The skill of close reading is an asset to scholarly researchers.

It is an every-day practice to belittle the job opportunities available to English majors. A bookstore or a library is not the only placement for someone who graduates with a B.A. who has been thoroughly socialized to the practice of close reading of text.

I majored in English literature in college and went on to become a faculty member who taught research methods at the graduate level at a research university.

What is Close Reading?

Close reading involves the ability to pick out major themes from a text. It is the skill to grasp both what is stated and what is implied. It is a skill that is essential in scholarly reading, writing, and research because it involves close attention to subtle differences communicated by language.

How is Close Reading Important in Research?

Close reading is not just a skill restricted to use in a humanities context. When analyzing the words of participants, clinicians in psychology and qualitative researchers often find the participants mean very different things when they use a word like leadership, resilience, or success. Detecting these subtle differences is part of the job of the researcher. By the same token, reading closely across a full text can generate a whole different impression about a participant’s views than when analysis rest on a single word or phrase.

The skill of close reading extends to how a mixed methods researcher might move beyond simple description to interpret the implications when qualitative and quantitative data on the same construct, like leadership, are aligned side-by-side in a joint display.

Close reading has other benefits. For the scholarly writer of articles, book chapter, and books precision in how you reference and cite the works of others one big benefit of close reading. It helps avoid mis-citing the works of others. Pulling out a sentence to highlight that misrepresents the overall views of the author(s) is an example of mis-citing.

Never underestimate how the skills gained from a liberal arts major extend to a raft of jobs and careers.