Title: Making Inferences
Course: Reading Summer School

Authors expect that you infer, or read between the lines, when you read their writing. Making inferences is a required part of the thinking of reading. Here is an example:

If an author writes this sentence:

"The War Between the States was the most difficult period in American history."

The author expects that the reader (you) will think of the war between the North and the South. In this war family members fought against family members. The author also expects that you will think about how you would feel if you had to fight against a brother, sister, or parent. The author expects all of this thinking without telling you to think this information.

An inference requires a certain pocket of background knowledge. Sometimes a reader does not have the needed background knowledge that an author wants from the reader. Two solutions help with this problem. Wide and varied reading helps build background. The more background knowledge you have that matches the knowledge the author expects you to have, the more inferring can be accomplished. A second solution is to think about what you do know that is as close as possible to the expected background knowledge.