what does critical review essay mean

How to Write Critical Reviews

When you are asked to write a critical review of a book or article, you will need to identify, summarize, and evaluate the ideas and information the author has presented. In other words, you will be examining another person’s thoughts on a topic from your point of view.

Your stand must go beyond your “gut reaction” to the work and be based on your knowledge (readings, lecture, experience) of the topic as well as on factors such as criteria stated in your assignment or discussed by you and your instructor.

Make your stand clear at the beginning of your review, in your evaluations of specific parts, and in your concluding commentary.

Remember that your goal should be to make a few key points about the book or article, not to discuss everything the author writes.

Understanding the Assignment

To write a good critical review, you will have to engage in the mental processes of analyzing (taking apart) the work–deciding what its major components are and determining how these parts (i.e., paragraphs, sections, or chapters) contribute to the work as a whole.

Analyzing the work will help you focus on how and why the author makes certain points and prevent you from merely summarizing what the author says. Assuming the role of an analytical reader will also help you to determine whether or not the author fulfills the stated purpose of the book or article and enhances your understanding or knowledge of a particular topic.

Be sure to read your assignment thoroughly before you read the article or book. Your instructor may have included specific guidelines for you to follow. Keeping these guidelines in mind as you read the article or book can really help you write your paper!

Also, note where the work connects with what you’ve studied in the course. You can make the most efficient use of your reading and notetaking time if you are an active reader; that is, keep relevant questions in mind and jot down page numbers as well as your responses to ideas that appear to be significant as you read.

Please note: The length of your introduction and overview, the number of points you choose to review, and the length of your conclusion should be proportionate to the page limit stated in your assignment and should reflect the complexity of the material being reviewed as well as the expectations of your reader.

Write the introduction

Below are a few guidelines to help you write the introduction to your critical review.

Introduce your review appropriately

Begin your review with an introduction appropriate to your assignment.

If your assignment asks you to review only one book and not to use outside sources, your introduction will focus on identifying the author, the title, the main topic or issue presented in the book, and the author’s purpose in writing the book.

If your assignment asks you to review the book as it relates to issues or themes discussed in the course, or to review two or more books on the same topic, your introduction must also encompass those expectations.

Explain relationships

For example, before you can review two books on a topic, you must explain to your reader in your introduction how they are related to one another.

Within this shared context (or under this “umbrella”) you can then review comparable aspects of both books, pointing out where the authors agree and differ.

In other words, the more complicated your assignment is, the more your introduction must accomplish.

Finally, the introduction to a book review is always the place for you to establish your position as the reviewer (your thesis about the author’s thesis).

As you write, consider the following questions:

Is the book a memoir, a treatise, a collection of facts, an extended argument, etc.? Is the article a documentary, a write-up of primary research, a position paper, etc.?
Who is the author? What does the preface or foreword tell you about the author’s purpose, background, and credentials? What is the author’s approach to the topic (as a journalist? a historian? a researcher?)?
What is the main topic or problem addressed? How does the work relate to a discipline, to a profession, to a particular audience, or to other works on the topic?
What is your critical evaluation of the work (your thesis)? Why have you taken that position? What criteria are you basing your position on?

Provide an overview

In your introduction, you will also want to provide an overview. An overview supplies your reader with certain general information not appropriate for including in the introduction but necessary to understanding the body of the review.

Generally, an overview describes your book’s division into chapters, sections, or points of discussion. An overview may also include background information about the topic, about your stand, or about the criteria you will use for evaluation.

The overview and the introduction work together to provide a comprehensive beginning for (a “springboard” into) your review.

What are the author’s basic premises? What issues are raised, or what themes emerge? What situation (i.e., racism on college campuses) provides a basis for the author’s assertions?
How informed is my reader? What background information is relevant to the entire book and should be placed here rather than in a body paragraph?

Write the body

The body is the center of your paper, where you draw out your main arguments. Below are some guidelines to help you write it.

Organize using a logical plan

Organize the body of your review according to a logical plan. Here are two options:

First, summarize, in a series of paragraphs, those major points from the book that you plan to discuss; incorporating each major point into a topic sentence for a paragraph is an effective organizational strategy. Second, discuss and evaluate these points in a following group of paragraphs. (There are two dangers lurking in this pattern–you may allot too many paragraphs to summary and too few to evaluation, or you may re-summarize too many points from the book in your evaluation section.)
Alternatively, you can summarize and evaluate the major points you have chosen from the book in a point-by-point schema. That means you will discuss and evaluate point one within the same paragraph (or in several if the point is significant and warrants extended discussion) before you summarize and evaluate point two, point three, etc., moving in a logical sequence from point to point to point. Here again, it is effective to use the topic sentence of each paragraph to identify the point from the book that you plan to summarize or evaluate.

Questions to keep in mind as you write

With either organizational pattern, consider the following questions:

What are the author’s most important points? How do these relate to one another? (Make relationships clear by using transitions: “In contrast,” an equally strong argument,” “moreover,” “a final conclusion,” etc.).
What types of evidence or information does the author present to support his or her points? Is this evidence convincing, controversial, factual, one-sided, etc.? (Consider the use of primary historical material, case studies, narratives, recent scientific findings, statistics.)
Where does the author do a good job of conveying factual material as well as personal perspective? Where does the author fail to do so? If solutions to a problem are offered, are they believable, misguided, or promising?
Which parts of the work (particular arguments, descriptions, chapters, etc.) are most effective and which parts are least effective? Why?
Where (if at all) does the author convey personal prejudice, support illogical relationships, or present evidence out of its appropriate context?

Keep your opinions distinct and cite your sources

Remember, as you discuss the author’s major points, be sure to distinguish consistently between the author’s opinions and your own.

Keep the summary portions of your discussion concise, remembering that your task as a reviewer is to re-see the author’s work, not to re-tell it.

And, importantly, if you refer to ideas from other books and articles or from lecture and course materials, always document your sources, or else you might wander into the realm of plagiarism.

Include only that material which has relevance for your review and use direct quotations sparingly. The Writing Center has other handouts to help you paraphrase text and introduce quotations.

Write the conclusion

You will want to use the conclusion to state your overall critical evaluation.

You have already discussed the major points the author makes, examined how the author supports arguments, and evaluated the quality or effectiveness of specific aspects of the book or article.

Now you must make an evaluation of the work as a whole, determining such things as whether or not the author achieves the stated or implied purpose and if the work makes a significant contribution to an existing body of knowledge.

Consider the following questions:

Is the work appropriately subjective or objective according to the author’s purpose?
How well does the work maintain its stated or implied focus? Does the author present extraneous material? Does the author exclude or ignore relevant information?
How well has the author achieved the overall purpose of the book or article? What contribution does the work make to an existing body of knowledge or to a specific group of readers? Can you justify the use of this work in a particular course?
What is the most important final comment you wish to make about the book or article? Do you have any suggestions for the direction of future research in the area? What has reading this work done for you or demonstrated to you?

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Writing a Critical Review

Writing a Critique

A critique (or critical review) is not to be mistaken for a literature review. A 'critical review', or 'critique', is a complete type of text (or genre), discussing one particular article or book in detail. In some instances, you may be asked to write a critique of two or three articles (e.g. a comparative critical review). In contrast, a 'literature review', which also needs to be 'critical', is a part of a larger type of text, such as a chapter of your dissertation.

