Critical Reading:

Restatement and
Inference

What Is Critical Reading?

To non-critical readers, texts provide facts.
Readers gain knowledge by memorizing the
statements within a text.
To the critical reader, any single text
provides but one portrayal of the facts, one
individuals take on the subject matter.
Critical readers thus recognize not only what
a text says, but also how the author convey
the message.

Goals of Critical Reading

1.to recognize an authors
purpose
2.to understand tone and
persuasive elements
3.to recognize bias

More specifically;
1. recognizing purpose involves
inferring a basis for choices of
content and language
2. recognizing tone and persuasive
elements involves classifying the nat
ure of language choices
3. recognizing bias involves classifying
the nature of patterns of choice of
content and language

Restatement VS.
Inference
What is the difference
between these two words?

Three types of reading and

analysis:
Non-critical reading is satisfied with
recognizing what a text says and restating
the key remarks.

What a text says restatement

What a text does description
What a text means inference

Inference: Reading Ideas as

Well as Words
Consider the following statement:

The Senator admitted owning the gun

that killed his wife.
What can be inferred from this statement?

There is a Senator.
He owns a gun.
He is married.
His wife is dead.
That gun caused her death.
The Senator admitted owning that
gun.

The Senator admitted

owning the gun that killed
his wife.
Now, what cant be inferred?
We do not necessarily know if the
Senator's admission is true.
We do not really know whether the
Senator is in any way responsible for
his wife's death, nor do we know that
she died of gun shot wounds.
We do not even know if it was
murderit might have been suicide
or an accident.

Read the following story.

A man and his son are driving in a
car. The car crashes into a tree,
killing the father and seriously
injuring his son. At the hospital, the
boy needs to have surgery. Upon
looking at the boy, the doctor says
(telling the truth), "I cannot operate
on him. He is my son.

How can this be?

Analysis and Inference: The

Tools of Critical Reading
A critical reader know what to look for
( analysis ) and how to think about
what to find ( inference ) .
The first part what to look for
involves recognizing those aspects of
a discussion that control the meaning.
The second part how to think about
what you find involves the processes
of inference, the interpretation of data
from within the text.

Restatement VS.
Inference
What is the difference
between these two words?