FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES

1. Critical Reading:
Restatement and Inference

2. What Is Critical Reading?
 To non-critical readers, texts provide facts.
Readers gain knowledge by memorizing the
statements within a text.
 To the critical reader, any single text
provides but one portrayal of the facts, one
individual’s “take” on the subject matter.
Critical readers thus recognize not only
what a text says, but also how the author
convey the message.

3. Goals of Critical Reading
1. to recognize an author’s
purpose
2. to understand tone and persuasive
elements
3. to recognize bias

4. More specifically;
1. recognizing purpose involves inferring
a basis for choices of content and
language
2. recognizing tone and persuasive
elements involves classifying the
nature of language choices
3. recognizing bias involves classifying
the nature of patterns of choice of
content and language

5. Restatement VS. Inference
What is the difference
between these two words?

6. Three types of reading and analysis:
 Non-critical reading is satisfied with
recognizing what a text says and restating
the key remarks.
What a text says – restatement
What a text does – description
What a text means – inference

7. Inference: Reading Ideas as Well as
Words
Consider the following statement:
“The Senator admitted owning the
gun that killed his wife.”
What can be inferred from this statement?
 There is a Senator.
 He owns a gun.
 He is married.
 His wife is dead.
 That gun caused her death.
 The Senator admitted owning that gun.

8. “The Senator admitted owning the
gun that killed his wife.”
Now, what can’t be inferred?
 We do not necessarily know if the
Senator's admission is true.
 We do not really know whether the
Senator is in any way responsible for
his wife's death, nor do we know that
she died of gun shot wounds.
 We do not even know if it was
murder—it might have been suicide
or an accident.

9. Read the following story.
A man and his son are driving in a car.
The car crashes into a tree, killing the
father and seriously injuring his son.
At the hospital, the boy needs to have
surgery. Upon looking at the boy, the
doctor says (telling the truth), "I
cannot operate on him. He is my son.“
How can this be?

10. Analysis and Inference: The Tools
of Critical Reading
 A critical reader know what to look for
( analysis ) and how to think about
what to find ( inference ) .
 The first part —what to look for—
involves recognizing those aspects of a
discussion that control the meaning.
 The second part —how to think about
what you find— involves the processes
of inference, the interpretation of data
from within the text.

11. Restatement VS. Inference
What is the difference
between these two words?