Close reading. 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, effected by close attention to individual words, the syntax, and the order in which the sentences unfold ideas, as the reader scans the line of text. In contemporary English practice, the technique of close reading was pioneered by I. A. Richards and his student William Empson; close reading then was technically dev
Jackson Andrew Jackson lost to John Q. Adams before winning a presidency He lost (in the House of Representatives) in 1824 but won in 1828 Previously, Thomas Jefferson had lost in 1796 and won in 1800. Subsequently, William Henry Harrison lost in 1836 but won in 1840, and Richard Nixon lost in 1960 but won in 1968.
The incumbent President, Andrew Johnson (who had ascended to the Presidency in 1865 following the assassination of President Lincoln), was unsuccessful in his attempt to receive the Democratic presidential nomination because he had alienated so many people and had not built up a political base.