Bedford Researcher Ch.4- Reading Critically

    Reading critically entails thinking about what your source means & questioning what it says. To use your research question to read critically The Bedford Researcher suggests that you come up with a rough "position statement." They first suggest that you either brainstorm or free write a response to your question & come up with a vague thesis statement that will be your position statement. The position statement will help you question your sources & focus on specific things in your sources.
    The Bedford Researcher tells us to read a source with "an attitude." Attitudes will develop & change as you read. At first you should be curious, noting new information & marking key passages. Then as you begin to draw conclusions about the conversation be skeptical, becoming more aggressive in challenging arguments & not being afraid to defend your position. No matter where you are in the writing process be critical, accepting nothing at face value, asking questions, comparing, contrasting, being on alert for unusual information, examine implications of what you need for your project, note relevant sources & information. At all time you should be open minded to ideas & arguments, even if you don't agree with them, give the ideas a chance to affect how you think about the conversation you've decided to join.
    Reading actively is the next step in reading critically. This just means corresponding with sources & examining them in the light of the conversation you're joining. To do so, you should: identify key information, ideas, & arguments, write questions in margins, record your reactions to different things, take notes of quotes, paraphrases, & summaries, jot down how you could use the things you're reading, link one part of the source to another, & identify important passages for rereading later.
    To pay attention as you read The Bedford Researcher tells us to identify the type of source you are reading, primary & secondary sources, main points, reasons, consider use of evidence (appeals to authority, emotion, principles, values, beliefs, character, logic, & reasoning based on empirical evidence), identify interpretive frameworks in the form of trend analysis, causal analysis, data analysis & text analysis, identify new information, hard-to-understand information, and similarities & differences.
    The Bedford Researcher tells us we should read a source that could offer good information in a "three-pass approach" to gain as much knowledge as possible. The first pass is skimming the source, reading just enough to understand the generic concept the source is talking about. The second pass is reading actively. Again, reading actively is jotting down notes, highlighting or underlining key words or phrases, and annotating the source itself. The third pass is rereading important passages that you've highlighted or you've identified as important.