being more critical in your writing
DESCRIPTION
ÂTRANSCRIPT
Grade: C
Student: 01115673
Whilst this essay demonstrates some knowledge of the essay question, it is largely descriptive and thus the discussion is quite superficial. The essay is reasonably well structured, but it is difficult to identify a main argument and there is little critical analysis of the evidence used to support the ideas being presented. In addition the writing is not particularly academic.
This afternoon
What does it mean to be critical?
Translating your opinion into academic arguments
Integrating evidence into your writing
Expressing your ideas academically
… a critical response to an academic
debate
Academic writing is…
Universities, as specialist institutions of research, attempt to live up to the highest possible standard of knowledge and truth
Academic debates are never finally settled
Assignment questions and research projects are always based on these debates
To write critically, you must construct your own response to this debate
Academic debates and you
Being critical
Academic writing requires you to go beyond describing what has been said into analysing and evaluating the literature and beyond
Describing Analysing, Evaluating and Synthesising
Writing critically means demonstrating your contribution to the debate through the analysis, discussion and evaluation of evidence
Ultimately, academic writing is about expressing an informed and authoritative opinion objectively and concisely
Academic writing is what you think, but it isn’t your simply your opinion
Your opinion becomes an academic argument because it is defended with evidence and analysis
Taking a Stand
Read and research with the goal of finding your response to the assessment/research question
Articulate this response as an academic argument
Organise your writing to defend this argument through a logical structure and the integration of evidence
Express your ideas academically so that the reader can follow your argument
The critical writing process
Building arguments
Critical writing begins with critical research
Avoid reading just to record what is being said: try to develop your ideas as you read
Do record important moments in the text, but take time to develop your thoughts
Creating reflections
You will never know more about a text than when you are involved in it
If you have ideas or reflections, write about them – it only takes one moment of clarity to build an idea
By developing extended notes you are able to expand your thinking and link to previous ideas – the building of an argument
These extended notes can often be the basis for your writing
Developing ideas
Don’t stop yourself from thinking!
Organising ideas
Writing can become descriptive when we focus on re-writing our notes into your formal writing: describing your research
Instead, ensure you have identified your primary purpose before you begin to formally write
Along with a more detailed note-making process, it may be valuable to use mind-maps or free-writing
Asserting your argument
In essays, your argument is previewed at the beginning of your work: the thesis statement
Thesis statements contain your justified response to the assignment question
Thesis statements contain a claim, a justification and are often supplemented by a qualifying statement.
Thesis Statements
Asserting your Position
Context
Preview
Thesis Statement
Hook the reader and tell them what they need to know about the debate
Tell the reader your process for responding the question
Tell them what you will be arguing
ways, such as an increased focus on teaching standards, to maintain satisfaction levels without extra funding.
as they demand stronger services from universities that have not been provided with extra funding to offer that support. Conversely, there may be other
As fees rise, students’ satisfaction is likely to decrease
Question: Critically evaluate the impact of fee increases on student satisfaction in higher education
Thesis:
Make sure your position is clear to
the reader
Defending this position
Your primary argument is the basis of the structure of your writing
What do you need to discuss to convince the reader?
This will include the integration of counter-arguments
To convince the reader we need to incorporate evidence into our work
Integrating Evidence
Evidence
In order to move our position from opinion to argument, we need to integrate relevant evidence into our work
Here it is vital to go beyond describing this evidence into critically analysing it, particularly if it contrasts with your main point
The way you discuss this evidence is vital for making your writing more critical
Using evidence: The common errors
‘Working class mothers smoke much more than others.’
‘Working class mothers smoke much more than others. “Low income people are often stressed, which leads to an increased desire to
smoke” (Daily Mail, 2014). As a consequence we can see that poorer mothers take less care of their health.’
‘According to the NHS (1991), working-class mothers are 25.2% more likely to smoke than other mothers.’
Separate and not equal
Whilst evidence is required, different forms of evidence have different levels of authority
Your role as a student is to be able to evaluate evidence and decide what is appropriate to justify your ideas
Make sure you extend your explanation to demonstrate the significance of the research
Don’t let the evidence speak for itself
Always ask, so what?
