Reading and Writing

• Critical reading

  Whenever you read something and you evaluating claims, seeking definitions, judging information, demanding proof, and questioning assumptions
• Critical reading is not taking anything at face value. It is watching out for the author's limitations, omissions, oversights, and arguments in the text.
• Critical reading goes beyond the reading of the written text. The reader takes an effort to create images and pictorial concepts through his sense impressions of the words written by the author.
• Critical approach to reading

  • Readers should always bear in mind that no text contains its own predetermined meaning. Everything is subject to the reader's own interpretation, understanding, and acceptance
  • Readers should interact with the material being read. Look for connections, ask questions, respond, and expand ideas
  • Use a variety of approaches, strategies, and techniques to connect to the presentation of the text
• Explicit information


  Information that is clearly stated in the text
• Implicit information


  Ideas that are suggested in the text
• Claim


  The most important part of the text. It summarizes the most important thing the writer wants to say as a result of their thinking, reading, or writing.
• Characteristics of good claims

  • Argumentative and debatable
  • Specific and focused
  • Interesting and engaging
  • Logical
• Claim of fact


  A quantifiable assertion or measurable topic that can be validated based on data and reliable sources
• Claim of value


  An argument about moral, philosophical, or aesthetic topics that makes judgments on whether something is right or wrong, good or bad
• Claim of policy


  A claim that specific actions should be chosen as solutions to a particular problem
• Context


  The social, cultural, political, historical, and other related circumstances that surround the text and form the terms from which it can be better understood and evaluated
• Intertextuality


  The connections between language, images, characters, themes, or subjects in a text that depend on their similarities to other texts
• Hypertext


  A non-linear way of showing information that connects topics on the screen to related information, graphics, or videos
• Assertion


  A declarative sentence that claims something is true about something else
• Types of assertions


  • Fact
  • Convention
  • Opinion
  • Preference
• Counterclaim


  A claim made to rebut a previous claim, providing a contrasting perspective
• Textual evidence


  Details given by the author to support their claim, including facts, statistics, expert opinions, and personal anecdotes
• Characteristics of good evidence

  • Unified
  • Relevant to the central point
  • Specific and concrete
  • Accurate
  • Representative or typical