Most importantly: Read your article / book as many times as possible, as this will make the critical review much easier.

1. Read and take notes 2. Organising your writing 3. Summary 4. Evaluation 5. Linguistic features of a critical review 6. Summary language 7. Evaluation language 8. Conclusion language 9. Example extracts from a critical review 10. Further resources

Read and Take Notes

To improve your reading confidence and efficiency, visit our pages on reading.

Organising your writing

You first need to summarise the text that you have read. One reason to summarise the text is that the reader may not have read the text. In your summary, you will

focus on points within the article that you think are interesting
summarise the author(s) main ideas or argument
explain how these ideas / argument have been constructed. (For example, is the author basing her arguments on data that they have collected? Are the main ideas / argument purely theoretical?)

In your summary you might answer the following questions: Why is this topic important? Where can this text be located? For example, does it address policy studies? What other prominent authors also write about this?

Evaluation is the most important part in a critical review.

Use the literature to support your views. You may also use your knowledge of conducting research, and your own experience. Evaluation can be explicit or implicit.

Explicit evaluation

Explicit evaluation involves stating directly (explicitly) how you intend to evaluate the text. e.g. "I will review this article by focusing on the following questions. First, I will examine the extent to which the authors contribute to current thought on Second Language Acquisition (SLA) pedagogy. After that, I will analyse whether the authors' propositions are feasible within overseas SLA classrooms."

Implicit evaluation

Implicit evaluation is less direct. The following section on Linguistic Features of Writing a Critical Review contains language that evaluates the text. A difficult part of evaluation of a published text (and a professional author) is how to do this as a student. There is nothing wrong with making your position as a student explicit and incorporating it into your evaluation. Examples of how you might do this can be found in the section on Linguistic Features of Writing a Critical Review. You need to remember to locate and analyse the author's argument when you are writing your critical review. For example, you need to locate the authors' view of classroom pedagogy as presented in the book / article and not present a critique of views of classroom pedagogy in general.

Linguistic features of a critical review

The following examples come from published critical reviews. Some of them have been adapted for student use.

Summary language

This article / book is divided into two / three parts. First...
While the title might suggest...
The tone appears to be...
Title is the first / second volume in the series Title, edited by...The books / articles in this series address...
The second / third claim is based on...
The author challenges the notion that...
The author tries to find a more middle ground / make more modest claims...
The article / book begins with a short historical overview of...
Numerous authors have recently suggested that...(see Author, Year; Author, Year). Author would also be once such author. With his / her argument that...
To refer to title as a...is not to say that it is...
This book / article is aimed at... This intended readership...
The author's book / article examines the...To do this, the author first...
The author develops / suggests a theoretical / pedagogical model to…
This book / article positions itself firmly within the field of...
The author in a series of subtle arguments, indicates that he / she...
The argument is therefore...
The author asks "..."
With a purely critical / postmodern take on...
Topic, as the author points out, can be viewed as...
In this recent contribution to the field of...this British author...
As a leading author in the field of...
This book / article nicely contributes to the field of...and complements other work by this author...
The second / third part of...provides / questions / asks the reader...
Title is intended to encourage students / researchers to...
The approach taken by the author provides the opportunity to examine...in a qualitative / quantitative research framework that nicely complements...
The author notes / claims that state support / a focus on pedagogy / the adoption of...remains vital if...
According to Author (Year) teaching towards examinations is not as effective as it is in other areas of the curriculum. This is because, as Author (Year) claims that examinations have undue status within the curriculum.
According to Author (Year)…is not as effective in some areas of the curriculum / syllabus as others. Therefore the author believes that this is a reason for some school's…

Evaluation language

This argument is not entirely convincing, as...furthermore it commodifies / rationalises the...
Over the last five / ten years the view of...has increasingly been viewed as 'complicated' (see Author, Year; Author, Year).
However, through trying to integrate...with...the author...
There are difficulties with such a position.
Inevitably, several crucial questions are left unanswered / glossed over by this insightful / timely / interesting / stimulating book / article. Why should...
It might have been more relevant for the author to have written this book / article as...
This article / book is not without disappointment from those who would view...as...
This chosen framework enlightens / clouds...
This analysis intends to be...but falls a little short as...
The authors rightly conclude that if...
A detailed, well-written and rigorous account of...
As a Korean student I feel that this article / book very clearly illustrates...
The beginning of...provides an informative overview into...
The tables / figures do little to help / greatly help the reader...
The reaction by scholars who take a...approach might not be so favourable (e.g. Author, Year).
This explanation has a few weaknesses that other researchers have pointed out (see Author, Year; Author, Year). The first is...
On the other hand, the author wisely suggests / proposes that...By combining these two dimensions...
The author's brief introduction to...may leave the intended reader confused as it fails to properly...
Despite my inability to...I was greatly interested in...
Even where this reader / I disagree(s), the author's effort to...
The author thus combines...with...to argue...which seems quite improbable for a number of reasons. First...
Perhaps this aversion to...would explain the author's reluctance to...
As a second language student from ...I find it slightly ironic that such an anglo-centric view is...
The reader is rewarded with...
Less convincing is the broad-sweeping generalisation that...
There is no denying the author's subject knowledge nor his / her...
The author's prose is dense and littered with unnecessary jargon...
The author's critique of...might seem harsh but is well supported within the literature (see Author, Year; Author, Year; Author, Year). Aligning herself with the author, Author (Year) states that...
As it stands, the central focus of Title is well / poorly supported by its empirical findings...
Given the hesitation to generalise to...the limitation of...does not seem problematic...
For instance, the term...is never properly defined and the reader left to guess as to whether...
Furthermore, to label...as...inadvertently misguides...
In addition, this research proves to be timely / especially significant to... as recent government policy / proposals has / have been enacted to...
On this well researched / documented basis the author emphasises / proposes that...
Nonetheless, other research / scholarship / data tend to counter / contradict this possible trend / assumption...(see Author, Year; Author, Year).
Without entering into detail of the..., it should be stated that Title should be read by...others will see little value in...
As experimental conditions were not used in the study the word 'significant' misleads the reader.
The article / book becomes repetitious in its assertion that...
The thread of the author's argument becomes lost in an overuse of empirical data...
Almost every argument presented in the final section is largely derivative, providing little to say about...
She / he does not seem to take into consideration; however, that there are fundamental differences in the conditions of…
As Author (Year) points out, however, it seems to be necessary to look at…
This suggest that having low…does not necessarily indicate that…is ineffective.
Therefore, the suggestion made by Author (Year)…is difficult to support.
When considering all the data presented…it is not clear that the low scores of some students, indeed, reflects…

Conclusion language

Overall this article / book is an analytical look at...which within the field of...is often overlooked.
Despite its problems, Title offers valuable theoretical insights / interesting examples / a contribution to pedagogy and a starting point for students / researchers of...with an interest in...
This detailed and rigorously argued...
This first / second volume / book / article by...with an interest in...is highly informative...

Example extracts from a critical review

Writing critically.

