Close reading

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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.^[1]

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.