Critical Thinking in Academic Writing

Have you ever experienced how difficult it is to become objective when writing a critical thinking essay? When it comes to college and university assignments, critical writings are the least favorite ones among students. It is hard for them to be more analytical instead of descriptive in their essays.

A critical essay is given to see how critical and independent students can be in their opinions and ideas. They should be able to provide new perspective and personal point of view about a certain problem or question discussed in the work. Instead, so many students describe the problem, but not evaluate it. So, we’ve prepared for you a list of tips and tricks on how to develop a critical thinking on your own and compose qualitative essays based on the knowledge you’ll get. Ready to become a critical thinking essay expert?  

Critical Thinking: How to Develop Your Skills

Developing critical thinking skills is much easier than it seems to be. Just a couple of exercises and a few tricks can improve your critical and writing skills a lot. First of all, let’s understand what a critical thinking is.

A critical thinking is a process of analytical evaluation of a certain situation or problem. This is one of those activities, which can be easily developed by everyday practice and regular exercises. For example:

• Practice differentiating the fact and the perception of the different problems. Take a statement and differentiate what in it is a fact, and what is an opinion.
• Practice to divide, sort out, and group the characteristics of different subjects;
• Compare and contrast different subjects accordingly to the information, which you’ve sorted out.

In general, critical thinking is about evaluating, reasoning, being reflective and problem-solving. These three factors influence how strong or weak your evaluating activity is.

When it comes to critical writing, you should base your essay on thinking critically, providing an argument, giving the reasoning, and scepticism. Thinking critically means pointing out whether you believe a certain information or not, and why. What arguments do you have to support your opinion? We recommend the approach when you ask yourself a question of what exactly you know for now, which gives you the reason to believe a certain statement or not. What do you know? What sources do you use? Is this new information? How trustworthy are the sources you’re using? Then, search for one convincing argument at least. Is there any doubt in your own opinion? How considerable is it?

One of the most important elements of any critical thinking essay is an argument along with a line of reasoning, which is a set of reasons to support that argument.

Critical thinking essays can’t discuss information which doesn’t concern the topic specifically. So, if you feel like going away from the argument and reasoning, or the topic in general, stop. Look at the question you have to discuss it from different angles. Avoid unnecessary repetitions. Don’t build the whole essay on the same argument, reason, and source, if it is not strong enough. Your writing should develop logically.

At the same time, mention the possibility that the information you have is incomplete or not 100% correct, so you can’t be completely sure that the statement you’re discussing is correct or incorrect only. A reasonable doubt is only a plus for a critical thinking writing. Talk about other perspectives on the issue.

At the end of your essay, you can evaluate and list the critical analysis of others. You can include their positions and reasons. How do those opinions differ from yours? You can use that information to help you to understand the topic better and look at it from very different angles. As there is always another approach to the topic.

That’s all for the critical thinking analysis. The main thing to remember is to look for another perspective and angle to the question discussed in order to make your opinion an objective one.