Critical Reading | Critical Writing

Good readers and good writers, in the process of reading or writing, are continually asking the same sort of questions about an essay. An essay examination which asks you to respond to another essay calls on you to demonstrate your skills both as a reader and a writer. You will usually be most successful by focusing on the purpose, situation, audience, and text of the essay you are reading and the one you are writing.

The Reader	The Writer
1. Purpose	1. Purpose
a. What is the writer trying to do?	a. What am I trying to do in this essay? (What is the assignment?)
b. How do the writer's qualifications or personal characteristics help establish his or her authority?	b. How can I establish my authority?
c. What kind of person is the writer? What is his or her attitude toward the subject and audience?	c. What kind of person do I want to be seen as? How do I feel about my subject and my reader?
2. Situation	2. Situation
Why was the essay written?	What is the situation for my composition?
3. Audience	3. Audience
Who was the author addressing in the essay?	Who are my readers?
4. Text	4. Text
a. What method did the writer use to support the argument? Was the evidence sufficient? Did it reasonably follow from the method?	a. What kind of support should I use?
b. How does the essay fit together?	b. How can I fit together everything I want to say? What pattern of organization should I use?
c. How effective is the language?	c. How can I make my writing effective?

Acknowledgment and References: This handout is based in part on "The Rhetoric of Reading, The Rhetoric of Writing" Guidelines and Suggested Syllabus for EH 110. Auburn University Department of English. 1995. Other references: Corbett, Edward P. J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. 3d ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1990; Katz, Susan and Jennie Skerl. "Critiques" Online. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Writing Center. Retrieved February 2004.