CU Scarborough - Academic Skills: Critical Writing & Thinking

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas.

Critical Analysis

Critical analysis requires you to read widely and develop a deeper level of understanding of a subject. This requires you to question and challenge conventional views of an idea, argument, event or, situation.

• How did the idea, argument, event or, situation come to be?
• How does it connect to other ideas, arguments, events, or situations?

Critically Discuss 

Provide opposing views about a topic from a variety of different, sometimes contradictory sources and use them to come to a conclusion on a topic, practice, or theory. Requires WIDE referencing and reading.

Critically Evaluate

Look at a practice, theory, or research paper in DEPTH. Identify the good points, the bad points and back up your judgments with theory. Make recommendations and conclusions based on your ideas and what the theory suggests.

Critical Writing

'Critical writing analyses evaluates, compares, and examines the information given' (Cottrell, 2013).

There needs to be a balance between descriptive writing and critical writing, it should follow the basic structure below. 

Description > Critical Analysis > Evaluation

Descriptive Writing	Critical Writing
States what happened...	Identifies the significant points of what happened...
States what something is like...	Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses...
Explains the story...	Evaluate certain information against other research and theories...
Outlines how something works...	Indicates why something will work best...
States the methods that are used in research...	Identifies exactly why the methods are useful for different types of research and aims/questions...
States when something occurred...	Identifies why the timing was important...
States options...	Gives reasons behind those options...

Source: Adapted from Cottrell, 2013, p. 198

Introducing questions, problems, and limitations: theory or argument

The main weakness with this theory is that …

The key problem with this explanation is that …

However, this theory does not fully explain why …

One criticism of much of the literature on X is that …

However, there is an inconsistency with this argument.

A serious weakness with this argument, however, is that …

One question that needs to be asked, however, is whether …

Smith’s argument relies too heavily on qualitative analysis of …

Smith’s interpretation overlooks much of the historical research …

Many writers have challenged Smith’s claim on the grounds that …

Smith’s analysis does not take account of X, nor does he examine …

It seems that Jones’ understanding of the X framework is questionable.

The existing accounts fail to resolve the contradiction between X and Y.

One of the limitations of this explanation is that it does not explain why…

Introducing general criticism

Critics question the ability of poststructuralist theory to provide …

Non-government agencies are also very critical of the new policies.

Smith’s meta-analysis has been subjected to considerable criticism.

The most important of these criticisms is that Smith failed to note that …

The X theory has been vigorously challenged in recent years by a number of writers.

These claims have been strongly contested in recent years by a number of writers.

More recent arguments against X have been summarised by Smith and Jones (1982):

Critics have also argued that not only do surveys provide an inaccurate measure of X, but the …

Many analysts now argue that the strategy of X has not been successful.

Jones (2003), for example, argues that …

Critical Analysis Questions

Journal Articles

Journal articles can be found by searching the databases through The Locate link here. 

They are articles written by experts in their field and are academic sources that you can reference to support your arguments and ideas when completing your assignments.

Resources