Reading Mindfully to Write
Owning the material
Adapted from Reading Analytically 6th ed. Chapter 5, by D. Rosenwasser and J. Stephen.
Common Points of View
Which describes you?
Language defines our reality
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Words mean different things to different
people
We understand the world through the
language we use to describe it and to interact
within it
Need to join the conversation while you read
Read to become conversant
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Analyze using one or some of the techniques
described in Nosich (or use analytical tools of other
authors, e.g., Writing Analytically by Rosenwasser
and Stephen)
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Need to understand enough to talk about what you read
and to answer questions
Delve into questions the material asks and questions that
you ask of the material
Move actively rather than passively through the reading to
own it and to attain real knowledge
Reading actively
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Learn the vocabulary and jargon
Realize that reading is a physical and a mental
activity
Good reading is slow reading
Read to understand, not to react
Interpret the material through the eyes of the author
 Complete an elements of reasoning analysis
 Analyze your impediments in light of your
analysis
Situate the material rhetorically
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The purpose: what the author wants you to
believe
The complaint: what the author is concerned
with, the question(s) an author tries to answer
Context : the situation or environment in
which the material operates
Consider your context and impediments that
influence your analysis (consider alternative
analyses)
Suspend judgment
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Resist natural tendency to critique
Read with the grain initially
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Seek to understand material on its own merits
Note words like “but” and “however”
Note strings and binaries (words and ideas
that tend to repeat)
Reading against the grain
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Need to approach asking
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How is the material presented?
Why is it presented this way?
Read to uncover “what the material seems to
be trying to communicate consciously” =
reading with the grain
Ask “what does the material communicate
unconsciously?”= reading against the grain
Challenge the author(s)
Reading against the grain (cont’d.)
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Analyze rhetorical presentation
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Order of information of main points
Deductive vs. inductive structure
Note specific words used to influence or “lead”
the reader, e.g., “most students averaged a
deplorable 62% on X. . . .” vs. “a 62% on X….”
Apply a lens; read from a specific point of view,
e.g., economists and environmentalists would
interpret items in the same reading quite
differently.