What is Critical Reading?

Critical reading is a form of skepticism that does not take a text at face value, but involves an examination of claims put forward in the text as well as implicit bias in the text's framing and selection of the information presented. The ability to read critically is an ability assumed to be present in scholars and to be learned in academic institutions.

"...a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight. " John Steinbeck, The Winter of our Discontent

There are no simple relations between these levels. As the "hermeneutic circle" demonstrates, the understanding of single words depends on the understanding of the text as a whole (as well as the culture in which the text is produced) and vice versa: You cannot understand a text if you do not understand the words in the text.

The critical reading of a given text thus implies a critical examination of the concepts used as well as of the soundness of the arguments and the value and relevance of the assumptions and the traditions on which the text is based.

"Reading between the lines" is the ability to uncover implicit messages and bias.