Critical Thinking

Figure 4: Image generated using Copilot from prompt: "Image of Understanding".

Understand: You now need to understand the question and what your assessors are expecting from you based upon what you can remember. It is time to ensure that you fully understand the title of the assessment. In what ways does it relate to what you can remember about your prior learning? Does the title provide clues to what the assessment expects from you—for example, words like ‘discuss’ or ‘evaluate’? Does the assessment brief provide information about what your assessors want you to explore in your work? In other words, you want to ensure that all the work you do hits the targets that your assessors have in mind—it would be such a shame to create a beautiful piece of work that misses the point of the exercise.   

Practice: You have read the assessment brief and considered the assessment title in relation to the work you have done in class. You interpret the question as an invitation to explore whether syllables are the only way to describe how words are structured. You are aware, though, that your assessor will want to see evidence of what you have read and done in class. You think that you will get the best marks if you can strike a balance between what you learnt in class and what new things you can find out through your own research.  

Figure 5: Image generated using Copilot from prompt: "Image of Application".

Apply: Now that you have decided upon a plan for your assessed work, it is time to execute that plan. You are now ready to search the literature for research that explores the topic of the syllable. You must find evidence that will help you to answer your question—and which will enable you to get the best marks you can for your assessment. It is time to do your ‘library time.’ This does not mean being trapped in the library, but it does mean using the resources and the guidance that the library provides to ensure that you establish an evidence base for your plan. It means thinking hard about how you can apply your plan to available resources. 

Practice: You decide to use your Subject Guide and attend library workshops to boost your skillset. You learn how to create an effective search strategy, and you learn about the importance of searching lots of different sources. You search Library Search, Google Scholar, and several other sources. During this process, you discover names for specific theories that do not use the syllable—you include these in your search and complete a systematic review of the literature. 

Figure 6: Image generated using Copilot from prompt: "Image of Analysing".

Analyse: You have conducted a search of library resources and found much material that you think might be useful to you. Often students can get a little overwhelmed by information, particularly if there is a lot of material available. A good way to deal with information is to look for patterns. You will find that a relationship exists between the research items you have found—no work sits in isolation; all work must engage with a larger academic conversation. A good strategy is to categorise or group what you have found—by theme or topic, for example. It is also good practice to keep a record of what you have found, as this will direct your reading and save you a great deal of time when you finally come to referencing your work.  

Practice: You have found journal articles that propose alternatives to the syllable, but you have also found many more articles that do argue for the syllable. You can start the process of organising the research you have found into different sets: those that argue for or against the syllable. You may even find reviews that explore both viewpoints and present them to you. By differentiating between different schools of thought, you will find it much easier to navigate your way through lots of results. It is at this stage that some students will choose to use a research management software like Endnote.  

Figure 7: Image generated using Copilot from prompt: "Image of Evaluating".

Evaluate: Now that you have developed an understanding about what researchers are saying about a topic, you are ready to ask the most important question: what does this mean to me and how I feel about the subject? In other words, your assessors are looking for you to tell them what you think based upon the evidence that you have discovered. You need to create something called an argument—what you want to say about the topic. 

Practice: You have reached the conclusion that the syllable is not the only way to describe how words are constructed in languages—even though you were never taught about these other theories in class. The evidence you have seen has provided compelling examples of how not using syllables works well to describe some phenomena in some languages. You do feel, though, that this evidence is quite specific, and you are not convinced by its widespread applicability. You think that the evidence is more compelling for continuing to use the syllable to describe word structure.  

Moreover, you have found that the syllable describes the word structure of the languages you speak well, and those theories that do not use the syllable do not work quite so well. It might be worth making notes about the information sources you have found to formulate how you feel about a topic. Here are just a few examples set out in a table. You can see further examples of how to do this in (Cottrell, 2013, p. 320). 

Table 1: Evaluating sources to information synthesis 

Note: you may well have decided what you think about a topic ‘before’ you even start to evaluate. If you have, you must be very careful not to ‘cherry pick’ research that fits your opinion (see Logical Reasoning). You must engage with all opinions to demonstrate that you are aware of all sides of an argument. 

Figure 8: Image generated using Copilot from prompt: "Image of Working at a Computer".

Create: It is now time for all the hard work you have done up to this point to come together. You are now ready to start writing your essay, presentation, or maybe even a poster. You need to synthesise everything that you have been doing to create something new. Remember that you will be marked according to how well you do this!  

Practice: You decide to write an essay that argues for the use of the syllable, but you also want to demonstrate that it is not ‘the only way’ that the structure of words can be described. You decide to write a ‘compare and contrast’ essay with the evidence you have found to back up both viewpoints and to state what you think about both alternatives. You make judicious use of the literature you have found and ensure that you hit the assessment targets and relate what you say to the available evidence. You also decide to incorporate a language that you speak yourself to further explain why you feel the way you do. You have created a very strong piece of work, good luck!