"Deduction" is the word Sherlock Holmes uses to describe the sensing abilities he possesses. Throughout Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, the reader witnesses his crime-solving skills through detection and shares the amazement John Watson feels whenever these "moments of deduction" occur. However, these moments are not as incredible as they seem, and this "deduction" has been practiced by people who engage in textual practice and close reading. In order to understand the similarity between Sherlock Holmes' deduction process and close reading, it's steps need to be examined. The word “deduction” is different from “detection”. “Detection” is the act of finding and discovering, while “deduction” is more about drawing conclusions and searching for results. This small difference helps the reader understand Holmes's insistence on using the word "deduction", which his own article presents and testifies to by mentioning "The Sign of Deduction" – which is the name of the first chapter of The Sign of Four; in the first novel, A Study In Scarlet (Doyle 16). It doesn’t just “detect”, it calculates and also comes to a conclusion. Additionally, he uses the word “observe,” which is the first step in his deductive process. He observes, calculates and applies logic, then arrives at a conclusion, therefore a deduction. The first step in the deduction process, observation, has two sides, as the cases of Holmes and Watson show. What is similar to close reading is Holmes' methods of observation, which are more scientifically and academically acceptable. As the narrator of the novel, what the reader reads are the observations of John Watson. However, his observation is more subjective than Holmes's. Sherlock observes to gather information and information......in the middle of a sheet of paper...story for this reason, to prove "a hypothesis which covers the facts" (173) to himself and to others. Progress works the same way in close reading. The reader must present evidence for his or her conclusions in order to make them more credible and academically acceptable. As a result, Sherlock Holmes's crime-solving skills are very similar to those of close reading. They both have phases of objective observation, logical application, and deduction, and they both must present evidence for their claims if they want them to be acceptable to other people. Works Cited Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir. “The sign of the four”. Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories Volume 1. New York: Bantam Classics, 1986. Print.Keep, Christopher and Don Randall. “Addiction, Empire, and Narrative in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Sign of Four.” Novel: a forum on fiction. Brown University, 1999.