Critical Thinking

As a student of academia, you will be required to do a literature review during your studies. Being able to engage with, evaluate and critique others' ideas and research are key skills for this task. Not only do you need to understand and reiterate what others have said, you need to identify strengths and weaknesses in their work, to develop your own opinion on the findings and then make suggestions for improvements. So how can you even start to critique the work of those who are respected enough to have their research in print? The best way is to think critically as you read.

You can read a text on many different levels, as a series of facts, as an explanation, a narrative or story, a discussion, but writers can also imply what they mean without saying it directly. This is to infer or inference. As a reader, how can you decide what the writer means if they have not said it directly. You can use Socratic questioning or what is now called critical thinking by asking yourself, and the text, a number of questions as you read.

Critical thinking is derived from the practice of Socratic questioning. The Greek philosopher, Socrates would wander the streets of Athens asking people questions about all kinds of aspects of their lives. He famously said, “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only teach them to think.” This kind of questioning led the population to think more carefully about things they took for granted, but unfortunately was a source of irritation as well. (Paul Strathern, Socrates: Philosophy in an Hour, Harper Press 2012).

By using different questions as you read, you can understand both the superficial meaning and the deeper meaning of a text. You can also interact with the text that helps you to understand, explain, and agree or disagree with the arguments or evidence as put before you.
Remember to use all of the different question words that you know: what, where, when, who, why, how and so what for open questions, as well as yes/no questions.
This also helps you to predict how the text will develop and as you read, you may find that the text answers your questions.

Example 1

Read the first sentence of a text and write down some questions that you want the writer to answer.

The short-term impact of Brexit on goods exports is assessed using the Overall Trade Restrictiveness Index of the United Kingdom's major trading partners.

Kee, H.L. and Nicita, A., 2017. Short-term impact of Brexit on the United Kingdom's export of goods. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, (8195).

Your questions could be as follows.

What is the OTRI?
What does the UK export?
Who are their main trading partners?
Will Brexit have an impact on the UK’s exports?
What did the assessment find?
How was the assessment carried out?
Why was it important to carry out this assessment?
What will the long-term impact be?
Has anything changed since this was written?
Are there any other indices?
Are any goods excluded from this index?
Why was this particular index used?

Read the text below. Have all of your questions been answered?

The short-term impact of Brexit on goods exports is assessed using the Overall Trade Restrictiveness Index of the United Kingdom's major trading partners. The analysis shows that in the short run, leaving the European Union may cause the United Kingdom's exports to the European Union to decrease by 2 percent, and the prospect of a major trade collapse post-Brexit is unlikely. This is because the European Union's Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariffs are higher on products that are less responsive to tariffs, and lower on products that are more responsive to tariffs.

Kee, H.L. and Nicita, A., 2017. Short-term impact of Brexit on the United Kingdom's export of goods. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper, (8195).

Not all the questions are answered in this paragraph, but they could be later on in the text, or perhaps they already have been in previous paragraphs. Do you need to look at other sources to find the answers? You might be able to answer your own questions too!

Example 2

You have been given a 2000-word assignment to explore the impact of the Islamic Golden Age on the Renaissance in Europe. Read the text and write questions that may help you. Here are some examples.

When did this occur?
Where did the ideas come from?
Which countries were influential at the time?
Which areas of academic thought were impacted by this?
What impact did it have on European scientific discoveries/culture/philosophy?

Intellectual Golden Ages

The ninth through thirteenth centuries in the Muslim world mark an era of scientific, religious philosophical and cultural development the scale and depth of which had never been seen in world history before or since. After its meteoric rise from the barren deserts of Arabia, Islamic civilisation now encompassed many diverse cultures, religions and intellectual traditions from Spain to India. In this realm, the previous accomplishments of distant civilisations could be brought together, compared and built upon to create a new golden age of scientific discoveries. Nowhere else in the world possessed the same capability to bring together so many diverse people, supplemented by home grown, intellectual giants. The result was an era, which not only served as a bridge between the knowledge of the ancients and Renaissance Europe, but also laid the foundation for today’s modern scientific world.

(Taken from Alkhateeb, F., 2017. Lost Islamic history: reclaiming Muslim civilisation from the past. Oxford University Press. p.63

Do you have enough information to write your paper? No, not yet. but how can you focus your paper? If you focus your questions, it is then easier to find some relevant details to help you build your discussion. One way to do this is to choose one of the more general questions and add more searching questions.

What impact did it have on European philosophy?
Which ideas in particular were the most influential?
Which European philosophers were influenced the most?
Which of their works illustrate this?
Was it seen as a positive or negative contribution to European thought?
Where did these like-minded people share these ideas?
You can also ask yourself some questions.
Were these influences positive or negative?
Are there any that you would see as monumental?
On which areas specifically did these ideas have the greatest impact?

Practice 1

You have an essay to write on China’s influence on the global economy. Write 8 – 10 questions that you would like to answer.

Using the abstract to guide you, do you think this article will help you? Why? Why not?

The internationalisation of the Chinese renminbi has taken a path distinct from most cases involving previous international currencies, in that policy measures adopted by governments have played crucial roles in it. This paper conducts a cross‐country analysis of the factors that have led foreign governments to introduce three primary policy infrastructures to support renminbi use—renminbi swap lines, Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor quotas and renminbi clearing banks. Our analysis shows that a state holding renminbi assets among its reserves or having more developed financial markets is likely to establish a higher level of policy infrastructure supporting renminbi use. We also find that a country's economic and political relations with China may have meaningful impacts on the level of its establishment of those renminbi‐related policy infrastructures. These findings significantly expand our understanding of renminbi internationalisation, by identifying which non‐Chinese factors have affected its progress to date. They also contribute meaningfully to the literature on currency internationalisation and international currencies in general, by calling attention to the roles of foreign states in the process of a currency's internationalisation.

Chey, H.K., Kim, G.Y. and Lee, D.H., 2019. Which foreign states support the global use of the Chinese renminbi? The international political economy of currency internationalisation. The World Economy, 42(8), pp.2403-2426.

Now it's time to focus your activity on texts that you may need to read and understand for your own discipline. Nowadays academic papers from relevant, peer-reviewed, academic journals are the main resource for research for your assignments. You can use your institution's database which will give you access to a wealth of resources, or if you are not enrolled in an institution, you can use Google Scholar which will give you abstracts for numerous texts on all academic disciplines.