English Literature / Unit 19 ENL 1813 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading a Critical Excerpt: Claim, Evidence, Turn
The idea
A critical excerpt is an argument, and the course's method has four steps. First, find the claim, usually near the start or end: what the critic thinks is true of the work. Second, find the evidence: quotations, comparisons or principles. Third, find the turn, the "but" or "however" where the critic answers an objection or rejects a common view, because questions often test it. Fourth, identify the critic's assumptions: an Arnoldian critic values culture, a New Critic the text alone, a feminist critic the representation of women, a postcolonial critic empire. Then answer by restating the claim in your own words and checking each option against the evidence the critic gives, not your own view of the work.
In practice
Claim, evidence, turn, assumptions.
Where people slip
The question asks what the critic argues, not what you think. Choose the option the passage supports.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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