Guiding Questions When Reading

Here are some useful set of questions you can ask yourself when reading something:

• Who is speaking or writing?
• What is their point of view or perspective?
• What ideas and information are presented and how were they obtained?
• Are there unsupported assertions?
• Are relevant reasons or evidence provided?
• Is the method used to find the evidence sound? (e.g. with regard to sample size or control group where statistical significance is claimed)
• Is the evidence correct or valid?
• What assumptions have been made?
• What is fact and what is opinion?
• What are the implicit and explicit values?
• Are there unreasonable generalisations?
• What has been omitted?
• How were the conclusions reached?
• Are the conclusions reasonable?
• What other perspectives or points of view could there be?