Thinking and writing critically are talked about a great deal at university. Tutors expect it and students often struggle to understand what it is. That feedback saying, ‘be more critical’ may have you wondering what it means? It's common feedback and is often not well understood.
Critical thinking is a skill that can be learnt and developed. Once you’ve got it, it will carry you through your time at university and beyond into employment.
Critical thinking and reading
Thinking critically while you are reading is the start of being critical in your writing. When you read, and make notes, you are critically selecting relevant information from your sources to build your own argument.
First of all, take notes and organise them. You may find a synthesis matrix a useful tool to develop themes and organise your notes.
Reading critically is all about reading with your brain switched on. It means actively engaging with what you're reading rather than just accepting it. To begin with, ask yourself, ‘What does this author say?’. Then ask questions such as, ‘Why do they say it?’, ‘What evidence supports it?’, and ‘Does it agree with other sources I've read?’
While you’re reading look for similarities and differences, development of one idea from another, and missing thoughts or assumptions. Also evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of what you are reading and consider context, implications and any unanswered questions. You can use all of these critical thought processes when you come to write up your essay.
Critical thinking and writing
Are your sources talking to each other or standing in a queue?
It can seem easiest to deal with information from one source at a time. So you might write a paragraph about what Author A has said, then a paragraph from Author B followed by a third paragraph using information from Author C. These three consecutive paragraphs show you have found the relevant information and understood it, but you’re dealing with each source separately. Your sources are standing individually in a queue. This often results in three descriptive paragraphs. To think and write critically, your sources should talk to each other. For example:
Author A (2020) claimed X. However, Author B (2022) found that more recent data did not support this conclusion, suggesting that Author A's findings may have been limited by the evidence available at the time. Building on this revised understanding, Author C (2025) combined Author B's data with findings from a larger participant group to develop the MPQ model. This progression illustrates how increasing data availability can lead to more robust theoretical frameworks and demonstrates the evolving nature of knowledge in this field.
In this example, the sources are interacting with each other rather than standing in a queue and being described separately, and the paragraph is much more critical as a result. The interrelationships between the sources are shown. Sources that simply stand in a queue and discuss one aspect at a time show your knowledge, but sources that interact, challenge, support, extend, and qualify one another demonstrate criticality.
If you want to write critically, make sure you think critically about your reading and that your sources are talking to each other when you write.
Remember the ‘So what’ principle
The so-what principle is more of a guideline than a strict rule and is often most useful when thinking about the end of the paragraph. If your paragraphs regularly end with a reference, it might be worth checking that you’ve explained why the evidence is important, even if its significance seems obvious to you. For example:
…In winter in the UK darkness falls at approximately 16:00 (evidence). As a result there is a significant early evening surge of gas and electric usage in the winter months (more evidence). Therefore supply within the grid needs to be carefully managed in the early evening and electricity may have to be imported (so what, why the evidence is important).
The final sentence explains the significance of the preceding evidence rather than just adding another fact. If you do this, you show you have thought critically about the information and considered what it means. It also reduces the risk of your reader during their own conclusions… which may be different from yours.
Into employment
Critical thinking is more than just an academic skill needed to get good grades. Critical thinking and writing are skills that are very transferrable from university into the workplace and exactly the same thinking processes are required in employment as in the critical academic writing for your course.
Critical thinking skills you are likely to need in your future employment include:
- problem solving
- decision making
- risk assessment
- strategic thinking
- innovation and creativity
- evidence-based decision making
- professional judgement
When you write an essay you select and evaluate information, apply theory to practice and assess outcomes, analyse problems to find solutions and assess risks amongst other skills. It is easy to see how all of this critical thinking approach can be transferred to a workplace setting. Critical thinking helps you make informed decisions based on evidence rather than assumptions and employers value it for exactly the same reasons that tutors do.
Thinking critically is a skill you will use throughout your life and the same skills that enable you to write a high scoring essay are valued and sought after by employers. The critical thinking habits you learn at university will continue to serve you long after graduation.
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