Editing Close reading (section)

{{Essay-like|date=April 2022}}
{{short description|Careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of a text}}
{{Reading}}
In [[literary criticism]], '''close reading''' is the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of a text.  A close reading emphasizes the single and the particular over the general, via close [[attention]] to individual words, the syntax, the order in which the sentences unfold ideas, as well as formal structures.<ref>{{Cite web |year=2019 |title=Close Reading |url=https://www.bucks.edu/media/bcccmedialibrary/tutoring/documents/writingareahandoutrevision/literature/Close-Reading.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220903234452/https://www.bucks.edu/media/bcccmedialibrary/tutoring/documents/writingareahandoutrevision/literature/Close-Reading.pdf |archive-date=2022-09-03 |publisher=Bucks County Community College |publication-place=Pennsylvania}}</ref> 

Close reading is thinking about both what is said in a passage (the content) and how it is said (the form, i.e., the manner in which the content is presented), leading to possibilities for observation and insight.