Critical thinking and writing

What is Critical Thinking?

According to Cottrell (2011) ‘It is a ‘complex process of deliberation’ which involves the use of many skills’ but can be broken down into three main elements:

Scepticism: the ability and intention to question information, beliefs and arguments

Reasoning: the ability to underpin skepticism with logic. This involves being able to support arguments and beliefs with evidence (or reasons)

Synthesis: the ability to make and recognise links, to understand how evidence or other factors connect or relate to each other


These skills often overlap but underpinning all of them is a questioning mindset. This questioning mindset is what helps us to analyse and evaluate the information you read and apply it to the question you are trying to answer. The following model from the University of Leeds can help to illustrate the changes in approach needed to move from descriptive to critical writing. As you read through the information about the levels in the model you will see where the three elements above also come into play.

The model illustrates how our approach to our reading and writing can be described as developmental and encourages us to use our thinking to move from a purely descriptive approach into being able to use the material in a critical way.

  1. Describe what you are reading.

  2. Analyse the material’s core arguments and conclusions.

  3. Evaluate its significance and its successes / failures.

Description

At this stage you should ask yourself the most basic of questions: "Who?", "What?", "Where?", "When?" and "Why?"

These questions will generate purely descriptive answers. You will gain a general understanding of who wrote the text, when it was written, and what the main ideas or arguments are. Through answering these questions you will only be able to reiterate what an author has said, but not demonstrate your understanding of the significance of the text.

Whilst these questions are important to gain an initial understanding of an issue, topic or text, this is not thinking critically. For that we need to ask more in-depth and challenging questions.

Analysis

We now move on to the analysis stage. The analysis stage is about examining the material in depth so that you become truly familiar with it.

We need to:

  • pull the material apart and explain and examine how each part fits into the whole

  • identify reasons, comparing and contrasting different elements within texts

  • show our understanding of the relationships between these different elements

At this stage we are interested in the process or method, as well as the causes, theories and evidence. These questions, especially ‘how?’ and ‘why?’, will help you to develop more analytical answers and deeper thinking.

For example, you might ask yourself:

  • How has the author reached their conclusions?

  • What method has been used (for example in gathering data) and was the method appropriate?

  • Why does the author think what they think?

  • Is relevant and reliable evidence used to support any arguments, ideas or conclusions presented?

  • Does the data presented support the conclusions made?

Evaluation

Finally we come to the evaluative segment. This involves judging the failure or success of something, its implications, significance and/or value.

Evaluation leads us to conclusions or recommendations. Questions such as ‘what if?’ and ‘so what?’ help us reach higher levels of thinking critically about a text or a topic.

Questions might include:

  • How relevant is this text to your purpose?

  • What do you think about what you have read?

  • How does this relate to other information you have read or heard?

  • Does it contradict, support or challenge other evidence?

This model has been adapted from LearnHigher under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Activity:

Choose a journal article that has been recommended for your next assignment.

  • Read the first two pages and find answers to the descriptive set of questions.

  • Reread it and answer the analysis questions. At this stage you should feel as if you really understand the material.

  • Now look at the text again, but this time think about how the content of the article can be useful for your assignment. Use the last set of questions to help you with this.

You will see that this detailed knowledge of the content helps you to use the information to be critical in your writing.

How many articles/books will I need to do this for?

You won't need to read everything in this much depth. Sometimes just asking the descriptive questions may be enough, for example if you are just reading something to gain a basic understanding of a topic. Once you have a basic understanding of the topic you can analyse and evaluate a few key texts in this deep way which will ensure that you have the right material to be critical.

Critical Thinking and Your Writing

Critical Writing Example

We have talked a lot about analysing and evaluating the material you read but how can we get all those notes written up in a style that is critical? How do you recognise what critical writing looks like?

The following example demonstrates the difference between descriptive writing and critical writing. It is taken from: Cottrell, S. (2003) The study skills handbook, 2nd edn. London: Palgrave.

Descriptive example

"The data shows that the incidence (new cases) of asthma rates in children under 15 years old increased rapidly from 1977, peaking in 1993 and then declining, though rates still remain significantly higher than pre-1976 levels."

Critical example

"The trend, from 1977 until 1993, of a rapid rise in rates of asthma diagnosis in children under 15 years, suggests that one of the causal factors was particularly prevalent during this time, but has since declined in importance or effect."

You can see that in the first example we are simply given some information about the rise of asthma. In the first example we simply see that rates of asthma rose and then fell, in the second we see that the writer has thought about the information and is prepared to make a prediction based on what the change in data implies. In the second example we can see evidence of critical thinking in the use of language that shows or signposts criticality (trend, suggests, declined in importance and effect) and in the thought processes that result in a conclusion (that one of the causal factors of the rise may now have declined in effect) .

Signposting and Language

The use of 'signposting' language is an effective way of indicating links between ideas; demonstrating difference; transition between paragraphs and demonstrating for your reader the development of a discussion.

The following example is from: Barrow, C. and Westrup, R. (2019) Writing skills for education students. London: Red Globe Press. p. 66

As highlighted previously, a particularly significant influence upon the emergence of comprehensive schools was related to criticisms of the tri-partite system and therefore it is pertinent to identify and explore some of these. In this next section, some viewpoints for prominent commentators in the 1950s and 1960s will be presented, but before this, it is important to understand the origins of the tri-partite system, an overview of which follows.

The words in bold are all examples of words or phrases that are used to, essentially, tell the reader what the work is doing and why.