The Nature Of The Text: What Are You Reading?
The more you know about the text and the topic, the better prepared you are to
follow references, anticipate arguments, and understand the discussion.
What book or article are you reading?
-
What is the title? In other words, what does the author claim it is about?
-
What kind of information or discussion do you anticipate?
-
What do you know about the topic? What might you want to know?
-
What background reading might you do first?
You can often get a good idea of these matters by scanning the preface or table
of contents of a book, or the subheadings of a chapter or article.
Remember that most discussions involve a number of interrelated issues
Who cares?
-
Who has a stake in the issue?
-
Who controls the outcome of the issue?
-
Who is affected by the issue?
The more you know about the issue
before
reading, the better prepared you will be
to recognize bias.
Who wrote the text?
-
What do you know of the author's goal or purpose?
The text in question may not be consistent with concerns or biases of an
author's earlier works or mirror the author's public statements-- but it might.
-
When was it published? Where? By whom?
Information such as this may help you follow references and associations and
possibly
suggest a bias. The date of publication can also indicates how up-to-date the information and claims may be.
See:
The Spoken Word: The Base For Writing and Reading
|