What does it mean to be critical?
time to complete: 10 minutes
Sometimes students misunderstand what being critical involves. It isn’t just about being negative, but involves a variety of skills. When your lecturers set an assignment instructing you to Discuss, Comment on, Assess…, etc., they are inviting you to demonstrate your critical thinking.
Critical thinking in university work means really thinking about what you’re reading, asking questions, not always believing everything you read (or hear) is true.
Key features of critical thinking
- you don’t just accept information or situations that are given to you.
- you try to understand why they are the way they are.
- you ask what other possibilities exist, and what you might be able to do about them.
- you are expected not simply to accept and repeat what you have read, but to make clear how valid you think it is in general, and how relevant it is to your own topic
At university you will need to demonstrate your critical thinking skills in a variety of areas:
Critical reading
When reading, you need to ask questions about the text. This will keep you focused, and help you to develop an understanding of the text.
Evaluating arguments
When reading a text containing an argument, you need to evaluate whether the writer has supported their ideas sufficiently and whether you agree with them.
Critical writing
When writing, you need to make sure that each main idea you focus on is supported with sources and that you always comment on/ develop/ evaluate sources’ ideas to help build your own argument.