If you have been told your writing is not critical enough, it probably means that your writing treats the knowledge claims as if they are true, well supported, and applicable in the context you are writing about. This may not always be the case.

In these two examples, the extracts refer to the same section of text. In each example, the section that refers to a source has been highlighted in bold. The note below the example then explains how the writer has used the source material.

There is a strong positive effect on students, both educationally and emotionally, when the instructors try to learn to say students' names without making pronunciation errors (Kiang, 2004).

Use of source material in example a:

This is a simple paraphrase with no critical comment. It looks like the writer agrees with Kiang. (This is not a good example for critical writing, as the writer has not made any critical comment).

Kiang (2004) gives various examples to support his claim that "the positive emotional and educational impact on students is clear" (p.210) when instructors try to pronounce students' names in the correct way. He quotes one student, Nguyet, as saying that he "felt surprised and happy" (p.211) when the tutor said his name clearly . The emotional effect claimed by Kiang is illustrated in quotes such as these, although the educational impact is supported more indirectly through the chapter. Overall, he provides more examples of students being negatively affected by incorrect pronunciation, and it is difficult to find examples within the text of a positive educational impact as such.

Use of source material in example b:

The writer describes Kiang's (2004) claim and the examples which he uses to try to support it. The writer then comments that the examples do not seem balanced and may not be enough to support the claims fully. This is a better example of writing which expresses criticality.

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Further resources

You may also be interested in our page on criticality, which covers criticality in general, and includes more critical reading questions.

Further reading: Read and Write Critically

We recommend that you do not search for other university guidelines on critical reviews. This is because the expectations may be different at other institutions. Ask your tutor for more guidance or examples if you have further questions.

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To introduce the source, its main ideas, key details, and its place within the field
To present your assessment of the quality of the source

In general, the introduction of your critical review should include

Author(s) name
Title of the source
What is the author's central purpose?
What methods or theoretical frameworks were used to accomplish this purpose?
What topic areas, chapters, sections, or key points did the author use to structure the source?
What were the results or findings of the study?
How were the results or findings interpreted? How were they related to the original problem (author's view of evidence rather than objective ﬁndings)?
Who conducted the research? What were/are their interests?
Why did they do this research?
Was this research pertinent only within the author’s field, or did it have broader (even global) relevance?
On what prior research was this source-based? What gap is the author attempting to address?
How important was the research question posed by the researcher?
Your overall opinion of the quality of the source. Think of this like a thesis or main argument.
Present your evaluation of the source, providing evidence from the text (or other sources) to support your assessment.

In general, the body of your critical review should include

Is the material organized logically and with appropriate headings?
Are there stylistic problems in logical, clarity or language?
Were the author(s) able to answer the question (test the hypothesis) raised
What was the objective of the study?
Does all the information lead coherently to the purpose of the study?
Are the methods valid for studying the problem or gap?
Could the study be duplicated from the information provided?
Is the experimental design logical and reliable?
How are the data organized? Is it logical and interpretable?
Do the results reveal what the researcher intended?
Do the authors present a logical interpretation of the results?
Have the limitations of the research been addressed?
Does the study consider other key studies in the field or other research possibilities or directions?
How was the signiﬁcance of the work described?
Follow the structure of the journal article (e.g. Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion) - highlighting the strengths and weaknesses in each section
Present the weaknesses of the article, and then the strengths of the article (or vice versa).
Group your ideas according to different research themes presented in the source
Group the strengths and weaknesses of the article into the following areas: originality, reliability, validity, relevance, and presentation

Purpose:

To summarize the strengths and weaknesses of the article as a whole
To assert the article’s practical and theoretical significance

In general, the conclusion of your critical review should include

A restatement of your overall opinion
A summary of the key strengths and weaknesses of the research that support your overall opinion of the source
Did the research reported in this source result in the formation of new questions, theories or hypotheses by the authors or other researchers?
Have other researchers subsequently supported or refuted the observations or interpretations of these authors?
Did the research provide new factual information, a new understanding of a phenomenon in the ﬁeld, a new research technique?
Did the research produce any practical applications?
What are the social, political, technological, or medical implications of this research?
How do you evaluate the significance of the research?
Find out what style guide you are required to follow (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago) and follow the guidelines to create a reference list (may be called a bibliography or works cited).
Be sure to include citations in the text when you refer to the source itself or external sources.
Check out our Cite Your Sources Guide for more information.
Read assignment instructions carefully and refer to them throughout the writing process.
Make an outline of your main sections before you write.
If your professor does not assign a topic or source, you must choose one yourself. Select a source that interests you and is written clearly so you can understand it.
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A Critical Review: How to Do it Step by Step

Last Updated:

April 24, 2023

A Critical Review: How to Do it Step by Step Made Easy

You have been asked to write a critical review of a novel, a painting, a movie, a play, a piece of music... and you don't know where to start? It's not the same as asking "how to write my papers or an academic essay" because a review has a different structure and emphases to pay attention to. But don't panic! Read this post carefully, and you'll learn how to organise and write it step by step. You can also read various sample critiques by other writers to prepare for them better.

Key Takeaways section on how to write a Critical Review

Understand the purpose : A critical review should summarise and evaluate the work, providing well-argued and justified opinions.
No standard length : Critical reviews can range from 500 to 800 words depending on the complexity of the work being analysed.
Five-part structure : Include a title, introduction, summary, critical commentary, and conclusion in your review.
Create a compelling title : A title should summarise your general opinion; consider writing it after completing the review to capture the essence of your conclusions.
Offer well-supported evaluations : Your critical commentary should be extensive and supported by arguments, not just simple statements of liking or disliking the work.
Brief conclusions : Summarise your critical commentary and overall thoughts on the work in a concise manner.
Prepare before writing : Approach the work without prejudice, take notes, make summaries, and gather relevant information to ensure a successful critical review.

What to take into account when writing a critical review?

The first thing to remember is that it is an expository-argumentative text. Therefore, your critical review must fulfil two objectives:

Summarise the work , i.e., provide an overall view by synthesising its most important aspects.

Evaluate the work , that is, give a personal value judgement about it. Your opinion must be well-argued and justified.

And how long should this text be, you may be wondering. The truth is that there is no standard length. That is, it depends on how long and complex the object of your analysis is (reviewing a short film is not the same as reviewing a three-hour movie). A reasonable measure would be between 500 words minimum and 800 words maximum. But remember - a text must say something, give information, so if your text is short, but you don't think it is necessary to add anything more, don't continue writing! Go to the point and remember: empty text only serves to confuse and divert attention from the main topic.

