Thinking, Reading and Writing Critically

In order to get the highest possible grades in a subject assessed in

writing you need to be able to demonstrate an ability to think
critically about the sources of information (text-books, academic
papers, academic websites and the like) that you use in the
construction your answer. You must, in other words, do more than
simply take information from other sources and use it construct an
answer. It is not enough to select some apposite uotations and
demonstrate in that way that you ha!e read around a subject
widely and found some pertinent sources of supporting
information. "o get the highest grades you must be able to
replicate a professional academic#s ability to critically assess the
academic work of other, published authors.
$any professional academics are capable of doing this
because o!er the course of a career they ha!e read an enormous
number of text-books and papers in a subject area and, as a result,
possess and ha!e mastered a large body of knowledge that they can
use to critically assess any new work they encounter. Indeed, for
such academics the process of reading critically may ha!e become
almost entirely subconscious. %s they read a new paper in their
subject area they cannot stop their brains from critically comparing
the new information with the knowledge they already possess.
&learly, as students, you do not yet possess such an extensi!e body
of knowledge, nor can you hope to acuire one uickly enough to
apply it to any gi!en assessment task. 'e!ertheless, in order to get
the highest possible grades you need to be able to emulate this
kind of critical reading beha!iour and then demonstrate that you
understand what is reuired in your written work.
%t (rst sight this appears an unreasonable and impossible
task) howe!er you need not despair. You may not be able to
assimilate the reuisite body of knowledge to exactly replicate the
beha!iour of a professional academic expert, but you can certainly
be critical in the way you select material to read, and then
demonstrate critical thinking in the way you use and write about
that material.
Techniques
The comparison of multiple texts
If you can obtain more than one rele!ant, published source that
deals with the subject upon which you are being assessed, you can
adopt a critical approach. Instead of simply referring to the sources
you ha!e found and uoting extracts that support your answer, you
can go further by comparing and contrasting !arious aspects of
your sources. "hus you might consider*
the breadth of di+erent pieces of work - how wide a range of
the possible subject matter de(ned by your uestion(s) or
task(s) do di+erent pieces of work co!er,
the depth of the di+erent pieces of work - how detailed is the
analysis of the subject matter in each piece of work,
the rele!ance of each piece of work to your speci(c
uestion(s) or task(s) - how much of the subject matter you
are being assessed on do di+erent pieces of work co!er,
-hat details do each source miss out, - and so on.
gaps in the form of rele!ant details of the subject matter that
one might reasonably ha!e expected the works you are
reading to ha!e dealt with, that are present in one piece of
work but not another.
contradictions and inconsistencies that arise from
comparisons between the work of di+erent authors
In some subject areas you will (nd a number of suitable academic
publications discussing the ad!antages and disad!antages or costs
and bene(ts of a gi!en policy or course of action. In such
circumstances it is possible to become more critical by looking for
examples of authors arguing for and against the same factor within
that subject area.

.or example, at the time of writing, there is a large amount of
material published on the debate about whether the /0 should join
the 1uro. 2ome authors argue that joining the 1uro would enhance
/0 competiti!eness. 3owe!er, it is also possible to (nd academic
authorities arguing that it was precisely the fact that the /0 did
not allow its currency to match that of the rest of 1urope in the
months following 4lack -ednesday in 5667 that led to a sharp
increase in /0 competiti!eness. In other words that if we had
joined the 1uro earlier it would ha!e reduced our competiti!eness.
"hus it would be perfectly possible to o+er appropriate, high
uality, academic sources arguing for and against the same topic.
You could then use each to critically assess the other. "his
procedure is applicable in any subject area where there are
arguments for and against a policy or course of action.
The identification of logical flaws
"he comparison of published sources is a good place to start, but
the award of the highest grades will be assisted if you can also
apply more sophisticated forms of criticism. 2ome of these do not
reuire an expert#s mastery of the detail of a subject area. "hus you
may draw upon your understanding of critical reasoning theory and
identify logical 8aws in the sources you are employing by*
recognising unco!ering and challenging key, un-stated,
in!alid assumptions in arguments.
distinguishing when authors mistakenly use unpro!en
hypotheses as though they were established facts.
identifying occasions when authors wrongly employ opinions
whilst claiming that they are facts.
highlighting the absence of e!idence that is rele!ant and
essential for the !alidation of an argument in the work you
are referring to.
identifying when arguments contain irrele!ant statements
and e!idence.
identifying logical fallacies.
