Completing this unit should take you approximately 1 hour.
Words have meaning. That seems like a simple statement – and kind of obvious, right? But, how do we as readers figure out what that meaning is?
In this section, we'll review the different ways words and phrases can convey meaning. Knowing when a word is straightforward or implies something else will help you better understand the text's overall purpose. These lessons and exercises will build your reading comprehension skills and strengthen your ability to answer exam questions about specific word uses.
How do you know when an author is being direct in their wording or "saying something with saying it"? Recognizing the difference between literal and figurative language makes it possible to determine that distinction. When you are aware of these types of language, it becomes easier to fully comprehend a text's meaning and purpose.
This lesson about figurative language explains how literal and figurative language differ and how to find clues for identifying each.
In addition to specific figurative or literal words, entire phrases can offer implied or direct meanings. We refer to these differences in presenting meaning as connotation or denotation. Connotation is when meaning is implied, and denotation is when meaning is directly stated. Authors may use either or both of these within a text to make a point or provide supporting details.
Review this article on connotation and demotion and pay attention to the examples.
Depending on the intended audience of a text, an author may choose to use words or phrases specific to that audience. This is referred to as "specialized language", which can change between general and specific audiences. For example, if you fall off a bike and injure yourself, you may say you "broke" your arm, but a physician would say you "fractured" your arm. While you may not always know the meaning of a specialized term, if you can recognize that such a term is being used, you can use context clues to find its meaning.
Watch this video to learn how to identify specialized language.
In this exercise, you will practice identifying word and phrase devices in a text. Don't hesitate to review the previous resources if you are unsure of an answer. It may help you to either print or copy and paste the text into a separate document so that you can annotate the text to help you remember the language devices you see.
In addition to which words an author uses, how they organize their ideas tells us a lot. In this section, we'll look at how authors can set up their ideas to make their purpose and conclusions clear to the reader. These resources will offer you strategies for identifying organization patterns, comprehending how ideas are linked, and finding the overall meaning of a text.
Authors have a lot of style choices to make when creating a text. One of these choices is tone, which has a big impact on the presentation of meaning and purpose. Knowing how tone influences a text will help you find the author's purpose and understand the reading as a whole.
Review this presentation on identifying word choices and their effect on a text.
Specific writing patterns or organizational choices help an author keep a text focused and easy to read. Additionally, these organizational or structural patterns help the reader follow the author's thoughts and better understand the text. Watch this video on different writing patterns an author may choose. How do these patterns make a text and its purpose easier to understand?
While some readings are organized linearly (from point a to point b, point c, and then the conclusion), many authors will specifically choose to present a compare and contrast structure. This allows an author to explain two sides of an issue and show how they considered all points before coming to a conclusion.
Review this lesson for strategies in recognizing and understanding the compare and contrast structure.
This exercise will help you practice recognizing how details in a text create a clear structure. It asks you to read a science-based article and identify which details are used to compare two ideas and which elements are used to contrast them. Feel free to go back over the resources in this section if you want to review and better familiarize yourself with writing patterns and structures.
Take this assessment to see how well you understood this unit.