Questions for Reading
and Writing
Questions for Active Reading (Reading for
Meaning):
- What is the writer's purpose in writing?
- What is the writer's main point?
- Does the writer imply more than he or she
is saying?
- Is the information accurate?
- Are the explanations clear?
- Is the writer biased?
- Does the writer suppress or overlook some
important information?
- Does the writer attempt to pass off
opinions as facts?
- What is the writer's attitude towards the
subject?
- Is the writer an expert on the
subject--or just pretending to be one?
Questions for Discovering Ideas in
Reading (Reading for Ideas):
- Do I agree with what the writer is
saying?
- How might this idea be expressed better?
- How does this information relate to what
I know?
- How can I apply this information to what
I know?
- What could I add to what this writer has
said?
- How do I feel when reading this piece of
writing?
- What does this writing contribute to my
experience?
- How significant is this writing to my
experience?
- What new idea does this writing give me?
Questions for Reading as a Writer
(Reading for Technique):
- How does the writer begin?
- How does the writer end?
- Where does the writer state the main idea
of the whole piece (thesis)?
- How long are the writer's paragraphs?
- Where does the writer express the main
idea (topic sentence) of each paragraph?
- How does the writer support ideas
(examples, explanations, statements of authorities [testimony], statistics,
comparisons, analogies, and so on)?
- How does the writer use long sentences?
- How does the writer use short sentences?
- How does the writer connect ideas?
- What kind of repetition does the writer
use?
- Does the writer repeat any grammatical
structures (parallelism)?
- Does the writer use any figurative
language (metaphors, similes, and so on)?
- Does the writer use any unusual words?
- How does the writer use commas and other
punctuation marks?
Questions about Audience for Reading
(Reading for Technique):
- Who is the intended audience? Am I among
that group?
- What does the writer assume the audience
knows about the subject?
- What does the writer seem to know about
the audience?
- What is the writer's relationship to the
audience?
- How interested am I, as audience, in the
subject?
- What does the writer do to stimulate my
interest?
- What is my attitude toward the subject?
- What is my attitude toward the writer?
- Does the writer want to change what I
know or how I feel about the writer and the subject?
- What experiences and knowledge does the
writer assume we share?
- How does the writer use those experiences
and that knowledge to present the subject?
- How do I perceive the rhetorical
situation of this piece of writing: reflective, persuasive, informative, or
something else?
- What assumptions does the writer make
about my expectations of grammar, style, and vocabulary?
Questions about Audience for Writing:
- Who is my audience?
- What does my audience know about my
subject?
- What does my audience know about me?
- What is my relationship to my audience?
- How interested is my audience in my
subject?
- How can I stimulate audience interest?
- What is my audience's attitude toward my
subject?
- What is my audience's attitude toward me?
- Do I want to change what my audience
knows or how it feels about me and my subject?
- What experiences and knowledge do I share
with my audience?
- How can I use those experiences and that
knowledge to present my subject?
- How does my audience perceive the
rhetorical situation in which I am writing: reflective, persuasive,
informative, or something else?
- What does my audience expect of my
grammar, style, and vocabulary?