Techniques of Close Reading

In a world in which messages increasingly ask us to believe, accept, buy, and follow, the ability to read texts closely in order to gain a deeper understanding of their meanings is an indispensable survival skill.

Techniques of Close Reading is a briefbook that helps students see what texts may be saying, be they written, oral, visual, or mediated. Renowned scholar and professor Barry Brummett explains and explores the various ways to "read" messages (such as speeches, cartoons, or magazine ads), teaching students how to see deeper levels of meaning and to share those insights with others. Students learn techniques for discovering form, rhetorical tropes, argument, and ideologies within texts.

This book differs from other books in rhetorical criticism, textual analysis, or critical thinking by:

• Focusing on the act and techniques of criticism rather than on schools of thought, grand theories, and specific methods, thus helping students to engage in the act of critical close reading in ways that are congenial to a wide range of methods - making the book an ideal companion to texts focused on specific methods
• Explaining the relationships among theory, methods, and techniques of rhetorical criticism
• Examining the ethics and risks of doing and reading rhetorical criticism via plenty of examples, figures, and exercises taken from everyday life
• Serving as a brief, affordable text, thus allowing instructors the flexibility to assign other textbooks

In a world in which messages increasingly ask us to believe, accept, buy, and follow, the ability to read texts closely with a view to gaining a deeper understanding of their meanings is an indispensable survival skill.

Techniques of Close Reading is a brief text that helps students see what texts-be they written, oral, visual, or mediated-may be saying. Renowned scholar and professor Barry Brummett explains and explores the various ways to "read" message (such as speeches, cartoons, or magazine ads), teaching students how to see deeper levels of meaning and how to share those insights with others. Within the pages of this concise book, students learn techniques for discovering form, rhetorical tropes, argument, and ideologies within texts.

Techniques of Close Reading differs from other books on rhetorical criticism, textual analysis, or critical thinking by

Focusing on the act and techniques of criticism rather than on schools of thought, grand theories, and specific methods, thus helping students engage in the act of critical close reading in ways that are congenial to a wide range of methods-making the book an ideal companion to texts focused on specific methods

Explaining the relationships among theory, methods, and techniques of rhetorical criticism

Examining the ethics and risks of doing and reading rhetorical criticism via plenty of examples, figures, and exercises taken from everyday life

Serving as a brief, affordable text, thus allowing instructors flexibility to assign other textbooks

Barry Brummett is the Charles Sapp Centennial Professor in Communication and Department of Communication Studies Chair at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Brummett has authored several articles and books, including Rhetoric in Popular Culture (Sage), A Rhetoric of Style (Southern Illinois University), and Rhetorical Homologies: Form, Culture, Experience (University of Alabama). He studies the rhetoric of popular culture and the theories of Kenneth Burke.