“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” -Dr. Seuss, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!

The best way to improve your writing is to read more. That might sound like a hot take, but hear us out! Reading and writing may seem like polar opposites, like input vs output, but they’re actually pretty similar cognitive processes. Both involve the ability to remember and recognize different words and sentences styles, can develop attention span and  processing speed, and might even be related to cognitive health.

On a more practical level, reading lots of different genres (thinking fantasy vs autobiography, but also think short-form journalism vs social media posts) exposes us to different styles of self-expression. Moreover, the ways that we read are often part of our process for building arguments in college writing. Think about how many times you have been asked to analyze a source or “close read” a text. So for today’s post, we’re going to spend a little time thinking about this particular skill that college writers are so often asked to exercise.

What is close reading? 

Different fields can have slightly different definitions of (or uses for) the term, but in a nutshell this is a form of analysis that uses careful and deep examination of the details of a text. A reader might ask questions about the form of a text, it’s production context, literary or rhetorical devices at play, and specific word choices. These questions form the basis of all sorts of intellectual inquiry, and will provide the evidence that scholar uses to make an argument about a text.

How do I do a close reading?

  1.  Treat the text as an object and ask questions about:
  • argument: what is it arguing, for what audience? How does it communicate its main ideas?
  • structure and form: what comes first? What comes next? How is it presented? What tone, imagery, and language does it use?
  • production: in what social context was it created and for what consumer?
  • author: what do we know about the author? How does that context show up in the text?
  1. Treat the text as a work of art and ask questions about:
  • clarity: is it easy to understand, and if not, why?
  • patterns: are words or images repeated? Why?
  • mood: how does the text evoke a certain mood?
  • syntax: how does the arrangement of words affect meaning?
  1. Annotate** the text by highlighting interesting words or phrases, looking up words you don’t know, paying attention to conflicts, patterns, and emotions, and writing questions in the margins.

**Annotation will be the subject of our next blog post!

Exercise ideas:

  1. Pick 1 paragraph from a class reading and choose one topic from the list above to focus on. Spend 5 minutes re-reading and annotating the paragraph, then spend 5 minutes free-writing at least 4 sentences about that paragraph using those observations. Repeat with different focuses.
  2. Take a writing prompt from a class and do a close reading of it, treating the professor who wrote it as an unknown author and the prompt as a literary text.
  3. Listen to a brief song and think about how it makes you feel (or tries to make you feel). Think about the patterns and phrases of the song to identify how it achieves that.

How do I Use a Close Reading to Build an Argument?

1. Perform a close reading of your text to collect data. You may want to:

  • identify the main claim of the text
  • observe how the author makes their point persuasive
  • observe your reactions to the text; consider how the text created those reactions
  • examine what you know about the cultural context of your text and author (but you might also want to leave this out– sometimes it can be distracting to think about the author and the text)

2. Interpret/explain that data, answering the question “so what?”

  • In this step, you are making general claims that are grounded in textual evidence—in other words, you are arguing that the text creates meaning in a certain way.

3. Synthesize (draw connections or differences) between all the pieces of data that you have observed.

4. Observe your reactions to the text; consider how the text created those reactions.

5. Examine what you know about the cultural context of your text and author (but you might also want to leave this out– sometimes it can be distracting to think about the author and the text)