Defining Critical Reading

I believe that being a critical reader means being an active, rather than a passive reader. You don't just read something on "autopilot," you actually think about and agree or disagree with what you are reading.

Reading and thinking critically are important in developing self-identity and personal views. Reading and thinking this way is also important when being presented with information in the many different forms that exist today. It is important to be able to distinguish between important and pointless information, as well as truthful and biased information.

The three techniques that I found to be most important in the writing were questioning, analyzing, and summarizing what you read. I believe that it is important to question and not blindly believe what you are writing. I also believe that when writing you should be analyzing the author's intentions, and how information is presented. Summarizing is incredibly important in understanding the main point of a piece of writing (or any other media); one has to be able to discern the main ideas of a piece and narrow them down.

I have used all of these in the past, and I often employ all of them while reading just about everything, without even really being conscious of it.

When I read I will usually look up similar information to what is being presented in the writing. I may see one word or topic in a piece of writing and do some quick research about it (wikipedia) and come back to it.