Critical thinking and critical writing is no stranger to me who has taken the IELTS test. It even runs through the entire English learning process. But in many cases it is a routine exercise.
This Friday’s course gave me a deeper understanding of what is critical thinking, obstacles and how to think critically. In addition, we also compared the difference between critical writing and descriptive writing. And how to avoid academic style.
What is critical thinking？
- The word ‘critical’ has positive and negative meanings
- The word ‘critical’ in academia describes your quizzical attitude when reading an article/chapter
- Being critical means weighing up the arguments for and against a particular point, as well as being aware of your own bias·
- A critique aims to subject everything to scrutiny. It is a serious examination and judgment of something. It attempts to expose and falsify ideas.
We use critical thinking skills in everydaylife all the time-automatically. We don’t always recognise our strategies as we are so familiar with them Critical thinking is based on skills such as:
- Attention to detail
- The significance of detail
- Recognition of patterns,similarities and differences, absences and presence, order and sequence
- Compare and contrast
- Sorting and labelling
How to think critically
- Be persistent-consider an issue carefully, more than once
- Look at the evidence for a viewpoint-evaluate it-what are they trying to ‘sell’ me?
- ·What are the implications of a view point-is it realistic and rational?
- Knowing facts and what is right is not what academia is about
- It is important to identify strengths, satisfactory points and weaknesses when being critical-then you must know why this is so
- You should be critical when reading, writing and listening
The barrier of critical thinking
- Going with one’s initial reaction/opinion
- Our reasoning skills are not objective-we are biased ourselves
- Wanting to know what is right and wrong
- Reluctance to criticise experts
- Not reading deeply enough around a subject-surface knowledge
What’s the difference between critical analytical and descriptive writing?
critical analytical writing
- States what happened
- Lists the main elements of a theory
- Notes the method used
- States the different components
descriptive writing
- Identifies the significance
- Evaluates strengths and weaknesses
- Argues a case according to evidence
- Identifies whether something is appropriate or suitable
- Weighs up the importance of different components
Question classification
Description
- What?
- Who?
- Where?
- When?
Analysis
- How?
- Why?
Evaluation
- What if.?
- What next?
- So what?
How to plan your essay?
- Introductions and Conclusions-about 10% of the word count each
- The remaining words are for the main body.
- So, if an essay is to be 2,000 words
- Intro and conclusion – 400 words approximately
- This leaves 1600 words
- A paragraph is usually about 250-300 words-that means 5-6 body paragraphs.
Introduction
- Write your introduction after you have writtn the rest of your essay.
- 10-15% of the essay
- Defines relevant technical terms
- Set your scene-introduce key concepts and arguments that you will be writing about in your essay.
- The introduction establishes the limits of the essay (what is to be included or excluded)
- Should reveal why the topic is of interest
- Thesis statement-presents the essay topic and the writer’s position on that topic and reveals the purpose or aim of the essay.
Academic style
- ·Avoid slang,chatty and text talk in your writing.
- ·Be concise
- ·Use formal English and clear language.
- ·Avoid contractions (can’t, won’t etc)
Personal vs academic writing
Academic Writing
- logical
- Uses reasoning
- Passive voice:’It was found that.’
- Uses evidence
- Wider database
- Objective
- Keeps to a logical sequence
Personal Writing
- Emotional
- Can be intuitive
- Active voice:I find that..
- Anecdotal
- Data from one person
- Subjective
- Tangents maybe important (going off on one)