According to the context, what did the author intend the text to communicate to the first readers? No matter what text you study, answer this question as well as you can before using the next key. The simplest way to do this is to review what you discovered using keys two and three. Then ask the above question of your text. Some texts may not be clear or may be interpreted in several ways. However, one meaning will usually be most in agreement with the way the text was written, the immediate context,