Answer:

An important skill of critical reading is the ability to detect an author's bias and prejudice. The reason you need to be able to do this, of course, is that bias and prejudice may invalidate an author's claim.

There are several ways to detect an author's possible bias and prejudice, for example:

the author uses inflammatory language: in the most extreme cases, racial epithets, slurs, etc.;

the author consistently makes claims whose larger purpose is to elevate (or demean) one social, ethnic, national, religious, or gender group as compared to another, or all others;

the author consciously presents evidence that serves to tell only one side of an event or issue, purposefully withholding or ignoring information that may shed the opposing view in a more positive light;

the author manufactures, falsifies and/or dishonestly cites evidence in order to present his or her case in a more positive light.

Bias and prejudice may be the result of national pride and chauvinism (as may be the case for Japanese scholars' denial of the Rape of Nanking) or personal or professional rivalry (as in the Browning-Goldhagen controversy; on both of these issues, see Evaluating Contradictory Data and Claims); perhaps an author's bias and prejudice is a result of a specific agenda he or she wishes to support (see Historiography); or perhaps it simply reflects the author's ignorance and resulting ignorant worldview. When writing about history, our ability to detect and identify such bias and prejudice is a valuable and necessary skill.

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