Anne Raimes

As I was reading the critical reading and writing tips, my thoughts on the two subjects were quite different. While I thought the writing strategies seemed very helpful to me, I thought the critical reading strategies to be slightly overbearing.

I’ll start with the writing strategies. Figuring out what you want the purpose of your paper to be at the beginning always helps a tremendous amount. Whether you’re writing a persuasion, informative, or an observational paper, figuring it out can help boost start you’re writing process. Also, figuring out what reader I’m writing to helps a ton. If you’re writing to an audience that isn’t as versed in a subject as you are, you probably wouldn’t want to be including vocabulary that the reader would not understand.

Now onto the critical reading strategies, which in my opinion, include several strategies that I find pointless, to be blunt. Things like finding out where the selection was published and what date it was published seem like it would just take time away from focusing on what is important in the selection you are reading.

That’s not to say there aren’t some critical reading strategies that I definitely find helpful. For one, skimming the reading for italicized and bold words, I find to be very helpful. Rereading the material over again also helps me understand the material nearly every time.