Critical writing – from the Skills Team, University of Hull

Critical writing – from the Skills Team, University of Hull 

Students are always being told that they need to read more critically, think more critically and write more critically? How do you demonstrate that you are reading and thinking critically in your writing? Critical reading (and also thinking) is about five main things: 

1. Judging the appropriateness of your sources – some sources carry more academic weight than others. You should perhaps not view Joe’s blog as an authoritative academic voice whereas something in a peer-reviewed journal should be much more reliable. The appropriateness of some sources is less clear cut. Websites or YouTube videos, for example, can be official or reputable but can also be unofficial and disreputable. You will need to show that you have used the appropriate level of criticality when using them as academic sources. Equally a newspaper may be an excellent source for gauging public opinion about a topic but even reputable broadsheets can be very selective of the facts they use in order to make a story seem more newsworthy. Even books can need judgment about their appropriateness – are they seriously academic or more popular, designed for the mass market so less likely to be checked and edited rigorously. 

2. The next stage in critical reading is to decide which of the sources you have looked at are the most relevant to your particular argument. You will read many appropriate sources which may be interesting but are only marginally relevant and so will not make it to your final piece of writing. Choosing the most relevant shows you are thinking critically. 

3. Another aspect of critical reading is to show a healthy skepticism about what you are reading. Don’t just believe something because it is in an academic paper – these are just the opinions of academics. Many contradict each other and it is your job to work out which ones you find most persuasive. 

4. The way you do this is to evaluate the quality of the arguments you read. Do the premises (that is the evidence put forward by the author) lead to the claims and conclusions made within the paper? Are you fully convinced? 

5. Finally, you must choose where you stand. You need to think carefully about the different points of view and balance the arguments. What is your personal position? Just where do you stand on the spectrum of possible positions? This is really important as it is the starting point for showing criticality in your writing. The first rule of critical writing is therefore to… 

1. TELL THE READER YOUR POSITION – make sure you are clear about where you stand on the topic at hand. This position informs your MEGA-argument. In the US, this is called your thesis statement. It is the overall argument that you will develop throughout the piece of writing. 

2. The next important rule for critical writing is to make sure you PERSUADE RATHER THAN INFORM – don’t just describe what you have read in the literature and expect the reader to make up their own mind. That would be too descriptive. You need to explain to the reader what the evidence means – answering the ‘so what?’ question and therefore making your argument persuasive. You need to convince your reader that your position is the most credible one to hold. Without that attempt to persuade, you are not making an argument, you are just stating information. 

3. As part of that argument, you need to JUSTIFY THE INCLUSION OF EVERY POINT YOU MAKE – each of your points or mini-arguments (which will be in separate paragraphs) must add up to your MEGA-argument. Within every paragraph, you must justify the inclusion of the point by explaining to the reader the relevance it has to your mega-argument. You must metaphorically take the reader by the hand and lead them through your reasons for thinking the point is important. 

4. To be credible your argument must BE BALANCED. This doesn’t mean you have to take a middle position – quite the opposite but you must ADMIT ALTERNATIVE POSITIONS whilst JUSTIFYING YOUR OWN – There is no RIGHT answer in academic writing, the position you take is just one of many possible positions that may all have some merit. You must give these other opinions respect and acknowledge their existence whilst arguing that your own is the best one to hold (either because you write about the flaws in the other arguments or because you write about why your position has stronger arguments). 

5. In order to do this, you must MAKE SURE YOUR OWN ARGUMENTS ARE STRONG – your own claims must be well founded based on the evidence you have included to back them up. Use the same level of criticality that you would when analyzing the arguments of others. Is your evidence the most relevant? Have you made the appropriate connections between it and your claims? Are you persuading or just informing? 

6. Make sure YOUR OVERALL CONCLUSION IS OBVIOUS AND EXPECTED – it should have no new information and should certainly never be a surprise to your reader. You should have already let the reader know where you intend to go in your introduction. Each of the points in the main body of your argument should naturally progress towards the conclusion – which should summarise them into a neat package for the reader to finish with. The last thing your reader needs is for you to introduce any new points at this stage as these could lead to somewhere unexpected. Resist this temptation and end at the anticipated conclusion to finish your assignment with a satisfying close. To summarise 

 Read critically by make sure your sources are appropriate and relevant. 

 Read with a healthy skepticism, deciding if you think the writer’s arguments are strong 

 You should then be able to decide your own position on the issue. 

 Start your writing by stating your position 

 Try to convince your reader that this is the best position by persuading rather than informing 

 Justify every paragraph by helping the reader understand how each point relates to your overall argument 

 Make sure you are balanced, acknowledging other viewpoints but arguing your own. 

 Be critical about your own arguments – make sure they will stand up to scrutiny 

 Make sure your points all lead to a natural and expected conclusion