To do a close reading, choose a specific passage and analyze it in fine detail, as if with a magnifying glass. Then comment on points of style and on your reactions as a reader. Close reading is important because it is the building block for larger analysis. Your thoughts evolve not from someone else's truth about the reading, but from your own observations. This means that you as a reader takes precendence over the writer.

The more closely you can observe, the more original and exact your ideas will be. To begin, ask yourself several specific questions about the passage. The following questions are not a formula, but a starting point for your own thoughts. When you arrive at some answers, you are ready to organize and write. You should organize your reading like  writing an essay, paragraph by paragraph.

Research is playing the detective as writing is playing the lawyer.

The detective posits - "I see this_____; therefore; I can claim _____"

The lawyer posits - "I claim this _____; and this ____ supports what I think"