Making Observations

Your first step toward interpretive reading is to make observations about what you are reading. Interpretive readers observe how a writer uses details and language to identify a topic and explain his or her thinking about it. The details might be words or phrases; they might be facts or examples; they might be references to past history or the contemporary world—among other kinds of things.

Observing an author’s examples, in particular, will enable you to understand what the author is saying, especially when you analyze those examples in the context of the reading overall. After reading more than one example of a concept, ask yourself the question “What do these examples have in common?” Thinking about the examples together and considering the traits they share will help you understand the concept they illustrate.

Other details—the elements, the bits and pieces of something— provide the specifics of a reading passage. One strategy you can use to observe details is to underline them or list them as you read. Careful observation of the details a writer uses is essential for comprehending what a writer is saying. Like examples, all the details a writer includes will help you understand the main point more fully.

Finally, writers often repeat themselves for emphasis. They may state an idea at the beginning of a passage and restate it later, in the middle or at the end. They may express an idea in the same words each time, or they may vary the words used to convey their ideas. Focusing on repetition while reading helps you focus on the author’s most important points. Observing repeated examples, statements, and ideas in a passage helps you interpret the writer’s meaning, even if it is unstated.