text and contents

• Critical reading


  Evaluating claims, seeking definitions, judging information, demanding proof, and questioning assumptions
• Critical reading


  Watching out for the author's limitations, omissions, oversights, and arguments in the text
• 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
• 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 that summarizes the writer's main point
• Characteristics of good claims

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


  Quantifiable assertion or measurable topic based on data and reliable sources
• Claim of value


  Argument about moral, philosophical, or aesthetic topics, making judgments based on certain standards
• Claim of policy


  Posits 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 modeling of a text's meaning by another text, where the author borrows from a prior text and integrates it into their writing
• Hypertext


  A non-linear way of showing information, connecting 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- statement that can be proven
  • Convention- something is done, similar to tradition and norms
  • Opinion- based on facts but are difficult to objectively verify
  • Preference- based on personal choice
• Counterclaim


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


  Details given by the author to support their claim
• Types of evidence


  • Facts and statistics
  • Opinion from experts
  • Personal anecdotes
• Characteristics of good evidence

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