Writing to Understand Reading

    Reading differs form person to person. Some people read skipping over words or allusion that they don’t understand. Sometimes they skip so frequently that they don’t realize what they are doing. Some times the process of reading breaks by a sip of coffee or the telephone ring. Other read minutely too. However as critics there is no single way to interpretation that is correct. Twelve people reading the same text can offer twelve different responses all of them having equal value. However some responses too a text will be more splendid than others if more hardship is invested in them.
Most effective way of testing our understanding of a text is to write about what have been read. The way may be.
- Summarizing
- Reviewing
- Explicating
- Analyzing
Summarizing: - In summary we need to include key point briefly. Especially, we summarize a novel story or play than a poem. We need a brief summary while giving review of a work or while examining something critically. We need to be neutral while summarizing anything, so it differs from reviewing.

Reviewing: - Reviewing, like summarizing makes the most sense when the work is unfamiliar to the audience. Both summaries and reviews attempts to provide a sense of the book as a whole where as summaries limit themselves to content and try to be neutral, reviews also consider quality and offer judgments. In addition to providing a brief summary of the work a review will usually identify its theme and sometimes compare it with other works by the author that might already be known to audience. Evaluation of the work lies at the heart of any review. A reviewer may address the question like is the work original or predictable through or superficial? While doing so the review needs to include evidences. The review is associated with the readers who may decide to read or not to read through the review itself. So it is the serious aspect of the success or failure of the work.

Explication: - An explication also attempts to cover an entire work, but in this case the emphasis is an explaining the work rather than summarizing its context or appraising its quality. In explication, one should explain the function and meaning of everything with in it. Consequently, explication is usually reserved for short works, especially poems or excerpts, an important speech with in a longer work. Explication turns to be the best way of understanding the work meaning if done carefully.

Analysis: - Analysis offers multiple interpretations of different parts of a work. So analyzing a work requires us to recognize its parts. When we say parts then we should understand that many works have ready made divisions with in them. A novel is usually divided in to chapter a play in to acts and scenes, a poem in to stanza. So in analytical writing we analyze only one aspect of any text. For example analytical paper may be written on the following features.
The role of a story with in the story
The significance of a specific dialogue
The portrayal of one of the characters
The setting and its importance
The theme or central idea
The use of figurative language or symbolism to convey more than one meaning
A pattern of imagery that establishes a particular mood
The organization of the work and why it is structured as it is.

Preparing to Write
    We can begin to write about what we read through several steps:
1) Noting the Preliminary Response: - The first step in writing to understand is defining our preliminary response. At this step we need to be sure about the topic or the subject matter of writing. If we have the opinion of choosing to write about one of several works, then we need to ask ourselves which work inspired the strongest reaction.
2) Rereading the work chosen: - Once we know about what work we will be writing about the next step is to re-examine that work. While doing so, we need to annotate the work by making key passages and making marginal notations as questions and ideas that occur. In re-reading we need to give focus on the words or allusion or anything that we passed over on the initial reading.
3) Asking question ourselves about the work: - Asking question ourselves is a good way to keep thought coming. To understand a text from different dimensions, we can ask various questions: for example we can ask questions by using pentad: (Scene, Purpose, Act, Agent, and Agency). For example: What act is most central to this work and who is responsible for it? etc. By answering these questions we can gather ideas to write about. Similarly we need to keep our mind always receptive being imaginatively and intellectually engaged by the work we are going to write about.
4) Testing of Choice:- We have to care about the appropriateness of the topic if have more than one possible topics. Some topic may be too narrow and others too broad. So we should think about the purpose and audience’s potential interest in the topic.
5) Defining the thesis: - After deciding the topic for the paper and parts of the work then we need to consider about the central idea (thesis) of the writing. As topic identified the aspect of the text that we write about the thesis is the central idea that we intend to convey about the topic. Having a thesis of the writing, the writers can capture the attention as well as focus on the whole subject matter.
6) Gathering Evidence: - A thesis requires support while evaluating or interpreting literature, we make a claim with argument that should include evidence. Mostly the evidence must come from the text itself. We also need to think critically about the evidences we discover and search again for additional support if necessary. While doing so we should not ignore anything that seems to conflict with what is going to be proved.

Writing the paper
     After considering the audience, choosing the topic, defining thesis and gathering evidences to support it, the next challenge is to decide how to organize the material.
Some papers take their pattern of organization from the work that is being written about. For example, if we are explicating a poem, we often go through it line by line in order in which the lines appeal. If we are writing a character analysis, we can trace the character’s development through out the work. And if we are discussing a theme or the use of a specific literacy device, we can present the evidence in the order in which it appeared in the text.