HIS109Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Academic Journal, A Priori And A Posteriori
University of Toronto Department of Geography
GGR 107Y – Environment, Food, and People
Fall 2016
TUTORIAL PREPARATION EXERCISE: Critical Reading
For the critical appraisal, you will need to download and read the following article:
Ho, Soleil. 2014. #Foodgentrification and culinary rebranding of traditional foods.
https://bitchmedia.org/post/foodgentrification-and-culinary-rebranding-of-traditional-foods
In preparation for the class discussion, you should first read the article for understanding (i.e., to
get a basic grasp of what they article says). Next, you should go through the following steps in
critical reading:
• Identify the central claims or purpose of the text
As noted in the lecture, an argument is a claim + the evidence for that claim. You may find
it easier to look for claims first and then evidence, since not all claims will be well-
supported (there may be no evidence, or essentially irrelevant evidence, inaccurate evidence,
and so on). Be sure to focus on the central arguments - don’t document every single claim if
it’s not really that important to the overall point of the article! Instead, try to think about
what the author is really trying to get across. This could be only one main point, with lots of
evidence, or several points - it’s unlikely to be more than that in a short piece. Focus here on
separating out what the author is trying to convince you of, as opposed to what they are
trying to convince you with.
• Identify the context of the article you are appraising
Different pieces of writing are intended for different audiences, and have different styles and
modes of argument. An editorial or comment piece in the newspaper is written for a
different audience and for a different purpose than an academic journal article, and the
expectations around (for example) what kinds of evidence are presented are also quite
different. So, it is important to put the article in context: where is it from (and when)? Who
is it written for? What is it intended to do? An individual document can’t answer every
possible question on a topic, and different kinds of writing is used in different kinds of
places (e.g., a blog post or editorial versus a textbook chapter or academic journal article) so
it is important that you assess the document based on what the author was trying to achieve
and the strengths and limitations of the particular format being used.
• Distinguish the kinds of reasoning the text employs, and the types of evidence
presented
Different disciplines (i.e. history, sociology, philosophy, biology) will have different ways
of arguing, and accept different types of evidence as “reasonable” evidence for their claims.
While there are many different ways to distinguish arguments1, you may wish to use the
scheme described in lecture:
o A priori reasoning: defining terms, logical arguments based on proven (or accepted)
premises, arguments based on first principles
o A posteriori reasoning: arguments based on observation, which can be further divided
into two types – qualitative observations can include anecdotes (examples) and
1 see Walton, D., Reed, C., and Macagno, F. 2008. Argumentation Schemes for over ninety examples!
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
For the critical appraisal, you will need to download and read the following article: #foodgentrification and culinary rebranding of traditional foods. https://bitchmedia. org/post/foodgentrification-and-culinary-rebranding-of-traditional-foods. In preparation for the class discussion, you should first read the article for understanding (i. e. , to get a basic grasp of what they article says). Next, you should go through the following steps in critical reading: identify the central claims or purpose of the text. As noted in the lecture, an argument is a claim + the evidence for that claim. You may find it easier to look for claims first and then evidence, since not all claims will be well- supported (there may be no evidence, or essentially irrelevant evidence, inaccurate evidence, and so on). Be sure to focus on the central arguments - don"t document every single claim if it"s not really that important to the overall point of the article! Instead, try to think about what the author is really trying to get across.
