Tag: writing
What does critical thinking mean?
While studying geography at school, I was taught how oxbow lakes were formed. We had to copy diagrams from the blackboard into our exercise books about the stages of oxbow lake formation. We were expected to understand and remember the information and regurgitate it from memory in an exam. We weren’t told how we know that’s how oxbow lakes are formed. We weren’t told who first proved how they are formed, or what evidence that person used to demonstrate it. We weren’t told how confident geographers are that this is really how they are formed, or whether there are any alternative theories. In other words, we weren’t expected to think critically about it. We were just expected to believe it and remember it.
It’s very different at degree level. You aren’t just told a set of facts. You aren’t expected to believe everything you are told without question. You’ll notice that you’re also told HOW we know the things we know; who did the research, what studies they did, what results they got, and whether there are any competing theories. You are expected to engage with all this information, not just skip to the “answer”. That’s what we mean by “critical thinking”.
Here is a list of statements that a student might write in an essay, arranged from “least critical thinking” to “most critical thinking”. See if you can identify the important changes between each statement:
- Aggressive, competitive, driven people (known as Type A) are more likely to have a heart attack than laid-back, easy-going people (Type B).
- Aggressive, competitive, driven people (known as Type A) are more likely to have a heart attack than laid-back, easy-going people (Type B) (Friedman and Rosenman, 1959).
- Friedman and Rosenman (1959) compared rates of coronary heart disease among over 200 men, and found that those with an aggressive, competitive, driven personality (known as Type A) were seven times more likely to have coronary heart disease than men with a laid-back, easy-going personality (Type B).
- Friedman and Rosenman (1959) compared rates of coronary heart disease among over 200 men, and found that those with an aggressive, competitive, driven personality (known as Type A) were seven times more likely to have coronary heart disease than men with a laid-back, easy-going personality (Type B). However, a systematic review of the evidence found that only a small proportion of studies replicated the finding, and far more studies found no evidence of a relationship between personality type and coronary heart disease (Petticrew, Lee, and McKee, 2012).
The first statement presents a claim as though it is a simple, unarguable fact.
The second statement at least says where the claim comes from i.e. it contains a reference.
The third statement briefly describes the research evidence supporting the claim.
The fourth statement briefly describes the research and then identifies a more recent study that contradicts it. This is the only statement on the list that I would award marks for critical thinking in an undergraduate essay.
You won’t always be able to find a study that contradicts the one you need to write about. So how else can you demonstrate critical thinking?
- a study that supports the one you’re writing about can also demonstrate critical thinking, especially if you can talk about how the second study adds extra information, insight, or nuance.
- if someone else has criticised the study you’re writing about, including this information demonstrates critical thinking.
- identifying any weaknesses or limitations in the study counts as critical thinking. For example, is the sample size very small, or unrepresentative? Were the measurements valid? Were they reliable? Were confounding variables accounted for? Can you think of an alternative explanation for the results? And so on.
- developing a nuanced answer to the essay question, based on the evidence discussed in your essay, can demonstrate critical thinking. For example, if the question was “Is the relationship with the mother the most important in a child’s life”?, then “In conclusion, the mother is the most important relationship in a child’s life” is not a very nuanced answer. But the following is; “In conclusion, research evidence shows that although a child will have many important relationships in its life, the relationship with the primary caregiver is the most important. This is very often the mother, but any person who gives consistent care can fulfill this role, regardless of gender or biological relationship to the infant. Additionally, not all primary caregivers, including mothers, have a beneficial relationship. Sadly, some are neglectful, abusive, or expose their dependents to harm. In such cases, the relationship can still be categorised as the most important, but for ill rather than for good”. This is because it addresses such questions as “to what extent”? “Under what circumstances”? And “What do we mean by important”?
You can demonstrate critical thinking by discussing and analysing the research methods and evidence, not just the headline results of research.
References
Friedman, M. and Rosenman, R.H., 1959. Association of specific overt behavior pattern with blood and cardiovascular findings: blood cholesterol level, blood clotting time, incidence of arcus senilis, and clinical coronary artery disease. Journal of the American medical association, 169(12), pp.1286-1296.
Petticrew, M.P., Lee, K. and McKee, M., 2012. Type A behavior pattern and coronary heart disease: Philip Morris’s “crown jewel”. American journal of public health, 102(11), pp.2018-2025.
Leave out unnecessary information
My sister tells stories like this: I’ll ask her “Why is your leg in a cast? How did you break it?” and she’ll say “Well, I was in Asda and I needed some bread. But they didn’t have the bread I usually get, Hovis Tasty Wholemeal, so I got some Allinson’s granary bread instead. And then I remembered my husband doesn’t like granary bread because the bits get stuck in his fillings….”. The story goes on for hours and eventually I find out she was rear-ended by a bin wagon driving back home, and all the information about Asda and bread and my brother-in-law’s fillings was completely irrelevant to why her leg is in a cast. Drives me mad. I love her, though.
