Reading Sources Critically

What argument does the author make?

How persuasive do you find the argument?

What is the authors stance?

Do you recognize ideas you've run across in other sources?

Does this source support or challenge your own stance--or does it do both?

What can you tell about the intended Audience and Purpose?

Reading Sources Critically

• Does the author present a number of different positions?

• Do you need to analyze the argument?

• What reasons/evidence does the author use to support position(s)?

• Are there creditable citations/ links?

• Is any information presented without citation?

• How thoroughly do they consider opposing arguments

• Is the author objective or biased?

• Does the author consider opposing viewpoints and treat them fairly?

• Does the source leave out any information or perspective that other sources include -- or include any that others leave out?

• Does this support your thesis?

• Does it offer an altogether different argument?

• Does it represent a position you need to acknowledge or refute?

• Is the author writing to a general audience, to a subset of that audience, to specialists in a particular discourse community?

• Are you a member of the audience?

• Is the main point to argue or inform?

Summarize

Paraphrase

When to Quote

Incorporating Short Quotes

Guidelines for Summary

Guidelines for Paraphrasing

• Include only main ideas

• Use your own words and structure

• Use your own words

• Introduce paraphrased text with a signal phrase

• Evidence where the idea is more important than the wording.

Gerald Graff (2003) has argued that colleges make the intellectual life seem more opaque than it needs to be, leaving many students with "the misconception that the life of the mind is a secret society for which only an elite few qualify" (p. 1).

• When the wording is important/ worth repeating.

• Indicate the source

• To provide your reader with context or an understanding of the whole source.

• Indicate the source

Modifying a Quote

• When you want to cite the words of a known authority.

• Large amounts of information, general ideas, or concepts.

According to Welch (n.d.), "Television is more acoustic than visual...One can turn one's gaze away from the televisions, but one cannot turns one's ears from it" (p. 102).

• Indicate omissions with ellipses

• Indicate additions or changes with brackets

Barbosa observes that Buarque's lyrics have long included "many a metaphor of saudades [yearning] so characteristic of fado music" (p. 207).

• Longer passages whose main points are important, but whose details are not.

• When an authority's opinions challenge or disagree with those of others.

• When something is not worth quoting but has details you need to include.

Quotes, paraphrases, and summaries need to be introduced clearly, to let the readers know where the information is from, or who the author is, and, if necessary, something about their credentials.

Signal Phrases

Observes

Points out

Reasons

Refutes

Rejects

Reports

Responds

Suggests

Thinks

Writes

Acknowledges

Adds

Admits

Addresses

Argues

Asserts

Believes

Claims

Comments

Compares

Confirms

Contends

Declares

Denies

Disputes

Emphasizes

Endorses

Grants

Illustrates

Implies

Insists

Notes