The critical assessment of Research Methods
If you are working with empirical studies you may be able to draw
upon your understanding of 9esearch $ethods and critically
comment upon*
the suitability of the research design.
the e+ecti!eness of the data collection process.
the !alidity of the sample selection process .
the appropriateness of the chosen research methodology to
the subject being researched.
"his kind of critical analysis is helped if you can (nd more than one
published piece of empirical research and compare the way the
di+erent authors approached the task. %gain, the process of
comparison may highlight de(ciencies in one or other piece of
work.
Searching for help in the literature itself
2ome forms of publication may contain self-critical comments. "hus
many empirical studies include section entitled :2hortcomings# in
which the author(s) discuss how the methods or approach they
used could ha!e been impro!ed upon. You may also (nd such
comments in sections entitled #.uture research#. You can uickly
identify empirical studies by scanning the contents of papers to see
if they ha!e sections on :research methods#, :research design# or
:(ndings#. 1mpirical papers freuently also ha!e a section dealing
with :the literature# or called :literature sur!ey# in which the
author(s) discuss existing published treatments of the subject they
are writing about. In the process, many authors take the
opportunity to highlight the de(ciencies of the existing treatments.
2ome publications consist of re!iews or comparisons of other
papers. "hese typically include the words :$eta-sur!ey#, :$eta-
re!iew# or :$eta-analysis# in their title or abstract, and freuently
include critical assessments of the papers they re!iew or sur!ey.
.inally, some papers helpfully include the word :critiue# in
their title.
Illustrative Examples of critical comments
"he extracts shown below were taken from a mixture of student
assignments and published papers. "his is not an exhausti!e list,
merely a sample of the many di+erent ways one can go about
critically assessing published work. You should also note that the
examples were not selected for the uality of their written 1nglish.
I am not recommending or endorsing any particular writing style or
format by uoting these examples. I would like you simply to focus
on the !arious methods of constructing criticisms of published
work. "he examples illustrate the following types of criticism*
.lawed understanding of a phenomenon
&hallenge to a statement of :fact#
1xcessi!ely narrow subject focus
;oor data collection methods
<mission of potentially rele!ant information
=ack of e!idence to support conclusions
=ack of current data
&hallenge to the !alidity of the conclusions
1xaggerated and unsubstantiated claims
Insu+icient detail to permit the assessment of the !alidity and
reliability of the conclusions
&hallenge to the generalisability of the conclusions
;ossible confusion between correlation and causation
Flawed understanding of a phenomenon
'eiss (7>>7) contends that foreign creditors would ha!e
su+ered huge and immediate losses had the I$. not
inter!ened. 3owe!er, these are nai!e comments from a
member of an organisation that promotes the free market
approach. .oreign creditors would ha!e known the structure
of the (nancial systems in 2outh 1ast %sian countries and the
close links businesses would ha!e with their respecti!e
go!ernments. ?In other words, they would ha!e been well
aware of the risks and did not need protection from the .und.
@9A
Challenge to a statement of fact
5. In this article The Economist is also responsible for
portraying the I$. as an organisation that had no choice
other than to implement the policies it implemented. 2ince
the .und had an enormous range of possible courses of
action in response to these e!ents this portrayal is clearly not
true.
7. "here appears to be an error, or at least a discrepancy
when the data on waterway freight growth - 6 million tonnes
(B.9%, 7>>7, p. 76) is compared with the (gure of 57 million
tonnes cited in %I'% (7>>5).
Excessively narrow subject focus
<nly 0rippendorf (5666) fails to discuss in detail the
economic impact, fa!ouring instead a discussion of some of
the other e+ects of tourism. <ne might argue that the tight
concentration by other authors on the purely economic
e+ects may result in unnecessarily narrow, incomplete and
possibly biased conclusions.
Poor data collection methods
5. 3owe!er, 2tanton and 4ardoniCs (56D7) research can be
uestioned in that whilst they carried out an anonymous
uestionnaire to enlisted males under 7E years of age in
Fietnam, they left the respondent to de(ne C8ashbackC for
themsel!es. "his personal de(nition is clearly unsatisfactory
and does not enable comparisons between studies, nor does it
allow for an examination of the nature of such C8ashbackC
reports. &onseuently a major !ariable was not controlled for
or uanti(ed.
