Reading to criticize

• Reading to criticize
• The 'Why?' question
• Challenging a text (1)
• Challenging a text (2)
• When and how to challenge
• Challenge the interpretation
• Challenge the argumentation
• The art of conceding
• The contents of the module

Exercises

• Criticize 1
• Criticize 2
• Criticize 3
• Criticize 4
• Criticize 5
• Criticize 6
• Criticize 7
• Criticize 8
• Criticize 9
• Criticize 10

Reading to criticize

All the preceding modules have been concerned with various aspects of reading to understand. This is of course a very important skill, especially when you consider the large amount of material you have to assimilate from textbooks as a student. However, at an academic level, there is more to reading than just understanding. There's more than just decoding the author's intentions. This is because a very important goal of an academic training is to learn to think for yourself. Since an enormous amount of thinking and research has been done already, you luckily don't have to start from scratch. 'Thinking for yourself' in practice means (a) exposing yourself to other people's opinions and (b) deciding whether you agree or not.