The structure of a critical review

As we have seen, your review should summarise the work you are analysing and give your opinion about it. To fulfil both objectives, you will have to follow this five-part structure:

‍ Title of the review: it should be a title that synthesises your general opinion. For example, if you are reviewing the novel Love in the Time of Cholera, you liked it and what moved you most is how the author narrates a love that resists decades and decades - your title could be something like this: 'Love in the Time of Cholera: the moving tale of a patient love that can do anything. A trick to write the perfect title is to wait until the end of the review since the essence of the title is usually in the conclusions. ‍
Introduction: this section should be very brief, and in it you will have to introduce the author and the work. In the case of Love in the Time of Cholera, we would briefly talk about Gabriel García Márquez's career and tell that the book is about the love between Florentino, Fermina and Juvenal throughout the years. ‍
Summary : This third part is broader than the presentation, and it is here where you should go deeper into the theme of the work. It is about choosing those key moments or features that shape the play. Returning to the example of Love in the Time of Cholera, some moments that should be in the expository summary would be the love affair between Florentino and Fermina, her marriage to Juvenal, the death of the doctor, and the reunion with Florentino, since they mark turning points in the story. ‍
Critical commentary: this point should be the most extensive of all the critical reviews since you must give your opinion about the work, but be careful! it is not enough to say 'I liked it' or 'I didn't like it', but your evaluation must have a basis and be supported by arguments. To do this, you will have to choose the points of the work that most caught your attention and comment on them, saying if you agree with the way it has been presented. And if the work has seemed novel or not, if you think it has maintained coherence from beginning to end, if the characters seem relevant to you, if you think another approach would have been more effective… and why. ‍
Conclusions: this part should be very brief, and in it you have to summarise your critical commentary and say what you thought of the work in general and how it made you feel.

How to prepare a critical review

To make sure that the writing of your review is perfect, you will have to start preparing it before you start writing while you are enjoying the book.

Approach the works without prejudice! If, for example, you go to a concert thinking you won't like it, you will probably be unfairly negative in your review.

Take notes as you read, watch, listen and observe the work to recover them in your review.

In the case of long works, make summaries of their parts: it will be easier and faster to synthesise the whole.

Make sure you have a good understanding of the work to be able to judge it correctly. To do this, consult information and bibliography about it.

Now that you know how to write it, your next critical review will be a success!

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Structure of a Critical Review

Critical reviews, both short (one page) and long (four pages), usually have a similar structure. Check your assignment instructions for formatting and structural specifications. Headings are usually optional for longer reviews and can be helpful for the reader.

Introduction

The length of an introduction is usually one paragraph for a journal article review and two or three paragraphs for a longer book review. Include a few opening sentences that announce the author(s) and the title, and briefly explain the topic of the text. Present the aim of the text and summarise the main finding or key argument. Conclude the introduction with a brief statement of your evaluation of the text. This can be a positive or negative evaluation or, as is usually the case, a mixed response.

Present a summary of the key points along with a limited number of examples. You can also briefly explain the author’s purpose/intentions throughout the text and you may briefly describe how the text is organised. The summary should only make up about a third of the critical review.

The critique should be a balanced discussion and evaluation of the strengths, weakness and notable features of the text. Remember to base your discussion on specific criteria. Good reviews also include other sources to support your evaluation (remember to reference).

You can choose how to sequence your critique. Here are some examples to get you started:

Most important to least important conclusions you make about the text.
If your critique is more positive than negative, then present the negative points first and the positive last.
If your critique is more negative than positive, then present the positive points first and the negative last.
If there are both strengths and weakness for each criterion you use, you need to decide overall what your judgement is. For example, you may want to comment on a key idea in the text and have both positive and negative comments. You could begin by stating what is good about the idea and then concede and explain how it is limited in some way. While this example shows a mixed evaluation, overall you are probably being more negative than positive.
In long reviews, you can address each criterion you choose in a paragraph, including both negative and positive points. For very short critical reviews (one page or less), where your comments will be briefer, include a paragraph of positive aspects and another of negative.
You can also include recommendations for how the text can be improved in terms of ideas, research approach; theories or frameworks used can also be included in the critique section.

Conclusion & References

This is usually a very short paragraph.

Restate your overall opinion of the text.
Briefly present recommendations.
If necessary, some further qualification or explanation of your judgement can be included. This can help your critique sound fair and reasonable.

If you have used other sources in you review you should also include a list of references at the end of the review.

Summarising and paraphrasing for the critical review

The best way to summarise

Scan the text. Look for information that can be deduced from the introduction, conclusion, title, and headings. What do these tell you about the main points of the article?
Locate the topic sentences and highlight the main points as you read.
Reread the text and make separate notes of the main points. Examples and evidence do not need to be included at this stage. Usually they are used selectively in your critique.

Paraphrasing means putting it into your own words. Paraphrasing offers an alternative to using direct quotations in your summary (and the critique) and can be an efficient way to integrate your summary notes.

The best way to paraphrase

Review your summary notes
Rewrite them in your own words and in complete sentences
Use reporting verbs and phrases, e.g. 'The author describes…', 'Smith argues that …'.
Use quotation marks if If you include unique or specialist phrases from the text.

Next: Some general criteria for evaluating texts

Essay and assignment writing guide.

Essay writing basics
Essay and assignment planning
Answering assignment questions
Editing checklist
Structure of a critical review
General criteria for evaluating
Sample extracts
Annotated bibliography
Reflective writing
^ More support

Scholarly Resources 4 Students | scite.ai 21 May 2024

Discover your Library: Main Library 21 May 2024

How to Write a Critical Essay

Hill Street Studios / Getty Images

An Introduction to Punctuation

Olivia Valdes was the Associate Editorial Director for ThoughtCo. She worked with Dotdash Meredith from 2017 to 2021.

B.A., American Studies, Yale University

A critical essay is a form of academic writing that analyzes, interprets, and/or evaluates a text. In a critical essay, an author makes a claim about how particular ideas or themes are conveyed in a text, then supports that claim with evidence from primary and/or secondary sources.

In casual conversation, we often associate the word "critical" with a negative perspective. However, in the context of a critical essay, the word "critical" simply means discerning and analytical. Critical essays analyze and evaluate the meaning and significance of a text, rather than making a judgment about its content or quality.

What Makes an Essay "Critical"?

Imagine you've just watched the movie "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." If you were chatting with friends in the movie theater lobby, you might say something like, "Charlie was so lucky to find a Golden Ticket. That ticket changed his life." A friend might reply, "Yeah, but Willy Wonka shouldn't have let those raucous kids into his chocolate factory in the first place. They caused a big mess."

These comments make for an enjoyable conversation, but they do not belong in a critical essay. Why? Because they respond to (and pass judgment on) the raw content of the movie, rather than analyzing its themes or how the director conveyed those themes.

On the other hand, a critical essay about "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" might take the following topic as its thesis: "In 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,' director Mel Stuart intertwines money and morality through his depiction of children: the angelic appearance of Charlie Bucket, a good-hearted boy of modest means, is sharply contrasted against the physically grotesque portrayal of the wealthy, and thus immoral, children."

This thesis includes a claim about the themes of the film, what the director seems to be saying about those themes, and what techniques the director employs in order to communicate his message. In addition, this thesis is both supportable and disputable using evidence from the film itself, which means it's a strong central argument for a critical essay .

Characteristics of a Critical Essay

Critical essays are written across many academic disciplines and can have wide-ranging textual subjects: films, novels, poetry, video games, visual art, and more. However, despite their diverse subject matter, all critical essays share the following characteristics.

