Critical Reading & Assessing Sources

2. What do you do when you are assigned
a reading for class?

3. Embrace Reading
How does it help?
• Acquire knowledge
• Develop an understanding of the material
• Introduced to new ideas and terms
• Gain more exposure to class material
• Get ideas for major assignments and projects
• Critically think and process information

4. Find and Understand the purpose
• Reading before class
• Introduce ideas, concepts, and formulas
• Ground the lectures
• Gain the basics of the class lecture
• Reading after class
• Clarify concepts and look for connections to lecture material
• Reinforce class time

5. Before Reading
Preview the material and prepare questions
• The preface or introduction, will help you understand what the text is
about
• Observe the Table of Contents, chapter summaries, and section
headings
• Develop questions about the material
• General or specific

6. Read with focus
Engage with the text
• Mark up key aspects of the text
• Definitions, examples, connections
• Highlight and underline things that stick out
• Formulas, definitions, main ideas
• Key concepts
• Take notes while reading
• Works well with especially dense material

8. Read with focus
Clarify confusing material
• Carefully reread any material you find confusing
• Write questions
• Look up definitions
• Glossaries
• Footnotes
• Ask a classmate or instructor for help
• Build a foundation of knowledge

9. Develop a system for your own
reading!

10. Develop a system for your own reading!
• Think about what you
want to get out of the
reading
• Keep the amount of
symbols minimal
• Adjust your system to
what you are reading
• Example: If there is a list
of terms for each
chapter, then you
probably don’t need to
highlight them

11. After Reading
Revisit the material
• Write your own summaries
• Create questions and try to answer them
• Reread important sections
• Look for where emphasis is placed
• Identify bold or italicized words
• Rewrite your margin notes into a notebook

12. After Reading
Discuss the material
• Connect with professor or TA
• Look for common questions and points of confusion
• Summarize the material to someone unfamiliar with the text
• Turn to your peers for added clarification
• Utilize Drop-In tutoring or SI-PASS

13. After Reading
Reread with supplemental sources
• Review sections that are confusing
• Search YouTube
• May contain summaries or explanations of the text you need to
read
• Look for supplemental readings to help clarify
• Example: Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and
Cultural Theory

14. Critical Reading: Beyond
Textbooks

15. Assignment Prompts
Figuring out what you need to do
• When you get the prompt
• Read it completely!
• Underline keypoints and requirements
• Ask Questions

16. Assignment Prompts: Breaking Down the
Assignment
• Figure out the background information that contextualizes the
task you're being asked to do
• Understand what you’re being asked to do
• Determine the technical guidelines
• Due dates
• Expected length
• Style guidelines

17. Assignment Prompts: Additional Questions
to Consider
• Are there any guiding questions that should be included in the
assignment?
• What is the purpose of the assignment?
• Is there a style that the field uses that you could incorporate into
your assignment?
• Academic papers
• Lab reports

18. FINDING SOURCES
For research papers and projects
Found a really good
research paper to cite,
and looking for more?
Look at that paper's
works cited for the names
and articles they used for
their research.
Take note of any
scientists/researchers/big
minds that your professor
mentions in class. Their
work might be the
sources you want to use!
You can filter your search
results on the University of
Idaho Library web portal
by whether or not they are
peer-reviewed!
Each college has a
reference librarian.
Students can make an
appointment with the
reference librarian to find
sources appropriate for
any research topic.
The University of Idaho Library is the
place to
start. https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/
Peer-reviewed, published research is the
gold standard for sources to cite.

19. EVALUATING SOURCES
ESPECIALLY PUBLISHED, PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH
How to not waste time reading a 20 page paper and then realize it doesn't fit your project.
Read the Abstract
 Does it address the topic you are working on?
 If not, throw it out. Find another paper.
 If yes, it is relevant to your topic, go to the next step.

20. EVALUATING SOURCES
ESPECIALLY PUBLISHED, PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH
How to not waste time reading a 20 page paper and then realize it doesn't fit your project.
Read the Conclusion
• Does it still appear to be relevant? If not, throw it out!
• Yes, it's relevant? Download it and add it to your works cited! The next step is a deep read of the
paper, including methods and findings.