Writing Quick Start: Evaluating Headlines

4

Thinking Critically about Text and Visuals

IN THIS CHAPTER YOU WILL LEARN TO

  • determine whether authors make reasonable inferences and use appropriate evidence,
  • analyze the author’s tone, assumptions, generalizations, and omissions, and
  • interpret and think critically about photographs and graphics.

WRITING QUICK START

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uppose you are taking a sociology class and are studying popular culture. Your instructor asks you to examine publications such as those shown in the photograph to the right, read and evaluate a few articles, and be prepared to discuss in class what they reveal about Americans’ values.

image
© Frank Siteman Photography, 2014

Write a list of questions about one or two of the articles whose titles are legible in the photograph. Include questions that would help you evaluate the articles’ purpose — to express the writer’s thoughts and feelings? to inform? to persuade? — and intended audience. Then write a few sentences explaining why the illustrations may have been included and what they accomplish.

As you analyzed and wrote about the titles of the articles and the photos that accompany them, you had to question, evaluate, and respond critically. In this chapter you will learn strategies for thinking and reading critically that you can apply to reading essays, newspaper and magazine articles, textbook selections, works of literature, and visuals, including photographs and graphics.