Central claim . All critical essays contain a central claim about the text. This argument is typically expressed at the beginning of the essay in a thesis statement , then supported with evidence in each body paragraph. Some critical essays bolster their argument even further by including potential counterarguments, then using evidence to dispute them.
Evidence . The central claim of a critical essay must be supported by evidence. In many critical essays, most of the evidence comes in the form of textual support: particular details from the text (dialogue, descriptions, word choice, structure, imagery, et cetera) that bolster the argument. Critical essays may also include evidence from secondary sources, often scholarly works that support or strengthen the main argument.
Conclusion . After making a claim and supporting it with evidence, critical essays offer a succinct conclusion. The conclusion summarizes the trajectory of the essay's argument and emphasizes the essays' most important insights.

Tips for Writing a Critical Essay

Writing a critical essay requires rigorous analysis and a meticulous argument-building process. If you're struggling with a critical essay assignment, these tips will help you get started.

Practice active reading strategies . These strategies for staying focused and retaining information will help you identify specific details in the text that will serve as evidence for your main argument. Active reading is an essential skill, especially if you're writing a critical essay for a literature class.
Read example essays . If you're unfamiliar with critical essays as a form, writing one is going to be extremely challenging. Before you dive into the writing process, read a variety of published critical essays, paying careful attention to their structure and writing style. (As always, remember that paraphrasing an author's ideas without proper attribution is a form of plagiarism .)
Resist the urge to summarize . Critical essays should consist of your own analysis and interpretation of a text, not a summary of the text in general. If you find yourself writing lengthy plot or character descriptions, pause and consider whether these summaries are in the service of your main argument or whether they are simply taking up space.
An Introduction to Academic Writing
Definition and Examples of Analysis in Composition
How to Write a Good Thesis Statement
The Ultimate Guide to the 5-Paragraph Essay
How To Write an Essay
Critical Analysis in Composition
Tips on How to Write an Argumentative Essay
What an Essay Is and How to Write One
How to Write and Format an MBA Essay
Higher Level Thinking: Synthesis in Bloom's Taxonomy
How To Write a Top-Scoring ACT Essay for the Enhanced Writing Test
What Is a Critique in Composition?
How to Structure an Essay
How to Write a Solid Thesis Statement
How to Write a Response Paper
Writing a History Book Review

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Writing Critical Reviews

Dawn Atkinson

Chapter Overview

This chapter aims to help you build strong arguments in your own work by learning to write critical reviews, or critiques , of texts. A critical review requires a close examination of the argument presented in a text (analysis) and a subsequent explanation of how effective the argument is (evaluation). Critiques are assigned in both academic and technical writing classes because they encourage critical reading practices; in other words, this type of assignment calls for a sharp eye to discern what a piece says and how it communicates in order to arrive at a reasoned judgement about its argument. Ultimately, a critical review may discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of a document.

How might the skills used to develop a critical review be applicable in a workplace setting?

Understand Expectations before Starting a Critical Review Assignment

As with any assignment, make sure you understand the expectations for a critical review before beginning work on it. Pay attention to specifications regarding the paper’s audience, purpose, genre, and design; in addition, determine how many and what type of sources are required. You may be asked to restrict your evidentiary source list to the document under review rather than search for additional sources. Read the critical review directions carefully, and approach your instructor if you have unresolved questions.

Read a Text Closely to Prepare for a Critical Review

A critical review requires close engagement with a text: you cannot effectively analyze and evaluate a document if you have not read and attempted to comprehend it. To develop a broad understanding of a text’s focus and composition, begin by previewing the document. While other chapters of this textbook discuss previewing in detail, Figure 1, adapted from Excelsior Online Writing Lab (2020c), offers a reminder of how to undertake this activity.

Figure 1. How to preview a text before reading it in full

Previewing should give you an overall sense of what the text is about, how it is organized, and what information it contains.

After previewing the piece, it is time to read it though, while keeping the assignment purpose in mind. Because a critical review demands close work with a text, be prepared to annotate as you read by reflecting on the document’s content and meaning, recording comments and questions in the margin, highlighting important examples and evidence, underlining and defining new vocabulary, and making notes about your reactions to the text. These activities can facilitate understanding of and connection with a piece, aspects crucial to writing a successful critical review.

Your active engagement with the text should continue even after you have read it in full. To illustrate, you can use the prompts in Figure 2, adapted from Excelsior Online Writing Lab (2020a), to investigate the author’s intent for writing the document.

Figure 2. Prompts for evaluating an author’s intent

In addition to evaluating an author’s intent, think carefully about your own reactions to the text as a means to interrogate it further. The following questions, adapted from Excelsior Online Writing Lab (2020d) and Student Academic Success Services at Queen’s University (2018, “Strengths/Weaknesses”), may help in this regard.

What, if anything, about the reading is unclear? Why is it unclear?
Does the text deliver on the promises it made in its title and introduction?
Do you find the author’s writing style persuasive? Why or why not?
Are the author’s arguments logical? Do they make sense?
Are points illustrated with relevant and comprehensible examples?
What kind of evidence does the author provide to support claims? Given the purpose of the piece and its audience, is the evidence from suitable sources?
Is the evidence relevant? Is it sufficient? Is it credible?
Does the author supply stated or unstated reasons to support claims?
Does the author consider alternative points of view, reasons, and evidence?
How does the reading compare with other texts on the same topic?
What ideas do you find most thought-provoking?
What points do you want to investigate further?

The activities described here are intended to promote active engagement with a reading for purposes of eliciting a critical response to it.

Take Advantage of Opportunities to Discuss the Text

Discussions can sometimes inspire thoughtful reflection about a text and clarify lingering uncertainties, so seize opportunities to discuss the document with your classmates. If your instructor schedules a seminar or class discussion period to focus on the text, aim to get as much out of it as you can by preparing in advance, by contributing during the activity, and by reflecting on the experience afterward. Figure 3, adapted from McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph (n.d.), shares tips for participating in class discussions.

Can you think of any other advice you would add to the visual?

Figure 3. How to take part in class discussions

Always be respectful of others’ ideas during a class discussion to encourage a positive and productive session. Remember that one of the reasons to engage in discussion is to hear viewpoints different from your own—ultimately these viewpoints may help to refine your own understanding of the reading.

Meeting with your instructor to discuss the text might also help bring your own ideas into focus. Faculty members appreciate talking with students who take active steps to ensure their own success, so be sure to read the document prior to the appointment. Schedule the meeting with your instructor by sending an email that applies the best practices discussed in this textbook, and arrive on time to the session prepared with your questions. Figure 4, a multipage handout adapted from Roux et al. (2020), illustrates these pieces of advice.

Can you think of any other tips you would add to the visual?

How might the skills used to schedule and participate in a meeting with an instructor be transferred to a workplace context?

Figure 4. Tips for emailing and meeting with an instructor

Do not be afraid to discuss points of uncertainty or confusion during a meeting with an instructor. After all, your purpose is to seek clarification about a text so that you may write about it confidently in a critical review.

Understand How to Organize a Critical Review

Once you have read the text and feel confident about discussing it, you can make plans for your critical review. This type of paper generally follows an introduction, body, and conclusion structure, the same organizational configuration you have applied when writing memos and letters.

