How to Improve Your Critical Thinking for Higher Grades

Without realising it, you engage in critical thinking in normal life.

When you decide to buy a new car you search for information to help you make your decision. You take reviews from different sources and information from car salespeople and determine their value. You may detect bias in the Nissan salesperson’s advice when they try to persuade you not to buy a Volkswagen from down the road.

You make judgements on the reviews you read and guess some of them are sponsored. You then weigh up the strengths and weaknesses of your options before making your logical decision.

But critical thinking in your studying can feel like a bit of a minefield.

Improving your critical thinking WILL have a positive impact on your university grades. These skills provide the foundation for university writing and allow you to pass higher-level modules.

This blog post describes critical thinking, why it’s important and, most importantly, HOW to use it to write better essays and get higher grades.

1). First, you know about a theory. You can recall some of its details and the author’s name.

2). Then you comprehend the theory and can explain it to a friend in your own words.

3). Next, you learn to apply this theory to a situation or case study. You can explain how this theory could solve a problem.

4). Then you learn to analyse the theory. You understand each part and how they relate to each other.

5). After this, you learn how to evaluate this theory. What are its strengths and weaknesses? Are there any gaps? How useful is it for your situation?

6). Lastly, you learn how to create a new solution. You discover holes in the material and believe other theories are needed in combination to maximise the theory’s value. You’ve synthesised the information and generated something new.

How should you use critical thinking?

Below are the questions you need to ask when planning and completing your assignments. Some of these are questions to ask of the evidence you’re using and some are to ask yourself about your own writing.

Questions of analysis

Is the evidence and material recent?

This may or may not be relevant for your subject so check with your tutor. An article from the 1980s may be valuable for some subjects but out-dated for engineering or science-based subjects. Are there environmental changes that make the information less relevant?

Are there any issues with the methodology?

If you’re using a study as evidence, check its methodology is sound. Are the sample sizes appropriate? Is the sample representative of the population or has bias been introduced? Are the experiments logical with suitable variables?

Who is the author?

An author’s background and experience influences their research and can affect the usefulness of their material in other contexts. Ask yourself, why did the author write this? What is their history?

For example, Alfred Chandler was a famous business strategist and Harvard professor. He believed companies should adapt to fit environmental changes.

A non-critical thinker may take this opinion as fact and apply it to their future studies.

However, a critical thinking student will investigate whether Chandler’s work is biased or one-sided. Chandler’s opinions stem from research he conducted on four large US manufacturing companies in the 1960s. Therefore, you could draw the conclusion Chandler’s findings may be less relevant to the business strategies of smaller companies, those in different industries, or those in other countries.

Can you spot any gaps?

Do you have any unanswered questions when reading the material?

Similarly, when you read over your essay, have you given enough information to the reader?

Have assumptions been made?

Check your writing for assumptions that may be incorrect, illogical or biased. Do the same for the material you’re using.

Questions of application

What problems does the concepts/information solve or explain?

What are the strengths of the material? How can you apply it to answer the essay question?

Can you think of situations and problems where the concepts don’t work or aren’t useful?

For instance, for a business question, does the concept apply to both large and small companies, new and old, bureaucratic and innovative companies, companies all over the world (or just those in a specific country), public sector and private sector companies, profit and non-profit companies?

Does the argument flow?

Does your essay take the reader on a journey? Your essay needs to lay out its points in the right order so the argument builds and leads logically to the conclusion.

Correlation vs. causation

Correlation between two variables does not mean one results in the other. It is important to engage in critical thinking when assessing the value of a claim or statement.

Tyler Vigen has a blog where he finds ridiculous correlations in public data in the U.S. He found a 94.7% correlation between ‘per capita cheese consumption’ and the ‘number of people who died becoming tangled in their bedsheets’.

Tyler also found 99.26% correlation between the ‘divorce rate in Maine’ and the ‘per capita consumption of margarine’.

I can’t imagine eating margarine affects your likelihood of divorce, or that the more cheese you eat the more likely you are to die wrapped in your bedsheets. This is a reminder to check your claims, and those of the authors you want to use, for inaccurate causation statements.

Questions of evaluation

Are all sides of the argument considered?

Is your writing balanced? Have you covered different perspectives to strengthen your arguments?

Likewise, is the material you’re using complete? Have some viewpoints been ignored or disregarded too easily.

Are the conclusions accurate and logical?

Your conclusions should make sense from the evidence and not come as a surprise to the reader. While editing your essay list your key points and findings and use these to create your conclusion.

Also, check the conclusions in the material you’ve used are sound. Has the study drawn accurate conclusions from its findings?

Does your answer require a synthesis of ideas?

Are there gaps in a theory that should be filled with another one? Should a combination of approaches or theories be used? Is further research required?

The Positioning approach to strategy explains strategy creation should be externally focused. In contrast the RBV approach believes strategy creation should be internally focused. Both theories provide a partial view and after applying critical thinking – you can determine both approaches should be combined and applied.

Critical thinking in your writing

When you take notes with critical thinking in mind your essays become easier to write. You’ll already have ideas you can turn into a logical, objective argument.

Below I explain four critical thinking writing tools.

1. Do you understand your essay question?

To write a good essay you first need to have a clear understanding of what the question or statement requires from you. So the first step is to pull apart your essay question to work out the meaning of the ‘directive words’. You can match these words to the level of Bloom’s triangle of thinking to see how much critical thinking you must apply.

2. Linking words and signposting

Critical thinking requires you to address the different sides of an argument and evaluate evidence and claims. This becomes a lot easier if you use signposts and linking words in your writing. 

Signposts answer the reader’s questions before they ask it and show you’re in control of your essay structure.

Examples include:

· ‘This essay aims to…’

· ‘To further understand the importance of organisational structure …’

· ‘The above evidence demonstrates …’

Linking words show the progression of your argument and the relationship between ideas.

Examples include:

· Additionally, …

· Similarly, …

· Nevertheless, …

· On the other hand, …

· For example, …

· Therefore, …

· In conclusion, …

· To summarise, …

3. Interweaving module themes

Some modules have key themes running through the material, linking the key ideas. A key theme in a business module could be complexity, or diversity in a social sciences module. If the module guidance or learning outcomes asks you to refer to these themes then include them in your writing where applicable.

4. Hedging language

Critical thinking requires unbiased, logical reasoning. Claims should not be made that can easily be dismissed so ‘hedging’ language should be used to show caution and protect your claims. An example from a previous blog post is this.

Before

High unemployment causes crime to rise.

After

High unemployment may be a contributing factor to an increase in crime.

The second sentence uses the ‘hedging’ term ‘may’ to indicate the strength of the claim. It is important to check the reasoning of your claims so you don’t make incorrect inferences or assumptions. ‘Hedging’ language is useful in critical thinking to make claims that are proportionate to the strength of the evidence – which increases the objectivity of your writing.

Where you might find critical thinking difficult

Critical thinking takes time to perfect.

At first it’s going to be difficult to question rather than accept the material. But practice and you’ll soon develop the objectivity of academic writing

Critical thinking requires more effort.

You can’t passively read your textbooks or listen to a lecture. Instead you have to actively engage in and judge the merits of the material.