(Current Studies, by blog description (2015-16)) - Click on each label to see corresponding posts!

Friday 6 November 2015

Theory - Critical analysis - Short lecture / group seminar.

Dr Beth Coldwell provided a short lecture regarding critical thinking, and opened the discussion with the old cliche "if it's too good to be true, it usually is!"

The point of this quotation is to underline the importance that whenever a claim is made, - if we as students are to depend on this, we must search for its validity in academic literature, but we must be aware that even in published papers there are claims that may only be partially true. The key is to find proper supporting validity in order for our opinions to be made when writing our essay. An example was to consider the claim made by the National express newspaper in 2009 which claimed that by drinking 7 cups of coffee each day, or more, would lead us into having hallucinations. This piece of newspaper reporting was based on a very narrow piece of research, with a very dubious range of participants based on demographic of university students. It did not represent wider population. Many people drink more than 7 cups of coffee every day and have no ill effects, and yet a national newspaper was able to publish this?

Critical thinking and reading is not about being negative. It is about considering all the points of an argument academically. In our reading, we are likely to find authors with different views about the subject which is to investigate. It is our job as an essay writer to consider as many if not all the views in order to come up with our own opinions. It is therefore necessary to find the correct references, and then to follow them up and checked them in detail.


  • An essay requires an academic argument.
  • The argument is a journey which is taken in order to explore and find consensus.
  • The argument moves beyond the discussion and also beyond simply describing whatever the topic of interest might be. If an essay becomes a discussion or description about the topic only, it has little weight.
  • An essay needs to have enquiry and critical thought together with proper reasoning and challenging of existing knowledge in order to create new knowledge to any existing body of research. This is what makes a good essay both interesting and successful.

No comments:

Post a Comment