The Introduction

To establish context for readers, begin the introduction with a concise summary of the document under review; list the document’s title and author at the beginning of the summary. This summary serves as a foundation for the subsequent critical discussion of the text presented in the body section of the paper. Recall that when composing a summary, a writer uses his or her own words and sentence structures, focuses on main points, excludes details, and cites and references source material. The following summary, adapted from the Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo (n.d., para. 4), demonstrates application of these summary guidelines.

In their article “British Columbia’s Revenue-Neutral Carbon Tax: A Review of the Latest ‘Grand Experiment’ in Environmental Policy,” Murray and Rivers (2015) examine the outcome of that province’s first attempt to institute a carbon tax. The main goal was to try to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Following principles favored by economists, the authors explain that the province began with a small tax and increased the rate over several years, allowing taxpayers to ease into the plan slowly. By reviewing other research studies and using a simulation model, Murray and Rivers (para. 1) find that GHG emissions decreased by 5 to 15 percent as a result of the carbon tax. This reduction was higher than expected, and the authors suggest that a carbon tax not only works because of the extra financial burden, but also because of some other social cost of consuming fossil fuels; however, the exact mechanism is not yet understood. Their study also revealed that public support for the carbon tax grew post-implementation.

Murray, B., & Rivers, N. (2015). British Colombia’s revenue-neutral carbon tax: A review of the latest ‘grand experiment’ in environmental policy. Energy Policy, 86 , 674-683. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2015.08.011

Notice how compact this summary is: it communicates the central points of a nine-page journal article in one concise paragraph.

After the summary, continue the introduction by supplying a thesis statement that reveals the critical review’s purpose and your determination regarding the effectiveness of the text’s argument: this determination is the result of your analysis and evaluation of the argument. The thesis may also outline the critique’s organization; alternatively, you might decide to place the forecasting statement (route map) in a separate sentence at the end of the introduction. The following introduction, adapted from Grosz (2019, paras. 1, 2, 3), demonstrates these elements at work in a sample critique introduction.

In his 2019 Harvard Data Science Review article entitled “Artificial Intelligence—The Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet,” Michael I. Jordan makes evident that many have lost sight of the full richness of human intelligence and have neglected to separate foundational understanding from engineering. Most importantly, he points out the need to develop an “engineering discipline . . . for the data-focused and learning-focused fields” and that the systems based on their methods “should be built to work as claimed” (para. 29). A distinguished machine learning insider, Jordan speaks with authority, bringing insight to current discussions of the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the potential threats it raises for societal wellbeing. The article, nonetheless, misses two important pieces of the story: the point that when established, the AI and human-computer interaction fields initially competed to their detriment and the reality that humanities values and social science principles are central to the foundation of the engineering discipline he describes. I discuss these matters in turn and then indicate ways they should inform the engineering discipline Jordan envisions.

Jordan, M.I. (2019). Artificial intelligence—The revolution hasn’t happened yet. Harvard Data Science Review, 1 (1). https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.f06c6e61

Although the jargon used in this paragraph may be unfamiliar to you, the text’s organizational structure is nevertheless clear.

Organize your body paragraphs around the themes that resulted from your evaluation of the text. In other words, rather than discussing each paragraph of the text in a chronological fashion—an approach that can be wordy and repetitious—think about the main points that emerged during your examination of the text’s argument, and center your discussion on those areas. Your aim when writing a critical review is to construct an argument about the effectiveness of the text’s argument, so begin each body paragraph with a topic sentence that makes a claim in reference to an evaluation theme. Then develop the body paragraphs by discussing examples and evidence from the text to support your points; remember to indicate the relevance of this information to your argument and incorporate it cohesively into your text. The following student example, adapted from Jensen (2014) as cited in Excelsior Online Writing Lab (2020f, “Sample Essay”), demonstrates these guidelines at work in a body paragraph.

In the article “Why I Won’t Buy and iPad (and Think You Shouldn’t, Either),” Cory Doctorow (2014) expresses bias against the digital rights management (DRM) control built into the Apple iPad’s design by constructing a one-sided argument. He makes the point that Apple “uses DRM to control what can run on your devices, which means that Apple’s customers can’t take their ‘iContent’ with them to competing devices, and Apple developers can’t sell on their own terms” (para. 13). Doctorow is a software creator, so he has something personal to gain from unconstrained digital media sharing; however, not everyone can develop software. The author overlooks the iPad’s beneficial applications, which can be used by a diverse range of people, by focusing only on those who are looking to develop and sell their own software. Just because the iPad does not work for Doctorow does not mean it will not work for others.

Doctorow, C. (2010, April 2). Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either) . BoingBoing. https://boingboing.net/2010/04/02/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-thi.html

Be sure to cite and reference pieces of evidence, including those taken from the text under review, as the sample does.

The Conclusion

When writing the conclusion section of a critical review, reiterate your thesis (without repeating it word for word) and emphasize what your analysis and evaluation reveals about the text under review.

Plan Your Critical Review

A well-organized critical review requires careful planning: although close work with a text can reveal many points about its argument, you will likely only be able to discuss a selection of these in your paper given length restrictions. An outline may help you to narrow the focus of your paper and devise a logical plan for its construction. Figure 5, adapted from Excelsior Online Writing Lab (2020e), provides tips for outlining.

Figure 5. Guidance for constructing an outline

A concept map, also known as a mind map, can also be used to plan a critical review. Figure 6, adapted from Excelsior Online Writing Lab (2020b), supplies directions for constructing a concept map.

Figure 6. Instructions for creating a concept map

Whatever planning method you select, concentrate only on prominent evaluation themes in order to address those themes adequately in your paper.

Use an Appropriate Tone and Language When Writing a Critical Review

A critical review aims to reveal the positive and negative aspects of a text’s argument in order to comment upon its effectiveness; in so doing, a critical review makes its own argument. As with other types of academic and technical writing, maintain a respectful, reasonable tone when writing a critique so that you work is taken seriously. Tone is the attitude a writer conveys toward a paper’s audience and subject matter. Strive to build your argument on clear claims, rational reasons, and quality evidence—as well as coverage of counter-claims, reasons, and evidence—rather than on emotive language, exclamatory sentences, personal attacks, or indefensible assertions. The latter weaken an argument’s persuasiveness and are inappropriate in academic and technical writing.

When writing a critical review, use words that are precise, concise, and appropriately formal. The following guidelines elaborate on these points.

Negative Sentence Construction

Avoid negative sentence constructions because they can be awkward and difficult to follow. Here is an example.

Instead of: He did not remember to complete the homework assignment.
Write: He forgot to complete the homework assignment.

The affirmative sentence construction provides a clear and concise alternative to the awkward first version.

Word Choice (adapted from McNamee, 2019, p. 1)

When writing for a technical or academic audience, avoid unquantifiable descriptive words, such as good , bad , great , huge , big , very , extremely , incredibly , and enormously . These words are problematic because they do not define a specific degree or amount.

Sentence Structure (adapted from McNamee, 2019, p. 2)

Aim to convey the meaning of a sentence, the key information, at the beginning of the sentence. To demonstrate, look at these two examples.

Instead of: Despite the margins of error due to human error that occurred due to improper pipette cleaning, the results showed that the pH still remained acidic.
Write: The results showed the pH remained acidic, despite the margins of error due to improper pipette cleaning.

