Kainoa's
Quick and
Dirty Grammar
Guide
Peer Editing
University
of Delaware
Writing
Center
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As mentioned in class, close-reading is a technique very useful for developing arguments. Close-reading is best thought of as applying micro moments to macro themes—as applying small textual examples to the larger textual picture. It therefore necessitates the combination of a number of interpretive skills:
- Being able
to recognize relevant, critical moments in a text for analysis.
- Being able
to look at the connotative meanings and apparent contradictions and coherences
behind specific word choices in that moment.
- Applying those
meanings to the thematics or issues that govern or appear to govern the
overall text.
Different options then ensue in terms of how you (the reader) will interpret the text. Does this passage help in further defining or complicating the larger themes? Does it reveal something important to the author’s unstated assumptions? Does the passage appear to be in contradiction with the larger themes? Can that contradiction be resolved, and by doing so reveal a complexity of the theme itself? Or does that contradiction remain unresolved, thereby revealing something about the author’s unstated assumptions?
Though all of the sites below focus on literary examples, close-reading can be applied to almost any “text,” including both fiction and non-fiction writing (from poems to arguments), films and other forms of multimedia entertainment (from television to computers), as well as theatre and other performative venues.
The best site--defines close-reading with step-by-step questions (very useful).
Another site that uses poetry for an example of the close-reading process.
A more interactive site (lots of links to different terms) that can be somewhat helpful.
