Understanding Critical Writing

Critical Writing
Copyright © 2021 Talent & Skills HuB

Objectives
To Understand what Critical Writing is
To Understand how to write critically
To Understand the Phrases for Demonstrating Your Critical Thinking/Reasoning

Understanding the Act of
Critical Writing
The ability to communicate your critical thinking in
your assignments and course works is important to your
success in your academic career. Critical writing helps
you to do so.
Academic essays consist of two writing styles:
descriptive writing and critical writing. To understand
critical writing fully, let's examine what descriptive
writing is.

Descriptive Writing
Describes (gives an account of/gives details on) what something is: a topic,
problem, situation, or context of the subject under discussion.
May describe where the situation takes place, who is involved when it occurs.
Provides background information to your discussion of the essay question.
Background description usually comes before critical analysis so that the reader
can understand the topic you are critically engaging with.
A good way to remember descriptive writing is that it provides information on:
what, who, where, when. Descriptive writing demonstrates to your marker the
knowledge you have of a subject (of what something is) and your knowledge of
what other people say about that subject.

What is Critical Writing?
Critical writing requires that you to apply analysis and evaluation to the
descriptions you have provided. Writers who can produce persuasive critical
writing use evidence to support their ideas.

Elements of Critical Writing
Critical writing allows you to:
Apply an idea or theory to different situations. Some of the questions
that will help you to think critically include asking:
Does the idea work in practice or not?
Is there a factor that makes this work/not work? (relating theory to
practice). For example: 'Smith's (2008) theory on teamwork is effective
in the workplace BECAUSE it allows a diverse group of people with
different skills to work effectively’.
Justify the reason(s) why a process or policy exists.
Suggest an alternative approach to view and act on situations.

Elements of Critical Writing Continues
Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of an idea/theory/policy. Why does this
idea/theory/policy work? Or, why does this idea not work?
Demonstrate how the idea links to other ideas in the field (synthesis). For example: 'the
user experience of parks can be greatly enhanced by examining Donnelly's (2009)
customer service model used in retail.
Demonstrate how the idea compares and contrasts with other ideas/theories
(comparison/classification of the type of theory). For example: The approach advocated
by the GFM differs in comparison because of factor A and factor C.
Demonstrate the “up-to-date” and relevance of an idea/theory/policy (currency). For
example: 'although this approach was successful in supporting the local community,
Smith's model does not accommodate the needs of a modern global economy'.

Elements of Critical Writing Continues
Evaluate an idea/theory/policy by providing an evidence-informed judgment. For
example: 'Therefore, May's delivery model should be discontinued as it has created
significant issues for both customers and staff (Ransom, 2018)'.
Create new perspectives or arguments based on knowledge. For example: 'to create
strong and efficient buildings, we will look to the designs provided by nature. The
designs of the Sydney Opera house are based on the segments of an orange (Cook,
2019)'.
To conclude, critical writing takes positive and negative approaches to ideas and
interrogates them. Once you have interrogated an idea or theory, you can then provide
an evidence-based judgment.

How to Write Critically
It is important to remember that having lots of critical analysis will not matter if
your ideas are not clearly structured.
To maintain structure in your critical writing, it is important to use paragraphs
correctly. Using a good paragraph structure will enable the reader to clearly see
your descriptive writing followed by your critical writing.

How to Write Critically Continued
For an example of a critical writing, have a look at the following paragraph:
According to research by the Food Standards Agency (2015), there may be a link between
late nights and childhood obesity in children. However, this research focuses only on the
area of sleep and does not consider many of the other factors associated with late nights,
such as what children eat when they stay up late. Compared to other known factors
influencing childhood obesity, there is insufficient evidence about the effect of late nights
for this to be taken very seriously by policymakers, though this may change with further
research.
This paragraph consists of three sentences: descriptive statement (who, when, what),
critical statement and judgement statement.

How to Write Critically Continued
Descriptive Statement (who, when, what):
According to research by the Food Standards Agency published in 2015, there may be a link between
late nights and childhood obesity in children.
Critical Statement:
However, this research focuses only on the area of sleep and does not consider many of the other
factors associated with late nights, such as what children eat when they stay up late.
Judgment Statement:
Compared to other known factors influencing childhood obesity, there is insufficient evidence about
the effect of late nights for this to be taken very seriously by policymakers, though this may change
with further research.

Paragraph Structure of Critical Writing
It is good academic practice to follow a three-sentence structure where you can provide
description, analysis and evaluation.
See below for a breakdown:
Descriptive statement + Critical statement + Judgment statement
According to… However… Overall…
Smith argues that… Alternatively… Therefore…
This structure helps you to include both description and critical analysis and shows visually where
the sections begin and end.
Moreover, it allows you to check the balance between description and critical writing and make
sure that you have enough critical content.

Phrases for Demonstrating Your Critical
Thinking
When writing your critical and evaluation statement, think carefully about the point you
are trying to make, and use the corresponding language to highlight this to the reader.
When you are comparing / contrasting two theories: Similarly / On the other hand…etc.
When you are offering an alternative point of view: An alternative argument…
 When you are highlighting a weakness in a theory: One major drawback of this
approach…

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Understanding Critical Writing

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