week 2

• Evaluating a text

  The process of analyzing a text to identify its strengths, weaknesses, and overall quality
• Reasons why analysis is an important skill

  • Develop confidence, fluency, and interest in reading
  • Cultivate advanced critical thinking skills
  • Empower effective evaluation of texts
  • Discern explicit and implicit claims
  • Appreciate analysis of contextual factors influencing text development
• Looking for the strengths of a text

  • Helpfulness of the text to people
  • Quality of the information cited
  • Conciseness
  • Grammatical and mechanical correctness
• Noting the weaknesses of a text

  • Focus on the text, not the author
  • Avoid emotionally laced words, stay objective
  • After criticizing, suggest improvements
• Things to consider when evaluating a text

  • Doubtful sources
  • Logical fallacies
  • Incomplete information
  • Grammatical and mechanical errors
• There is a need to evaluate before concluding to ensure a thorough and objective analysis
• Explicit claims

  Statements that directly express the author's point or position
• Implicit claims

  Statements that indirectly suggest the author's point or position
• Kinds of facts

  • Empirical facts
  • Analytical facts
  • Evaluative facts
  • Metaphysical facts
• Claim

  A statement expressing the author's feelings, personal judgment, or position on a topic
• Kinds of claims

  • Claim of fact
  • Claim of policy
  • Claim of value
• Intertextuality

  The connections between a text's meaning and other texts, based on similarities in language, genre, or discourse
• Hypertext

  A nonlinear way of presenting information online, where links allow readers to navigate between related content
• The acronym A.I.M. (Analyze, Identify, Make) can be used to guide the process of evaluating a text
• Minimizing the negative impact of a criticism

  Hedges