Beyond Description
Academic writing is always a mix of description and critique
Key ideas are established, but need to be expanded on in detail and the implications drawn out
Not just what is being said, but why and what are the consequences
Ask, ‘So What?’
The ‘Washington Consensus’ of the early 1990s gave way by the late 1990s to the ‘post-Washington Consensus’ and the new humanitarianism of ‘soft neoliberalism’ (see Fine, 2001), including the World Bank’s initiation of a three-part study of poverty titled Voices of the Poor for the World Development Report 2000/2001. STATEMENT
This study sought to highlight regional patterns of global poverty while providing the world’s poor with a platform through which they could speak about their plight in their own words (see, for example, Narayan et al., 2000). Uniquely, this study was built on interviews with the poor around the world and sought to understand the everyday feelings and relationships of what it means to be poor. EVIDENCE AND EXPLANATION
This heralded, as Pupavac (2005) rightly notes, a more psychological and intangible way of studying poverty; one that highlighted the importance of ‘tacit knowledge’ in the shape of individual stories, narratives and feelings about what it means to live in hardship and deprivation in order to build a definition of poverty based on first-hand accounts.
So what?
Although previous studies have linked celebrity endorsers with children’s beliefs about food,16 this study is this first to quantify the powerful influence of celebrity endorsement on children’s brand preferences and actual consumption (p.340)
Boyland, E.J. et al. (2013) Food Choice and Overconsumption: Effect of a Premium Sports Celebrity Endorser. The Journal of Pediatrics, 163 (2).
This study demonstrates the effects of exposure to celebrity endorsement in TV food advertising on ad libitum intake of the endorsed product and a perceived alternative brand of the same food item. STATEMENT
Our data show that experimental exposure to a TV commercial for potato chips featuring a celebrity endorser commercial significantly increased children’s caloric intake of the endorsed brand of chips compared with exposure to commercials for an alternative snack food and a non-food item. Moreover, viewing the same celebrity endorser in a different, non-food context (presenting a soccer highlights TV program) also significantly increased intake of the endorsed brand of chips relative to exposure to a different snack food or non-food commercial. EXPLANATION AND EVIDENCE
So what?
So, what next?
Create links to ‘drive’ your reader around your argument
These links can be developed within paragraphs through signposts
Alternatively, links are established at the beginning and end of paragraphs
Establishing Connections
Globalisation…
Moreover
However
Drive your reader around
The domestication of students is accomplished through what Freire (1970) famously referred to as the "banking method" of education. In the banking method of education, teachers treat students as empty vessels to be filled with information through didactic lectures based on commercialized texts (Shor, 1992). Students are primarily involved in memorizing and regurgitating facts, while the teacher is the central focus. She or he has ultimate authority in passing on knowledge and is not interested in student input. In this approach, students experience education as something done to them, not something in which they are actively involved. In the banking method, students may leave with a stockpile of deposited knowledge but they are often left with a sense of disengagement from the learning process and alienation from their social world (Johnson, 2005). Critical pedagogy, on the other hand, is a student centred approach that assumes that informed individuals can (and do) intervene and change their worlds. Critical pedagogy… Conversely,
Develop an academic vocabulary
Smith believes
It is proven that
Smith is wrong
We might think that students…
In my opinion students
Smith (2014) argues
Evidence suggests that
Smith’s (2014) approach is problematic
Although students may…
Students
Whilst academic writers tend avoid descriptive language, subtle changes in meaning can be added, and varied, through verbs
e.g. In order to control classroom behaviours, teachers must X confidence
1. Possess
2. Generate
3. Obtain
Using sources: Varying verbs
Stuck for words?
www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk
www.visualthesaurus.com
Summary
Academic writing is always what you think
Critical writing begins with the research process
Make an argument and make your defend this with a logic structure and clearly integrated evidence
Demonstrate your contribution to the debate through your writing style
Further assistance
Contact ASK at [email protected] or see http://www.brunel.ac.uk/library/ask Watch our writing videos Come by our drop-ins, Mon-Fri 1 – 6 pm (From next week) Friday: ASK Writing Drop-In 11am-3pm in the Workshop Room