What is a critical reader?

critical-reader-thailandSome people read without even acknowledging the fact that they are reading, while others read in a more self-aware way. The readers that exercise careful judgement and judicious evaluation while engaged in decoding a written message are critical readers. This essay will explain, using arguments and examples, some of the characteristics of a critical reader.

First, a critical reader will recognize the type of text, the genre, s/he is reading. This is the first and most important element that the reader has to be aware of in order to be able to evaluate what s/he is reading. Thus it can be a piece of journalistic writing from a newspaper (i.e. an article, the weather forecast, the TV program, etc.), it can be an academic text (i.e. a commentary, a theory, a case study, a statistic, etc.) or it can be a literary text (i.e. a novel, a short story, a poem, etc.).

Second, a critical reader has to decide on the purpose of engaging in the act of reading. Depending on the reader’s interest, environment and mood, s/he decides, sometimes involuntarily, the reason why a certain type of text is suitable or not for a given situation. Henceforth, the reader might engage in reading a text for the information that the text will provide (i.e. a textbook), for the sheer pleasure of the text (e.g. a short story) or for survival (e.g. an instruction manual). Sometimes a critical reader is found in the position of having to read a text for a specific purpose, while in a different context the same text might be read for a totally different purpose.

Third, a critical reader is aware of the fact that s/he is doing aesthetic or efferent reading. These ways of reading are closely related to the type of text and the purpose of reading, in the sense that they establish the relationship between the reader and the text. While an efferent reader is interested in the immediate result of the information provided in the text, an aesthetic reader becomes part of the text and transgresses in a different world shaped after the experiences lived through that specific text.

Last, no matter what type of text is read, no matter what purpose the reader is driven by, no matter what way the reading is done, a critical reader will always be aware of the different elements the writer uses in order to make his/her message better understood. Thus, of great importance become such aspects of text analysis like the identification of stereotypes, of biased info, the place of theme and rhyme, the paragraph structure, the schema, the language used, the presuppositions involved, the difference between facts and opinions, the meaning of words, and the different parts that build the type of text in consideration.

To conclude, a critical reader is a person engaged in the act o reading and is fully aware of all the implications that a text might arise. Not only that s/he must possess linguistic knowledge but also s/he must be a sensible and open-minded reader that will cope with any challenge that a text might bring forth. A critical reader is a dedicated and patient individual that knows how to read a text in order to take the most out of it. Critical reading is an academic skill that teaches readers how to survive in a world surrounded by texts.

Author V.M. Simandan

is a Beijing-based Romanian-born counsellor, coach, psychology teacher, and former competitive archer

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V.M. Simandan