Reading critically means approaching whatever you read in an active, questioning manner. This essential college-level skill changes reading from a spectator sport to a contact sport. You no longer sit in the stands, watching graceful skaters glide by. Instead, you charge right into a rough-and-tumble hockey game, gripping your stick and watching out for your teeth.

Critical reading, like critical thinking, is not an activity reserved for college courses. It is a continuum of strategies that thoughtful people use every day to grapple with new information, to integrate it with existing knowledge, and to apply it to problems in daily life:

Building your critical reading skills will open the door to information you’ve never encountered and to ideas unlikely to come up with friends. For this course alone, you will be prepared to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of essays by professionals, students, and classmates. If you research a topic, you will be ready to figure out what your sources say, what they assume and imply, whether they are sound, and how you might use them to help make your point. In addition, you can apply your expanded skills in other courses, your job, and your community.

Many instructors help you develop your skills. Some prepare you by previewing a reading so you learn its background or structure. Others supply reading questions so you know what to look for or give motivational credit for reading responses. Still others may share their own reading processes with you, revealing what they read first (maybe the opening and conclusion) or how they might decide to skip a section (such as Methods in a report whose conclusions they want first).

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In the end, however, making the transition to college reading requires your time and energy—and both will be well spent. Once you build your skills as a critical reader, you’ll save time by reading more effectively, and you’ll save energy by improving both your reading and your writing.

Getting Started

College reading is active reading. Your instructors expect you to do far more than recognize the words on the page. They want you to read their assignments critically and then to think and write critically about what you have read.

Your instructors will want you to learn the strategies that they and other experienced readers apply to complex texts.

Preparing to Read

Before you read, think ahead about how to make the most of the experience.

Thinking about Your Purpose. When you begin to read, ask questions like these about your immediate purpose:

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Planning Your Follow-Up. When you are required to read or to select a reading, ask yourself what your instructor expects to follow it:

Gaining Background. Knowing a reading’s context, approach, or frame of reference can help you predict where the reading is likely to go and how it relates to other readings. Begin with your available resources:

Skimming the Text. Before you actively read a text, skim it—quickly read only enough to introduce yourself to it. If it has a table of contents or subheadings, read those first to figure out what it covers and how it is organized. Read the first paragraph and then the first (or first and last) sentence of each paragraph that follows. Read the captions of any visuals.

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Responding to Reading

You may be accustomed to reading simply for facts or main ideas. However, critical reading is far more active than fact hunting. It requires responding, questioning, and challenging as you read.

Reading Deeply. College assignments often require more concentration than other readings do. Use these questions to dive below the surface:

Annotating the Text. Writing notes on the page (or on a copy if the material is not your own) is a useful way to trace the author’s points, question them, and add your own comments as they pop up. The following passage is the introduction of “Sibling Rivalry, a History,” by Peter Toohey. This article was published on the Atlantic’s Web site (theatlantic.com) on November 30, 2014. Notice how one writer annotated the passage.

Click here for accessible version of above content.

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When you annotate a reading, don’t passively highlight big chunks of text. Instead, respond actively using pen or pencil or adding a comment to a file. Next, read slowly and carefully so that you can follow what the reading says and how it supports its point. Record your own reactions, not what you think you are supposed to say:

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Keeping a Reading Journal. A reading journal is an excellent place to record not just what you read but how you respond to it. As you read actively, you will build a reservoir of ideas for follow-up writing. Address questions like these in a special notebook or digital file: