SQA National 5 English

Close reading of a non-fiction passage asks three things of a reader: to follow what the writer says, to see how the language carries it, and to judge how well it works. Understanding comes first, because analysis of a technique means little if the idea behind it has been missed. The passages are usually taken from newspapers and magazines, so the writing is often a column, a feature or a personal essay rather than a plain report.

Main ideas and examples

A main idea is a point the writer is making. An example, an anecdote or a piece of expansion is there to support a point, not to be a point in itself. Take a short piece of writing about a town library.

Libraries are the last free public space we have. Nobody asks you to buy anything. I once spent a whole wet afternoon in mine, reading about beekeeping, and left with a library card and a new hobby. Cut them and we lose something no app can replace.

The main ideas are that libraries are a free public space, which is a rare thing, and that closing them would be a loss that technology cannot make good. The afternoon spent reading about beekeeping is an anecdote: it shows the first idea at work, but it is not an idea about libraries in general. A reader who lists the beekeeping story as a main point has taken an example for an argument.

Ways to tell the two apart:

• a main idea can usually be stated without the names, places and numbers that illustrate it;
• an example often starts with a signal such as "for instance", "once" or "take the case of";
• a main idea tends to come early in a paragraph, though a writer may hold it back to the end;
• if a sentence could be deleted without the argument changing direction, it is probably an example.

Paragraph breaks, linking words and changes of topic show where one main idea ends and the next begins. A word such as "however" or "yet" signals that the next idea turns against the last.

Putting ideas into your own words

Showing that you understand a writer's idea means saying it again in different words. Lifting a phrase from the passage does not show that you know what it means, because a reader can copy a word without understanding it. A good restatement changes the vocabulary and the sentence shape while keeping the meaning.

From the library passage, "Nobody asks you to buy anything" becomes "you are not expected to spend money to be there". A weak version would be "nobody asks you to buy anything", which only repeats the original. Common words such as "library" or "money" can stay, since there is no sensible alternative; it is the writer's own phrasing that needs to change.

A summary is a short account of the main points, with detail and examples left out. When a task asks for a summary of a section, the aim is to find each main idea, drop its illustrations and put it in your own words, keeping the ideas separate rather than blending them into one long sentence.

Unfamiliar words

A passage will contain words a reader has not met. They are rarely essential to follow the writer, and there are several ways to work out a meaning.

1. Read the sentences around the word, since the surrounding words and ideas are clues. If a writer describes a speech as "a diatribe against the council, full of anger and accusation", the word "diatribe" has been explained by what follows.
2. Look at the stem or root, which carries the core meaning. The "bene" in "benefactor" and "benevolent" points to goodness, and the "mal" in "malicious" points to harm.
3. Ask whether the word is positive or negative in the passage, and whether it fits the tone of the sentence.

Part of the skill is judging which words matter. Some carry the point of a sentence and some are decoration, and a reader who is not put off by a hard word can still follow the sense.

Inference

An inference is a conclusion about what a writer means that is not stated directly, drawn from clues in the text. If a writer says a manager "glanced at his watch twice while she was speaking", the writer never says he was bored, but the reader infers that he was impatient or uninterested. Inference needs evidence: the conclusion has to rest on something that is actually in the passage, and it should be the most reasonable reading of that evidence.

Kinds of writing, purpose and stance

Knowing what kind of writing a passage is helps a reader predict how it will work.

Many passages mix these, so a column may begin as reflective and move to persuasive. Humorous and serious pieces both appear.

The writer's purpose is what the writer is trying to achieve: to inform, to persuade, to entertain, to provoke a reaction or to share an experience. The stance is the writer's attitude or position on the issue. Two writers can have the same purpose, persuading, and opposite stances.

Reading with these questions in mind helps: what are the writer's main ideas, which techniques carry them, what is the writer trying to do with the piece, and what effect did it have on the reader.