7. 3orowitG (56H6) inter!iewed a smaller sample (n I J5) of
indi!iduals said to be representati!e members of a drug-
taking community, found that J7K (that is L indi!iduals)
reported ha!ing 8ashbacks. 3owe!er there was poly-drug use
amongst this group, which could ha!e confounded the
results.
J. "he problem of possible participant bias also plagued
another study* the 4oris and $andel (566M) study which used
7H consecuti!e %B3B children referred to their allergy
practice. N. "he study has been criticiGed because 4oris is an
allergist and the group of participants was small.
mission of potentially relevant information
-hen de(ning culture as an acuired element, the authors
omit consideration of an indi!idual#s personality and genetic
makeup, although both if these factors interact with the
culture in which they are brought up to create their obser!ed
beha!iour.
!ac" of evidence to support conclusions
"he main shortcoming of this text is the author#s reliance on
personal opinion rather than empirical data. .or example, on
page J7E there is a critical attack on the go!ernment#s policy
towards pri!ate eye hospitals, but the author o+ers no data to
support the argument he is making. In the absence of any
supporting e!idence there is no way of judging the !alidity or
reliability of his conclusions and this seriously undermines
the !alue of the work.
!ac" of current data
9ecent years ha!e seen the publication of a number of
critiues of changes in funding regimes, for example*
%nderson (7>>J)) ;hillips (7>>7). 3owe!er this text was
published before the recent wa!e of reforms took place.
&onseuently, although much of the book#s contents remain
!aluable, the conclusions on this particular aspect of the
problem are at best partial in nature, and at worst no longer
rele!ant.
Challenge to the validity of the conclusions # alternative
conclusions drawn from the same supporting evidence
9esearch by the 1/ (1uropean &ommission, 7>>7) has also
shown that the most important factor impeding 2$1s of all
siGes from going digital is the belief that e-commerce is not
applicable to their type of products or ser!ices and the lack of
percei!ed commercial bene(t. 3owe!er this may be due to
the sur!ey#s focus on e-commerce rather than e-business. I&"
skills gaps seem also to be more important for small
enterprises than for larger and medium ones.
Exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims
-hen creating this theory of @I" in the late 56L>#s 3arrison
and "ersine (56L6) p. 7JM made the completely unrealistic
claim that it is possible through the pursuit of total uality
objecti!es to achie!e production with the creation of no
waste.
$nsu%icient detail to permit the assessment of the validity and
reliability of the conclusions
% lot of primary research has been conducted to help support
policy recommendations in this subject area, but 3aywood
(7>>7) is lacking depth in its explanation of both the data
collection process and sample selection criteria. Oreater
elaboration of the research process was o+ered in an earlier
paper* Oreensmith and 3aywood (5666), but in the current
work, in the absence of adeuate detail, it is extremely
di+icult to assess the !alidity and reliability of the (ndings.
Challenge to the generalisability of the conclusions
9ecent research by %ctinic (7>>7) shows that, in their sample
of /0 2$1s, D7K belie!e their e-commerce site is pro(table,
and that increased sales remain the main justi(cation for e-
commerce adoption, N3owe!er, it should be noted that :early
adopters# may ha!e done so because they could obtain these
bene(ts and it does not follows that all 2$1s will bene(t in
the same ways.
Possible confusion between correlation and causation

4oniface describes %frica ha!ing*
N a low le!el of economic de!elopment. $ost %frican
countries fall into the :least de!eloped# category with
only a few ha!ing breached the intermediate le!el of
de!elopment.
4oniface, 7>>7, p. 7M5
In contrast to this, he describes =atin %merican countries as
being at an intermediate stage of de!elopment, although
tourism in 4raGil, for example*
Naccounts for less than one per cent of OB;.
4oniface, 7>>7, p. J7D
"his ties in with the pre!ious discussion in which =umsdon
(7>>5) and Youell (5666) argued that the extent to which a
country bene(ts from its tourism acti!ity depends on the
success of its other industries. "hus =atin %merica is
noticeably more de!eloped than %frica, but it can be argued
that this may be a result of the possession of more successful
industries, rather than higher le!els of tourism acti!ity.