- Write what you already know about the ideas.
- Comment on the author’s biases.
- React on the arguments presented in the text.
- Mark or highlight relevant/essential parts of the text.
- Create a bank of unfamiliar or technical words to be defined later.
- Determine the main idea of the text.
 After Reading
- Reflect on what you learned.
- React on some parts of the text through writing.
- Discuss some parts with your teacher or classmates.
- Link the main idea of the text to what you already know.