Skip to Main Content

Mini-module: Quick Guide to Critical Writing

The top ten tips for showing critical thinking in your writing. This mini-module is for you if you are being a critical thinker, but you are not sure how to show this in your writing.

The Top Ten Tips for Critical WritingPage 2 of 13

Here is a list of the top ten tips for making your writing more critical. 

 

Top ten tips:

  1. Show more than one source.
  2. State your overall point – the “Thesis Statement” – in the introduction.
  3. Show confidence and student voice.
  4. Try not to use direct quotations.
  5. Start paragraphs with a statement (the “topic sentence”)
  6. Try to present the other side of the argument
  7. Show awareness of different levels of certainty/uncertainty
  8. “Unpack” or explain concepts clearly
  9. Identify or highlight any relevant key issues
  10. Use academic style and vocabulary

To get an idea of what all this means, here are two examples - the first is bad and the second is good. 

1. Example of UN-CRITICAL writing

  “Smith (1989, p20) says that, ‘Moreover, there is no cameo appearance by Hitchcock in his last British film Jamaica Inn made in 1938’. This is a reason why Jamaica Inn is not a typical Hitchcock film. Smith (1989, p20) says that, ‘The leading actor in the film was Charles Laughton, but he was also the producer’, so Hitchcock was not free to tell Laughton what to do and how the film should be. So, many people think that it is not a typical Hitchcock film...”

What are some reasons for it being UN-critical writing? Some things It did not do, but should have done, are the following:

  • Included a topic sentence
  • Avoided unnecessary quotes (especially avoid long quotes)
  • Given more than one reference
  • Shown the “voice” of the writer
  • Included evidence of the writer being aware of uncertainty 
  • Included mention or discussion of other opinions


Here is a better version of the same paragraph, showing more features of critical writing.

2. Example of CRITICAL writing

   "The 1939 film Jamaica Inn is not a typical Hitchcock film because he probably did not have creative control over it. Normally, Hitchcock had full artistic control of his films, which is why Truffaut (1958) described him as an auteur (literally “author”). It is, therefore, surprising that there are none of Hitchcock’s usual trademarks in this film. The explanation seems to be that the lead actor, Charles Laughton, was also the producer of Jamaica Inn, and therefore had ultimate control over the film. Apart from Black (1967), most authors agree (Smith 1989, p20; Jones 2011) that almost certainly, Hitchcock had to follow Laughton’s vision for the film,. As a result, Hitchcock did not include his usual tropes, such as his signature cameo appearance, in protest about this.”

This is better because:

  • There is a strong topic sentence
  • There are no unnecessary quotes
  • There are more references and there is a pair of citations for one of the points to show that it is not a unique opinion
  • Voice – there is now a stronger impression of it being the writer’s own view rather than a report of what other writers have said. The lack of quotations and the confident topic sentence help to produce this effect.
  • The “hedging” words ("seems to be", “probably”, “normally”, “almost certainly”, “suggest” ) show that the writer is aware of uncertainty.
  • There is acknowledgement of differing views.


Click on each of the top ten points at the top of this page to get the details, or click Next at the bottom of the page to go through them all one-by-one.