After you've read an essay once, use the following set of questions to guide your re-readings of the text. The question on the left-hand side will help you describe and analyze the text; the question on the right hand side will help focus your response(s).
| DESCRIPTION | RESPONSE |
| I. Purpose | |
| Describe the author's overall purpose (to inquire, to convince, to persuade, to negotiate or other purpose) |
Is the overall purpose clear or muddled? |
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How did the essay or text actually affect you: did the author's purpose succeed? |
How does the author want to affect or change the reader? |
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Was the author's actual purpose different from the stated purpose? |
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II. Audience/Reader | |
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Who is the intended audience? |
Are you part of the intended audience? |
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What assumptions does the author make about the reader's knowledge or beliefs? |
Does the author talk to or talk down to the reader? |
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From what context or point of view is the author writing? |
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III. Thesis and Main Ideas | |
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What question or problem does the author address? |
Where is the thesis stated? |
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What is the author's thesis |
Are the main ideas actually related to the thesis? |
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What main ideas are related to the thesis? |
Do key passages convey a message different from the thesis? |
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What are the key moments or key passages in the text? |
What assumptions (about the subject or about culture) does the author make? |
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Are there problems or contradictions in the essay? | |
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What bothers or disturbs you about the essay? | |
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Where do you agree or disagree? | |
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IV. Organization and Evidence | |
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Where does the author preview the essay's organization? |
Where did you clearly get the author's signals about the essay's organization? |
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How does the author signal new sections of the essay? |
Where were you confused about the organization? |
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What kinds of evidence does the author use (personal experience, descriptions, statistics, other authorities, analytical reasoning, or other). |
What evidence was most or least effective? |
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Where did the author rely on assertions rather than on evidence? | |
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V. Language and Style | |
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What is the author's tone (casual, humorous, ironic, angry, preachy, distant, academic, or other)? |
Did the tone support or distract from the author's purpose or meaning? |
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Are sentences and vocabulary easy, average or difficult? |
Did the sentences and vocabulary support or distract from the purpose or meaning? |
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What words, phrases, or images recur throughout the text? |
Did recurring works or images relate to or support the purpose or meaning? |
When one of these questions suggests a focus for your response to the essay, go back to the text to gather evidence to support your response.