Critical Reading and Note-Taking Strategies

In its origins, philosophy also came closer to what we

now regard as religion. The ultimate goal of learning philosophy was to live a good, all-round flourishing life. It was a discipline intended to shape peoples lives, not merely an academic subject. As a result, philosophers like Epicurus and Epictetus thought it imperative to present an account of god (or the gods), to explain the implications for everyday human life, and to practice what they taught. Philosophy today is an academic discipline clearly distinct from both religion and the sciences. Philosophers will raise:
- Conceptual questions

Reading Philosophical Texts

The primary goals of philosophical texts

include:
1. clarifying concepts that we use in everyday discourse 2. exposing assumptions that we make without noticing them 3. pointing out inconsistencies in our reasoning 4. persuading us to see ourselves differently, to behave differently, to work at improving our characters or our community

How To Read a Philosophical Text

Slow down 2. Read thoughtfully and critically - Dont assume you know what even familiar terms mean (i.e. happiness).
1.
Ex. Its best to accept "happiness" as the vague term it is, then decide from the text what Epictetus, Epicurus, or some other philosopher means by it. - From our readings so far, happiness is often described as tranquility (or freedom from disturbance), a basic idea that Stoics and Epicureans share.

Read for claims, reasons, and evidence - Get in the habit of taking notes as you read (or making notes in the margins when you identify a key term, claim, reason or evidence. - Highlighting is no substitute for note-taking because you can do it without much thought.
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Reading for Claims, Reasons, & Evidence

Browsing online has made many of us

superficial readers. For reading academic texts, read more systematically and analytically 1.Begin by identifying the claims writers make and the reasons they make them
Claims: passages in the text where a writer makes an assertion, offers an argument, or presents a hypothesis, for which the writer will provide evidence. [Ex. Using a cell phone while driving is dangerous.] - Look for claims in topic sentences, transitional sentences, or in summary materials and the end of sections. Reasons: provides a rationale or a condition for accepting the claim. [Ex. Using a cell phone while driving is dangerous because distractions are a proven cause of auto accidents.]

Reading for Claims, Reasons, & Evidence

2. Examine the assumptions they work from and

the evidence they present.

Assumptions (or premises): the values upon which writers and researches base their work. They can be specific, conventional, or highly controversial.
- If you find yourself asking according to who? or why? you may have found an assumption the writer makes. - In oral arguments, when people say I know where youre coming from they signal they get your assumptions.

- Ex. We should discourage behaviors that contribute to accidents. - Writers typically assume they share basic premises with at least some of their readers. Evidence: information used to support or confirm major claims or assumptions. - Review evidence skeptically, always judging whether its sufficient, complete, reliable, and unbiased.

Writing Essay About Philosophical Texts

1. Clarity. Clear writing wins much higher marks than more beautiful but more ambiguous writing. If a word has exceptional importance for your essay, such as the word happiness, try to explain what you mean by it.
Half the battle of writing a philosophical essay is

explaining what you do, and do not, mean. Think twice about introducing synonyms later in your essay, just for the sake of variety.Do not substitute pleasure or some other word for happiness on the assumption that its meaning is roughly the same, or at least close enough. That holds for terminology also holds for grammar. Long, complex sentences can often be interpreted in more than one way. Even an ordinary phrase, such as the love of god, can be ambiguous. (Does it mean a human beings love for god or gods love for a human being?) Above all, learn to distinguish exposition of a text from mere paraphrase. Paraphrase uses different words but contributes little, if anything, to our understanding of a text. Exposition requires analysis: What theses does the text aim to prove? What are the arguments for them?

Writing Essay About Philosophical Texts

2. Relevance. When giving reasons or bits of textual evidence supporting your thesis, ask yourself how relevant they actually are. Do they support only the conclusion you want to establish, or could they also support a different conclusion? The more extraneous material you include, the more trouble readers have discerning what is indeed relevant.

Writing Essay About Philosophical Texts

3. Conciseness. Unnecessary remarks should be avoided for the same reason that irrelevant remarks should be avoided: they make your essay harder to follow.
Unfortunately, when beginning an essay you may have

only a vague idea of what it is necessary to discuss. There are two ways to solve this problem, and a combination of both works best.

First, outline the main points you want to make, in a logical

order. Add some notes about what you need to say about each point. The more planning you do in advance, the less likely it is that you will wander off-track when drafting the essay. Never worry when drafting that your work is running too long, because drafts should be longer than the finished product. Second, finish the draft soon enough so that you have ample time to revise it before the deadline. Begin by reading it critically, considering what you actually wrote, not just what you meant, and revising to clarify your statements. Then go through the draft again, with a cold, clinical eye, looking for

Active interpretive skills are a key part of understanding others rhetoric. You focus your attention with close reading, and you develop not only your awareness of them, but your own response. The better you are at reading what other people may say, the more persuasive your own interpretations will be. The skills you will learn to analyze texts will help you not only to understand other peoples arguments and locate key elements in their rhetoric, but also identify ways in which you can interpret and respond to it. You will use these skills to contribute to classroom discussion, support original claims in your essays, critique your peer

Two Methods for Active Reading

Method 1: Active close reading with Rhetorical appeals: Ethos-LogosPathos (and Time and Place)
1. Read the passage through, underlining key words or key phrases that seem to

you to suggest rhetorical appeals as presented in lecture, and tagging them in the margin (E=ethos, L=logos, P=pathos, T=time, Pl=place). Note: You may find some statements invoke multiple types of appeals Ethos Ethos is appeal based on the character of the speaker. An ethos-driven document relies on the reputation or credibility of the author/speaker. Logos Logos is appeal based on logic or reason. Giving reasons is the heart of argumentation, and cannot be emphasized enough. Pathos Pathos means persuading by appealing to the reader's emotions. We can look at texts ranging from classic essays to contemporary advertisements to see how pathos, emotional appeals, are used to persuade. Language choice affects the audience's emotional response, and emotional appeal can effectively be used to enhance an argument.

Two Methods for Active Reading

Method 2: Active close reading line-by-line What is a close reading?
Traditionally, a close reading is a very detailed analysis, on different levels, of

a passage (i.e., a few lines) in a literary work, with the goal of bringing forth a richer understanding of the passage and of the work as a whole. Close reading is a crucial skill for literature students to master and will be useful to you in writing many kinds of papers in the English discipline. See the document titled Close-reading guidelines on our website.

https://eee.uci.edu/programs/humcore/Student/WritersHandbook/Ch2_ActiveReadingTe