Collected

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Critical thinking
Thinking critically about your topic
The critical thinking model introduced in this course explained three phases:
description, analysis and evaluation. Explore what each phase means:
Description When you describe your topic you are thinking about the
background and information you need to put your topic in
context. You might ask these types of questions:
• What is the situation?
• What is the main problem?
• Who is involved?
• When does this happen?
Analysis When you analyse your topic you begin to explore
relationships between different factors. You think about
possible scenarios and responses to your topic. You might
ask these types of questions:
• Why did this happen?
• What factors contributed to it?
• How do the factors relate to each other?
Evaluation When you evaluate your topic you begin to go beyond
analysis and start to make conclusions. You think about what
you can learn from the topic, and what wider implications
there are. You might ask these types of questions:
• What can you learn from the topic?
• What is the significance of it?
• What general rules or patterns can you see?

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Critically evaluating a source
Critical thinking is an important life skill, and an essential part of university studies.
Central to critical thinking is asking meaningful questions. You should aim to ask
questions about the materials you read, and compare them with different source
types to build up a more complete picture of the issue or topic you are investigating.
In your critical thinking, you should ask these key questions:
 Who produced this source? What is their background or expertise?
 What is the purpose of the source? What might be the motivation behind it?
 How valid are the conclusions or assertions made? Is the argument logically
constructed?
 Is there evidence to support the arguments or claims made? How was this
collected or developed?
 Does the source fit with what you know about the topic, or with broader
research on the topic?
 What is the context of this research? How does it relate to existing arguments,
debates or concepts?
Objectivity and bias
Asking these questions will help you decide whether a source is likely to be objective
or biased. You can use the information you have about a source to decide how likely
you are to believe what the source tells you, or whether there are limitations in how
you can use the source.
For instance, if you read a blog post about the work oil companies are doing to
protect the natural environment and notice it is written by the Chief Executive of an
oil company, you may question whether the information is biased, and if it is
trustworthy.
There can even be bias in sources which seem like they provide impartial data. For
example, a clinical trial which shows the effects of a new drug on people with a
particular health problem can still contain bias. It may depend on how participants
were selected to participate in the trial. The way data is recorded and processed is
also not necessarily impartial.

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However, it is important to remember that even though a source may be biased, you
can still use it. You must just make sure that you use your critical skills to analyse its
limitations and evaluate what you can learn from it.