Explain, in your own individual words, how the author reached his summary.
Explain why you found it convincing or not.
Explain how it matches or doesn't match what other writers must say within the same topic from your synoptic reading.
This technique involves time and effort on your behalf, however it will pay out off in making you the optimal reader quite possible.
Suggestions for Further Reading
If you ever are interested in further improving your ability to study, I would recommend How to Study: the Art of Finding a Liberal Education by Mortimer J. Adler. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1940). It may be a bit dated, and its section on reading poetry is often a bit simplistic and touchy-feely for my tastes. However, it is central to my thinking about what constitutes critical thinking on this site. You will see it is nonetheless valuable for thinking about how to improve yourself as a careful and close reader of texts and for obtaining the most popular education workable from your assigned readings in any class.
Click below for A Brief Outline of Critical Reading (the material covered on this webpage)
Note . The terminology useful for the fourth stage varies in Adler's resources. His original 1940 publication referred to it as syntopic . It implies several topics placed side by side for analysis. However, in 1972, Mortimer Adler teamed with Charles Van Doren to make a heavily revised version published with Touchstone Books. In this article, with the to start with print-run, the two switched to the term synoptic . which implies several items seen together at once. I have arbitrarily chosen syntopic below for my handouts when you consider that my personal copy is definitely an edition applying the former term.