The first version is unclear because the beginning clause does not communicate the main purpose of the sentence. The second version communicates the focus of the sentence early on and is also more concise.

Language (adapted from Excelsior Online Writing Lab, 2020g)

Make every effort to use language that is clear and appropriately formal when writing a critical review. Here are some specific guidelines to keep in mind.

o Instead of: I think anyone who becomes a parent should have to take parenting classes.
o Write: Parenting classes should be mandatory for biological and adoptive parents.
o Instead of: When you read this textbook, you will notice the content is focused on technical writing.
o Write: Textbook readers will notice this book’s content focuses on technical writing.
o Instead of: The study didn’t examine how age affected participants’ notetaking practices.
o Write: The study did not examine how age affected participants’ notetaking practices.
o Instead of: A lot of employees showed up at the staff meeting.
o Write: Twenty-five employees attended the staff meeting.
Avoid redundant words and phrases.
o Instead of: The conference presentation was brief in length.
o Write: The conference presentation was brief.

Consider the audience, purpose, context, and genre for a critique to gauge the level of formality expected in the document.

Can you think of any other tone or language tips you would add to this textbook section?

Activity A: Read and Work with a Text that Addresses Top Writing Errors

Read the handout “Top Twenty Errors in Undergraduate Writing” (Hume Center for Writing and Speaking, Stanford University, n.d.), which can be found at the following address.

https://undergrad.stanford.edu/tutoring-support/hume-center/resources/student-resources/grammar-resources-writers/top-twenty-errors-undergraduate-writing

Now review the feedback on three of your previous writing assignments. Do you detect any of the errors listed on the handout in your work? Identify three issues that recur in your assignments and handout sections/explanations that will help you address these issues.

Issue one + handout section/explanation:

Issue two + handout section/explanation:

Issue three + handout section/explanation:

Activity B: Read and Engage with a Formal Report

Watch a video entitled “Meet Emma – Your Work Colleague of the Future” (Fellowes Brands, 2019), which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL5SuzGkUPw , for an introduction to the topic of a particular formal report.

Now open William Higham’s (2019) formal report entitled “The Work Colleague of the Future: A Report on the Long-Term Health of Office Workers” at https://assets.fellowes.com/skins/fellowes/responsive/gb/en/resources/work-colleague-of-the-future/download/WCOF_Report_EU.pdf . You will be asked to write a critical review of Higham’s report for homework. To help you comprehend and connect with the ideas discussed in the report, practice preview, close, and critical reading techniques by following the steps listed. Actively engage with the text by making notes on the steps as you proceed.

Look at the title of the text. Based on the title, what do you think the report is about?
Look at the text’s headings and subheadings. What do these tell you about the topic of the report?
Skim through the introduction. What do you expect the report will discuss?
Skim though the final section of the report. What did you learn?
What is your initial impression regarding the soundness of the report? What made you form that impression?
What do you know about Higham or Fellowes, the organization that commissioned the report? Google them now on your computer.
Does what you discovered about them change your impression regarding the soundness of the report? Why or why not?
On first glance, does the document follow the conventions for formal reports outlined in the “Reading Actively” chapter of this textbook?
If so, how? If not, how does it deviate from the conventions, what effect does the deviation have on you as a reader, and what might be the reason for the deviation?
After reading, try to define the unknown terms you identified.
After reading, try to answer your questions. You may need to review the essential details of the text again to do this.
Determine the report’s purpose or thesis.
Determine the report’s target audience.
Identify the main idea of the section entitled “Findings.”
Identify the main idea of the section entitled “Danger Zones.”
Identify the main idea of the section entitled “Our Offices.”
Identify the main idea of the section entitled “Physical Impact.”
Concentrate on the report’s purpose/thesis and main ideas or themes when summarizing, and omit detail
Put the report away when summarizing it to avoid copying its language and sentence structures
Identify how the author contextualizes the report for readers by looking for associations between its content and readers’ experiences.
Are the author’s points logical? Do they make sense?
Is each of the author’s viewpoints (claims) supported with evidence?
Is the evidence comprehensible?
Does the evidence sufficiently support the claim?
Is the evidence relevant to the claim?
Is the evidence logically tied to the claim?
Given the purpose of the piece and its audience, is the evidence from suitable sources?
Is the evidence research-based ( empirical ), factual, or grounded in hearsay or casual observation ( anecdotal ), or does the author rely heavily on a reader’s emotional reactions to communicate the force of his viewpoints?
Is the evidence credible?
Can you easily associate citations with their references and sources?
Identify the connection of reasons to viewpoints. The report author may state reasons outright—look for uses of seeing as , because , since , given that , and the like—or imply them.
Does the author address counter-claims?
Does the author address counter-reasons?
Does the author address counter-evidence?
Does the author respond reasonably to other viewpoints or simply dismiss them?
What impression does the design give you?
How does the design contribute (or not) to your understanding of the report?
Does your thesis articulate the theme of your paper and express your viewpoint?
Is your thesis an arguable statement rather than a statement of fact?
Can the argument conveyed in your thesis be supported with claims, reasons, and evidence?

Homework: Compose a Critical Review Essay

Draw upon what you did in Activity B to write an essay that critiques “The Work Colleague of the Future: A Report on the Long-Term Health of Office Workers” (Higham, 2019). This assignment asks you to closely examine the argument presented in the formal report (analyze it) and explain to readers how effective the argument is (evaluate it). Remember that a critical review makes an argument: you will need to support your claims about the report with reasons and evidence and cite and reference all outside sources of information used. Follow the guidelines presented in this chapter when writing your paper; in addition, consult the “Writing Essays” chapter of this textbook for essay formatting guidance and the “Writing to Persuade” chapter for argumentation information. Lastly, use the points you identified in activity A to revise your work.

Excelsior Online Writing Lab. (2020a). Evaluating an author’s intent . License: CC-BY 4.0 . https://owl.excelsior.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/EvaluatingAuthorsIntent2019.pdf

Excelsior Online Writing Lab. (2020b). How to make a concept map . License: CC-BY 4.0 https://owl.excelsior.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/HowToMakeConceptMap2019.pdf

Excelsior Online Writing Lab. (2020c). How to preview a text . License: CC-BY 4.0 https://owl.excelsior.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/Previewing2019.pdf

Excelsior Online Writing Lab. (2020d). How to use questioning to improve reading comprehension . License: CC-BY 4.0 https://owl.excelsior.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Questioning2019.pdf

Excelsior Online Writing Lab. (2020e). Outlining . License: CC-BY 4.0 https://owl.excelsior.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/HowToMakeAnOutline2019.pdf

Excelsior Online Writing Lab. (2020f). Sample rhetorical analysis . License: CC-BY 4.0 https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/argument-analysis/argument-analysis-sample-rhetorical-analysis/

Excelsior Online Writing Lab. (2020g). Tips on academic voice . License: CC-BY 4.0 . https://owl.excelsior.edu/writing-process/finding-your-voice/finding-your-voice-tips-on-academic-voice/

Fellowes Brands. (2019, October 23). Meet Emma – your work colleague of the future [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL5SuzGkUPw

Grosz, B.J. (2019). The AI revolution needs expertise in people, publics and societies. Harvard Data Science Review, 1 (1). https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.97b95546

