Analysis means looking at the parts of something to detect patterns. In looking at these patterns, your critical
thinking skills will be engaged in analyzing the argument the author is making:
What is the thesis or overall theory?
What are the supporting points that create the argument? How do they relate to each other? How do they support? To each other? To the thesis?
What techniques of persuasion are used (appeals to emotion, reason, authority, etc.)?
What rhetorical strategies are used (e.g. definition, explanation, description, narration, elaboration,
argumentation, evaluation)?
What modes of analysis are used (illustration, comparison/contrast, cause and effect, process analysis,
classification/division, definition)?
Interpretation Asks: What do the patterns of the argument mean?
Interpretation is reading ideas as well as sentences. We need to be aware of the cultural and historical
context, the context of its author’s life, the context of debates within the discipline at that time and the
intellectual context of debates within the discipline today.
What debates were the author and the text engaging with at that time?
What kinds of reasoning (historical, psychological, political, philosophical, scientific, etc) are employed?
What methodology is employed and what theory is developed?
How might my reading of the text be biased? Am I imposing 21st century ideas or values on the text? If
so, is this problematic?
Evaluation Asks: How well does the text do what it does? What is its value?
Evaluation is making judgments about the intellectual/cognitive, aesthetic, moral or practical value of a text.
When we are con
sidering its in
tellectual/cognitive v
alue we ask questions
such as these:
How does it contribute to the discipline? Are its main conclusions original?
Does the evidence and reasoning adequately support the theory/theories presented?
Are the sources reliable?
Is the argument logically consistent? Convincing?
Are any experiments, questionnaires, statistical sections, etc designed and executed in accordance with
How would competing theories criticize this text? How could the author reply?
Overall, is the theory/approach in this text better than competing theories/approaches? In other words,
what are its comparative strengths and weaknesses? In reading critically we need to keep competing
FOR FURTHER STUDY: QUICK WEB RESOURCES ON CRITICAL READING
Karland, Dan. http://www.criticalreading.com/
Knott, Deborah. “Critical Reading Towards Critical Writing.” http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/reading-
and-researching/critical-reading
Wheeler, Dr.L.Kip. “Critical Reading of an Essay’s Argument.” Dr. Wheeler’s Website. 12 Oct. 2004.
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/reading_basic.html
Handout also available at http://ctl.utsc.utoronto.ca/twc/webresources
© Jennifer Duncan. The Writing Centre, University of Toronto Scarborough. Modified by Michael O’Connor.