Critical thinking

Spot the signals in the brief

Discuss, analyse, synthesise, contrast, consider, compare, evaluate,
criticise, interpret, justify.

Read and interact with texts

• See note making and research.
• Always consider the purpose, context and the author’s motivation.
• Practise summarising and paraphrasing.
• Be curious and explore – but watch out for distractions (keep reminding yourself to focus).

Multiple sources

• Compare and evaluate views from different sources.
• Creating spidergrams and concept maps shows the bigger picture and how ideas fit together.

In your writing

• Be well informed rather than opinionated.
• Show that your ideas and interpretations have developed from the research that you have done.
• You won’t always find a single clear answer or interpretation – you may need to embrace uncertainty.
• See writing tips.

Multiple sources

• Compare, contrast, evaluate and contextualise views from a range of authors
• Remember that academic debate will rarely arrive at a single answer

Be logical and informed

• Aim to be logical, reasonable, focussed and systematic
• Be informed rather than opinionated
• Use different paragraphs to separate critical writing from writing that is just descriptive