Critical Reading – Approach to writing an A+ grade assignment

In both undergraduate as well as graduate level, a student is expected to demonstrate critical reading capability. Critical reading is also an integral part of topic analysis; at the same time, it is highly recommended for developing good research questions and for beginning research on the right track. Basically, critical reading is a rigorous, active, as well as an engaged form of reading. At its core, critical reading should be accompanied with annotated a text or the chapter you are reading. If you keep this annotation properly then it can also serve the purpose of keeping notes for your assignment. In this regards, better to get familiar with other steps to complete an assignment. At times, student hesitates to do annotations in a library book or even in their own book, because it may devalue the book. However, you should remember that if you are not really annotating text and reading the text critically, you are not getting a real education. So don’t avoid this step at any cost.

What is it?

In a nutshell, to read critically is to understand what the author is arguing. This requires highly reflexive skill where you can ‘stand back’ and gain some distance from the text you are reading. Ideally, you should try to read the text normally to grasp the subject matter first, and then you should begin reading critically in the second attempt. The key points to remember are:

• Don’t read looking for information.
• Do read looking for ways of thinking about the subject matter.

When you are reading the text and creating extensive annotations, don’t ask yourself what information I can get from here? Rather, you should ask how is the text argued? How is the evidence used and interpreted? How does the text reach in its conclusion?

How to read critically: The following steps can actually guide you to read a text critically and eventually help you write a critical review of the article or collection of articles.

(Source:http://www.icjs.port.ac.uk/PathwaysCrime/academic%20skills/reading%20skills/readingskills3.html)

The first step should be to determine the central claim or the main purpose of the text. Through critical reading your primary purpose would be to evaluate how these claims have been met or validated throughout the text.

1. Then, think about the possible audience to whom this text is directed to. Which group of scholars or authors are going to engage with this text? What is the historical context within which the text is situated? All these contexts are going to play an important role in your evaluation of the text.
2. Next step is to understand the kind of reasoning the text has used. What concepts are defined and used? Where any specific theories are discussed or referred? Is a specific type of methodology laid out? Try to get a sense of the underlying logical structure on which the arguments are made? In this regard, you should be aware of different style of argument organization in different disciplines (e.g. History, social science, biology, etc.). You can see the types of reasoning to understand the above difference between disciplines clearly.
3. Then, you should pay attention to the evidences the text is produced. In academic literature, an argument should always be validated with supporting evidence. Earlier 3 steps will help you to place the evidences in their context and will produce more accurate judgments.
4. Critical reading should result in evaluation. The above steps will make a series of judgements about the way the text has argued. However, in some cases you might have to assess the strengths or weaknesses of an argument. Whether the arguments are strong, why? Could it be structured differently? Could the evidence interpreted differently? What might be a contrasting argument?

In concluding remark, it should be highlighted that ‘reading critically’ should not remain as a mere exercise, rather you should try to become a critical reader from understanding what the basic characteristics of that kind of reader.

If you really find difficult to find some time to read all these steps and complete your assignment, then there are various top assignment help services to help you. You can just approach these assignment providers and give your requirements to them. They will come back to you with the best assignment services.