When you are writing essays, only include the information you need to answer the question. Just because the question was about attachment, that doesn’t mean it’s always appropriate to describe Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Test protocol in great detail. Not every question about Piaget requires you to list all his developmental stages. Ask yourself “Would my essay make just as much sense if I left this part out? Would it still answer the question?”
Don’t use ‘scare quotes’
If you are quoting someone else in your essay you must enclose the quotation in quotation marks (although it’s often much better to remove the quotation and express the idea in your own words). And in my opinion that is the only proper use of quotation marks in essays.
Sometimes people put quotation marks around a word or a phrase to distance themselves from it, e.g.:
Michael Moore, the so-called “journalist”…
This implies that some people call Moore a journalist, but the writer wants the reader to know that she wouldn’t call him a journalist herself. It’s a rather snide construction and in my opinion it has no place in academic writing. If you don’t agree with a phrase either don’t use it at all, or state your opinion clearly and justify it. e.g.:
In my opinion, Michael Moore’s work does not match the definition of journalism because ….
Or if your tutor doesn’t allow first-person writing:
Michael Moore’s work does not match the definition of journalism because ….
Another way people sometimes use quotation marks is for emphasis. Sometimes a pub will advertise something like:
Traditional Sunday roast “beef” lunch served here
Which always makes me think they’re using scare quotes and they’re trying to say:
Some people might call it “beef”, but I wouldn’t call it that myself.
Language is always changing and although using quotation marks for emphasis is considered incorrect now, it may become normal and acceptable in future. But you just don’t need to use typography to emphasise anything in academic writing. Don’t use bold or italics or underlining or all capitals and certainly don’t use quotation marks for emphasis.
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Should you include your opinions in an essay?
In general, you are expected to answer essay questions using the information in the module material, explained in your own words. You are not expected to include your own thoughts and opinions about the topics. For example, this would be inappropriate in an essay:
“I think that criminals should be dealt with severely. What gives them the right to break the rules that everyone else has to follow? If I work hard and buy nice things with the money I’ve earned, I shouldn’t have to worry about some juvenile delinquent robbing my house and getting away with a slapped wrist, community service or something like that. If it was up to me, I’d bring back flogging….”
It would be just as inappropriate to express your opinion that criminals are victims of a broken society and should be treated with compassion. You’re not supposed to include your opinions in essays, regardless of whether you suspect your tutor shares those opinions. But that doesn’t mean that you have to just parrot what it says in the module. You are supposed to read the module materials critically. That means you don’t just believe anything you read, but always ask questions about it e.g. “Does that sound convincing to me? What is the evidence to support this? Are these arguments logically watertight? What biases and assumptions might be influencing these ideas”? So for example, this would be appropriate:
“In the textbook it says that people have a right to rise up when their leaders are behaving unjustly. In a democracy, power comes from the people, so what the people do must be democratic. But I don’t agree with that. I agree with Edmund Burke who thought that social order was precious and took ages to build, and it’s really dangerous if a criminal mob can just tear down thousands of years of progress“.
That’s based on the ideas in the book, but the student doesn’t just believe what they’re told: they’ve noticed that two opposing views of the same topic are presented in the book, they’ve thought about both of them, and they’ve decided which one they find more persuasive, and why. It could be made even better by being written in a more academic form, with just a few changes:
“The radical view of rioting argues that people have a right to rise up when their leaders are behaving unjustly (Andrews, 2022 p.331). In a democracy, power comes from the people, so what the people do must be democratic. This contrasts with the conservative view of rioting that social order is precious and takes many generations to build, and it’s dangerous if a criminal mob can just tear down thousands of years of progress (Burke 2003 cited in Andews 2022, p. 334)“.
The student hasn’t said which of these views they agree with, but there’s a hint that they might agree with the view they put second. The rest of the essay, especially the conclusion, should make it clear.
References
Andrews, G. (2022) ‘Riots and disorder on the street’, in Clarke, J., Doye, Z., Hassan, I. and Woodward, K. (eds) Understanding social lives, part 2. Milton Keynes: The Open University, pp. 313–354.
Don’t start sentences with an “-ing” word
Sentence fragments are incomplete sentences, like these:
- And a cup of coffee.
- A long time ago.
- Showing that teenagers have undeveloped prefrontal cortexes.
You can make these into complete sentences by adding in the missing part:
- I’d like an all-day breakfast, please, and a cup of coffee.
