Preface to Critical Reading
This textbook, now in its 6th edition, is meant to help the student learn to read and by carefully applying the lessons learned here, to improve his/her writing too. The advice and practice offered, such as watching for certain devices of style and logic as clues to the true meaning of what you read and hear, may turn out to be the most valuable benefit the student receives from his/her formal education. Critical reading - to read with accuracy, comprehension, and discrimination - can permanently improve the workings of the mind. The examples in this edition extracted from a variety of sources - poetry, advertisement, speeches, short stories, novels, newspaper articles, etc. and their respective (rhetorical) exercises can greatly improve one's skill (habit) in critical reading necessary in all areas of life.