Chapter 8 CRCB

Chapter 8 Critical Reading for College and Beyond


Organization (or reorganization) is a continuous process„it goes on simultaneously with other activities, such as narrowing your topic, forming your thesis statement, and conducting your research. However, formal organization generally involves two components: determining a method of organization for the essay, and drawing up an outline which applies your ideas to that method.
Textbook authors usually organize information using certain classic methods or patterns. Being able to recognize organizational methods will help you understand the ideas in your textbooks and how they are connected to each other, because they will fit into logical patterns you are already familiar with. It will also help you to remember what you have read, because you are not memorizing facts in isolation, but relating them to each other to form patterns that hold and organize them in your memory. A useful way to dentify an author's metod of organization is to look for the organizationaal word clues (OWCs) that indicate which patterns he or she is using. It is also important to assess an author's overall method of organization. An author will frequently use more than one method from paragraph to paragraph, but have one overall method for each textbook chapter