- A long time ago, there was an old woodcutter.
- Jay Giedd conducted a study showing that teenagers have undeveloped prefrontal cortexes.
The last example is a very common type of sentence fragment seen in essays. Starting a complete grammatical sentence with an -ing word is possible, but it’s more often a red flag that a sentence fragment is coming. If you find yourself starting a sentence with an “-ing” word, ask yourself whether it’s a sentence fragment, and how to turn it into a complete sentence.
There’s a more detailed explanation of what makes something a complete grammatical sentence, what makes a sentence fragment, and how to fix them here: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/sentence-fragment/
Circular definitions
You can’t use the word itself in your definition of a word. For example, you can’t write “A guitar is a musical instrument shaped like a guitar”. You need to find a way to define the word or term without using the word or term in its own definition.
The Open University is a proper noun
The Open University is a proper noun. “Proper” in this sense is like “property” – it means “belonging to someone or something”. A proper noun is the official name of someone or something.
Proper nouns should almost always be capitalised. It would be wrong to write the open university, if you meant the British university based in Milton Keynes.
People’s names are proper nouns. You should write:
- Melanie Rimmer, not melanie rimmer
- Donald Duck, not donald duck
- Jean Piaget, not jean piaget
And so on.
Place names are also proper nouns:
- Milton Keynes, not milton keynes
- City Road, not city road (if you mean the road in Cardiff called City Road)
Business names are also proper nouns:
- The Macintosh Centre, not the macintosh centre
- Taste Buds Café, not taste buds café
There are a few exceptions; for example the feminist bell hooks chose to write her name in lower case to honour her grandmother. The business eBay starts with a lower case letter. But the general rule is always capitalise proper nouns.
Throat-clearing sentences
“Many researchers have investigated the topic of childhood resilience over the years”
This is what’s known as a throat-clearing sentence. It’s true, but it’s so vague and general to not be worth saying. Other examples would be:
“There are many factors that influence the development of childhood resilience”
“Childhood resilience is an important and interesting topic”
“For hundreds of years, people have wondered what influences the development of childhood resilience”
They’re called throat-clearing sentences because they’re like the noise of clearing your throat before you make a speech – they’re just meaningless sounds you make before your actual speech, or essay, gets underway. It’s OK to write them. Maybe that’s how you clear your brain before you can start writing meaningful things. But you should delete them during the editing stage, along with any other sentences that don’t say anything worth saying.
How to define a term
There are two approaches to defining terms in your essays:
- give someone else’s definition, e.g. “Erving Goffman defined stigma as an ‘attribute that is deeply discrediting’ (1963, p. 3).”
- give your own definition.
You are allowed to give your own definitions because you are using the word in your essay and presumably you are using it to mean something. So you can explain (define) what you are using the word to mean. E.g. “In the image, the children are finger painting in a playful way. I am using the word playful to mean they seem to be finger painting voluntarily and are finding it fun. Playful activities are different from work activities, by which I mean activities children do because they are required to do it, and they would not do if they had a choice. Both playful and work activities can result in learning. Jean Piaget said that ‘play is the work of childhood’ (Piaget, 1951)”
Option 2 is especially useful if your module doesn’t seem to have a definition of a particular term you want to use. I well remember being very frustrated as an undergraduate that my lecturers insisted I define every term I used, but the learning materials they gave me often didn’t do that. I wish someone had told me I was allowed to define the terms myself. That doesn’t mean you can be silly – don’t write “In this essay I will use the term ‘habitus’ to mean a small lizard of the genus Lygodactylus capensis”. Read option 2 again – when you use a word, you are using it to mean something. So simply explain how you are using the word in your essay.
If your module does define the term you should refer to that definition, even if you are going to use a different definition in your essay e.g. you might write “The E219 Glossary (The Open University, 2022) defines conditioning as ‘A model of learning concerned with the formation of associations’. In this essay I will use the term to mean learning processes that happen without the conscious will of the learner, through the unconscious formation of associations between stimuli and behaviours”. That is a slightly more specific definition than the one given in the module glossary, and defining it in this way shows you have a a good understanding of the concept. Demonstrating your understanding in this way will probably earn you a higher grade (as long as it’s relevant to the essay question).
References
Goffman, E. (1963) Stigma: notes on the management of spoiled identity, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Piaget, J. (1951) Play, dreams, and imitation in childhood. Translated by C. Gattegno and F. M. Hodgson. New York: Norton and Co (this edition 1962).
The Open University (2022) E219 Glossary. Available at https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/glossary/view.php?id=1972028 Accessed 28/1/2023
Melanie Rimmer 