How to Read Texts - 2nd Edition by Neil McCaw (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Now in its second edition, How to Read Texts introduces students to key critical approaches to literary texts and offers a practical introduction for students developing their own critical and close-reading skills. Written in a lively, jargon-free style, it explains critical concepts, approaches and ideas including:

- Debates around critical theory
- The role of history and context
- The links between creativity and criticism
- The relationship between author, reader and text.

The new edition now includes guidance on analysing a range of multi-media texts, including film and online media as well as the purely literary. In addition to new practical examples, readings, exercises and 'checkpoints' that help students to build confidence in their own critical readings of both primary and secondary texts, the book now also offers guidance on writing fully-formed critical essays and tips for independent research. Comprehensively updated and revised throughout, How to Read Texts is an indispensible guide for students making the transition to university study.

Review Quotes

"How to Read Texts is filled with a passion for reading and for authorship. Lively and approachable, this is a great book for anyone interested in how we approach the texts we encounter in our lives." --Professor Graeme Harper, Bangor University, UK

"Neil McCaw's How to Read Texts: A Student Guide to Critical Approaches and Skills offers an invaluable and expansive introduction to the often vexing worlds of avant-garde critical theory and literary interpretation. Yet even more significantly, McCaw challenges us to discover our own critical voices, to seek out brave new textual frontiers of our own making, and to think creatively about the nature and direction of our reading experiences. Suitable for academic and general readers alike, How to Read Texts affords us with the attendant tools and historical background for unlocking and appreciating the rich texts that mark our lives." --Kenneth Womack, Penn State Altoona, USA

"How to Read Texts will encourage both students - and, as importantly, their teachers - to re-think the very basics of reading and analysing texts." --Peter Dempsey, Department of English, University of Sunderland, UK

"With a solid set of appendixes and an index, How to Read Texts is enthusiastically recommended for those facing a tough pile of books in their future." --James A. Cox, Midwest Book Review (Wisconsin Bookwatch)

"How to Read Texts: A Student Guide to Critical Approaches and Skills offers high school and college-level students a fine survey of critical theory paired with exercises and checklists to help students in their own readings of primary and secondary texts. Students learn how to gain confidence in their skills and learn the methods of recognizing and challenging assumptions in this fine survey of critical thinking skills." --James A. Cox, Midwest Book Review (California Bookwatch)

About the Author