Critical writing shows the reader how you have thought about your evidence, not just what you found. It helps you express your analysis clearly and build a convincing argument.

Before you can write critically, you need to evaluate your sources and what they show. Our guidance on reading critically covers these steps. If you have not yet built your argument, the Building a written argument guidance covers that first.

 

Showing your analysis

Writing critically means showing your analysis of the sources, not just what they say. Four ways to do this are:

  • Explain why evidence matters, not just what it shows
  • Comment on strengths or limits in the research you cite
  • Use signposting to show your analysis, with phrases such as ‘this suggests...’ or ‘a limitation of this study is...’
  • Link evidence back to the assignment task

 

A useful check at this stage is to ask whether you have explained what the evidence shows and why it strengthens your point (Example 1).

Example

Cao et al. (2023) argue that children who understand emotions well are better at resolving conflicts.1 They studied 90 children aged three to six. They tested each child's ability to understand emotions and asked teachers to rate how the children handled conflict.2 Children with stronger scores were more likely to negotiate or take turns. They were less likely to grab, threaten, or use force.3 Laursen et al. (2001) looked at many studies and found the same pattern — younger children tend to use force, while older children are more likely to negotiate. Cao et al. suggest that understanding emotions helps explain this shift.4 One limit of the study is that it used teacher ratings rather than watching children directly. The children also all came from one region of China, so the findings may not apply in other contexts.5

 

Key

  1. States the main claim Back to text, note 1
  2. Describes the methods Back to text, note 2
  3. Summarises the findings Back to text, note 3
  4. Connects to other sources Back to text, note 4
  5. Identifies a limitation Back to text, note 5

 

References

Cao, Y., Wang, H., Lv, Y., & Xie, D. (2023). The influence of children's emotional comprehension on peer conflict resolution strategies. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1142373. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1142373

Laursen, B., Finkelstein, B. D., & Townsend Betts, N. (2001). A developmental meta-analysis of peer conflict resolution. Developmental Review, 21(4), 423–449. https://doi.org/10.1006/drev.2000.0531

 

The referencing style used here is APA 7. Your course may require a different referencing system. Check your assignment brief or module guidance to confirm which style applies to you.

 

Try this…

Choose one source you are using for a current assignment and write a short analytical summary of three sentences. In the first sentence, outline the source's key idea and add a citation. In the second, comment on the strengths or limitations of the source’s evidence. In the third, explain how this evidence is helping you to build an argument.

 

 

Comparing sources

Academic writing often requires you to show how your chosen sources relate to one another. In your writing, this means you:

  • show where sources agree

  • show where sources disagree

 

In each case, comparison lets you highlight the strengths, limits, or gaps in the evidence.

 

Where sources agree

When two or more sources make the same point, you can write it once (by paraphrasing it) and cite the sources together. This keeps your writing concise and shows you have read a range of sources (Example 2).

Sometimes the agreement itself is worth discussing. When sources reach the same conclusion using different methods, their agreement makes that conclusion more convincing, and pointing this out strengthens your analysis (Example 3).

Source 1 - Hughes and Burke (2018, p. 241)

"...participants […] improved their ability to fall asleep faster and reported better quality of sleep."

 

Source 2 - Tu et al. (2023, p. 7)

"Restricting while-in-bed smartphone use can improve sleep quality..."

 

Paraphrased combination

Reducing smartphone usage in bed is likely to improve a person’s quality of sleep (Hughes & Burke, 2018; Tu et al., 2023).

 

The shared finding is stated once and both sources are credited. This is clearer and shorter than describing each study in turn.

 

References

Hughes, N., & Burke, J. (2018). Sleeping with the frenemy: How restricting 'bedroom use' of smartphones impacts happiness and wellbeing. Computers in Human Behavior, 85, 236–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.03.047

Tu, Z., He, J., Li, Y., Wang, Z., Wang, C., Tian, J., & Tang, Y. (2023). Can restricting while-in-bed smartphone use improve sleep quality via decreasing pre-sleep cognitive arousal among Chinese undergraduates with problematic smartphone use? Longitudinal mediation analysis using parallel process latent growth curve modeling. Addictive Behaviors, 147, 107825. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2023.107825

 

The referencing style used here is APA 7. Your course may require a different referencing system. Check your assignment brief or module guidance to confirm which style applies to you.

Example

Research on active learning is consistent.1 Freeman et al. (2014) reviewed 225 studies and found that students in active classes scored higher and failed less often than those in traditional lectures. Deslauriers et al. (2019) reached the same conclusion in a controlled experiment, where students randomly assigned to active classes learned more than those given lectures.2 Because these findings come from different types of study, their agreement makes the conclusion more convincing.3 Together, they provide strong evidence that active learning improves student performance.4

 

Key

  1. Identifies that the sources agree Back to text, note 1
  2. Presents each source's finding Back to text, note 2
  3. Explains why the agreement is convincing Back to text, note 3
  4. Shows what these sources add to the argument Back to text, note 4

 

References

Deslauriers, L., McCarty, L. S., Miller, K., Callaghan, K., & Kestin, G. (2019). Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(39), 19251–19257. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1821936116

Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23), 8410–8415. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111

 

The referencing style used here is APA 7. Your course may require a different referencing system. Check your assignment brief or module guidance to confirm which style applies to you.

 

Where sources disagree

When sources disagree, acknowledge the conflict rather than ignoring it. Ignoring conflicting evidence weakens your argument. Often you can judge which source is more convincing and explain why (Example 4).

At other times you cannot say that one source is stronger, because the disagreement comes from the sources looking at different things. Here, you explain the disagreement rather than resolve it (Example 5).

Example

Research on screen time and adolescent mental health is divided.1 Twenge et al. (2018) linked rising smartphone use to increased depressive symptoms in US teenagers, while Orben and Przybylski (2019) found the effect on wellbeing to be statistically negligible across three large datasets.2 Orben and Przybylski's datasets include samples from both the UK and the US, while Twenge et al.'s evidence comes from the US alone, making Orben and Przybylski's finding more likely to generalise beyond a single national context.3 This suggests the link between screen time and adolescent wellbeing is weaker than Twenge et al.'s findings imply.4

 

Key

  1. Identifies the disagreement between sources Back to text, note 1
  2. Presents each source's position Back to text, note 2
  3. Explains why one is more convincing than the other Back to text, note 3
  4. Makes a conclusion Back to text, note 4

 

References

Orben, A., & Przybylski, A. K. (2019). The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use. Nature Human Behaviour, 3(2), 173–182. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0506-1

Twenge, J. M., Martin, G. N., & Campbell, W. K. (2018). Decreases in psychological well-being among American adolescents after 2012 and links to screen time during the rise of smartphone technology. Emotion, 18(6), 765–780. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000403

 

The referencing style used here is APA 7. Your course may require a different referencing system. Check your assignment brief or module guidance to confirm which style applies to you.

Example

Research on working from home is divided.1 Bloom et al. (2015) randomly assigned call centre workers at one Chinese company to work from home or in the office and found that home workers performed better. Gibbs et al. (2023) examined over 10,000 IT professionals at an Indian technology company during the pandemic and found that productivity fell.2 Neither study is simply wrong. The two studies examine different kinds of work: call centre tasks are routine and can be completed alone, while IT work requires frequent collaboration, which is harder to coordinate remotely.3 Together, the sources suggest that the effect of working from home varies with the type of work involved.4

 

Key

  1. Identifies the disagreement Back to text, note 1
  2. Presents each source's findings Back to text, note 2
  3. Explains the disagreement without choosing a side Back to text, note 3
  4. Shows what these sources add to the argument Back to text, note 4

 

References

Bloom, N., Liang, J., Roberts, J., & Ying, Z. J. (2015). Does working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(1), 165–218. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qju032

Gibbs, M., Mengel, F., & Siemroth, C. (2023). Work from home and productivity: Evidence from personnel and analytics data on information technology professionals. Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, 1(1), 7–41. https://doi.org/10.1086/721803

 

The referencing style used here is APA 7. Your course may require a different referencing system. Check your assignment brief or module guidance to confirm which style applies to you.

 

Try this…

Identify two sources you are using for a current assignment. Do they agree or disagree? Does one source add to or challenge the other? Write one or two sentences explaining the relationship and what it shows about your topic.

 

 

Checking your assumptions

Your initial assumptions may shape which sources you find convincing and how you interpret them. Check whether your evidence really supports your conclusion, or whether you have just chosen sources that confirm what you already believed.

 

Ask yourself…

Does my analysis reflect what the evidence shows, or have I selected sources that confirm a view I already held?

 

 

Checking your analysis

Before you submit, check your writing for:

  • Sentences that explain how each piece of evidence supports your argument
  • Points that need stronger evidence
  • Conclusions that connect your key points, not just list them
  • A clear balance between description and analysis

 

Description and analysis

Description presents evidence from sources, such as facts, figures, and quoted or paraphrased material. Analysis explains what that evidence means and why it matters to your argument. Most academic writing needs both.

Description without analysis means you present evidence without explaining what it shows. Analysis without description means you make points without supporting them.

Example

Suzuki et al. (2013) found that a six-month exercise programme improved memory scores in older adults with mild cognitive impairment, compared with a control group who attended education sessions instead.1 This suggests exercise can work as a low-cost, non-drug option for supporting memory in a population where treatment choices are often limited.2

 

Key

  1. Describes the study's finding Back to text, note 1
  2. Explains why the finding matters Back to text, note 2

 

References

Suzuki, T., Shimada, H., Makizako, H., Doi, T., Yoshida, D., Ito, K., Shimokata, H., Washimi, Y., Endo, H., & Kato, T. (2013). A randomized controlled trial of multicomponent exercise in older adults with mild cognitive impairment. PLOS ONE, 8(4), e61483. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061483

 

The referencing style used here is APA 7. Your course may require a different referencing system. Check your assignment brief or module guidance to confirm which style applies to you.

 

Try this…

Read the main body of your writing, sentence by sentence. Mark each sentence as either description or analysis. This will highlight any areas in your text that lack one or the other.

 

 

Page last edited: 27 August 2026
Next review due: 9 August 2029