Higham, W. (2019). The work colleague of the future: A report on the long-term health of office workers. Fellowes . https://assets.fellowes.com/skins/fellowes/responsive/gb/en/resources/work-colleague-of-the-future/download/WCOF_Report_EU.pdf

Hume Center for Writing and Speaking, Stanford University. (n.d.). Top twenty errors in undergraduate writing . https://undergrad.stanford.edu/tutoring-support/hume-center/resources/student-resources/grammar-resources-writers/top-twenty-errors-undergraduate-writing

McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph. (n.d.). We need to talk: Tips for participating in class discussions . License: CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 . https://learningcommons.lib.uoguelph.ca/item/we-need-talk-tips-participating-class-discussions

McNamee, K. (2019). Tone. Colorado School of Mines Writing Center . License: CC-BY-NC 4.0 . https://www.mines.edu/otcc/wp-content/uploads/sites/303/2019/12/otcctonelesson.pdf

Roux, S., Ravaei, K., & Harper, T. (2020). Quick tips for contacting instructors over email, quick tips for meeting instructors in-person . WI+RE: Writing Instruction + Research Education. License: CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 . https://uclalibrary.github.io/research-tips/assets/handouts/contacting-faculty-combined.pdf

Student Academic Success Services, Queen’s University. (2018). Writing a critical review . License: CC-BY-NC-SA 2.5 . https://sass.queensu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Critical-Review.pdf

Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo. (n.d.). Citing a source more than once . https://uwaterloo.ca/writing-and-communication-centre/citing-source-more-once

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Critical review

During your studies, you may be asked to write a critical review of a book, a book chapter or a journal article. This form of assessment requires you to critically examine a piece of writing in the light of what you know about that field of research. Your critical review is written for a reader (your lecturer or tutor) who is knowledgeable in the discipline and is interested not just in the coverage and content of the writing being reviewed, but also in your critical assessment of the ideas and argument that are being presented by the author.

Key steps in beginning your review

To begin the task, you need to read and critically analyse the article. When reading the text, have some questions in mind to guide your analysis and help you to focus on areas to critique. The following questions are some ideas on how to engage with the text and help you form your critical analysis:

Objectives: what does the article set out to do?
Theory: is there an explicit theoretical framework? If not, are there important theoretical assumptions?
Concepts: what are the central concepts? Are they clearly defined?
Argument: what is the central argument? Are there specific hypotheses?
Method: what methods are employed to test these?
Evidence: is evidence provided? How adequate is it?
Values: are value positions clear or are they implicit?
Literature: how does the work fit into the wider literature?
Contribution: how well does the work advance our knowledge of the subject?
Style: how clear is the author's language/style/expression?
Conclusion: a brief overall assessment.

When critically analysing the text, consider how it relates to your course materials, to the other articles or books that you have been reading and the lecture material. This can help you find supporting evidence or alternative theoretical models or interpretations of data.

Structuring the review

The following is a suggested structure for your review.

Introduction

Initially, identify the text (author, title, date of publication and other details that seem important), indicate the main points you will be discussing and state your overall message regarding the text.

Briefly summarise the range, contents, and argument of the text. Occasionally you may summarise the entire text, but in a short review (1000-1500 words) you usually pick up the main themes only. This section should not normally take up more than a third of the total review.

Critically discuss 2-3 key issues raised in the text. This section is the core of your review. Make clear the author's own argument before you criticise and evaluate it. Support your criticisms with evidence from the text or from other writings. You may also want to indicate gaps in the author's treatment of a topic, but it is seldom useful to criticise a writer for not doing something they never intended to do.

Evaluate the overall contribution that the text has made to your understanding of the topic (and maybe its importance to the development of knowledge in this particular area or discipline, setting it in the context of other writings in the field).

Compare and contrast critical review

Sometimes you will be asked to compare and contrast two or more journal articles in a critical review. The process is the same as above, however you will need to think about the following questions:

What do the authors agree and disagree about?
Which author's argument do you agree with the most, and why?

Keep these questions in mind as you read your journal articles and start to compare and contrast them. They will also help guide you in structuring your critical/analytical response. Your structure might look like this:

Initially, identify both the texts (author, title, date of publication and other details that seem important), indicate your answer to the questions posed above (or any specific question you have been given by your lecturer) and the main points you will be discussing about the texts.

Briefly summarise the range, contents, and arguments of both the texts picking up the main themes only. This section should not normally take up more than a third of the total review.

Critically discuss 2-3 key issues raised in the texts. This section is the core of your review. As you are comparing and contrasting, at this point you need to show how the author's agree and/or disagree around your chosen issues. Use evidence from the texts to illustrate and support your views.

Evaluate the overall contribution that the texts have made to your understanding of the topic and how they agree or disagree with each other.

Other assessments

Annotated bibliography

Creative writing

Policy brief

Writing in Law

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Essays Blogs
Essay Question Words: “Critically Evaluate/Review.”

Critical does not always mean brutal or complex, but in the case of essays, we often apprehend the negative connotation of the word ‘critically evaluate or critical review’. So what does ‘critical evaluation’ or ‘critical review’ actually refers to within an essay? Let us break down the concept and understand how we can utilize these two terms in a paper to make it more valuable for a piece of writing.

The word ‘critical’ generally advocates the constitution one’s idea for a perspective backed up by logical altercation. When it is entreated to incorporate critical thinking or involve paramount elucidation while writing on a specific topic, it does not necessarily adhere to the negative commentary or idea incorporation. In other words, we can say that ‘critically evaluate’ or ‘critical review’ within an essay would not necessarily represent the negative aspiration regarding a topic; instead, it would logically support the complex idea formed based on differentiated pieces of evidence.

Critical evaluation meaning stands on the cognitive ability of a human to think beyond the aspects presented in their natural circumstances. Essays involve discussing broad topics; critical evaluation represents the ability to logically explain and argue what has been submitted to an individual by others while developing one’s perspective or opinion in the same field.

Typically, critical evaluation for critical review depends on certain aspects that a writer needs to understand while attempting a critical evaluation within an essay. Different segments of essay writing involve critical evaluation/ review as their core element, and these aspects are explored from the following particularities.

Explaining the descriptive writing:

In many cases, we often hear students experience comments from the professors that an essay is too descriptive rather than critical. We need to understand the measures of descriptive writing to reach the level of identifying critical evaluation/review within an essay. Descriptive writing is identified as a process of depicting the background of a particular topic and incorporating shreds of evidence but not getting into an argumentative discussion. In other words, descriptive writing offers a clear and pre-existing idea or a piece of information to its readers instead of turning it into specific squabbled elucidation. In academic writing, the descriptive form of an essay focuses on four significant measures that answer the four ‘W’ (Who, What, Where, When). An abduce of such standard is provided as follows.

“The author—– has depicted the main essence of this research study in advocating the relevance of the topic to the purpose of conducting industry research”

Here, it has manifested that we offer a piece of detailed information that is already presented by another author in descriptive writing. We are just a medium of describing it to our readers within a descriptive essay for descriptive writing. Henceforth, descriptive writing offers information about who the author is and the context of the study instead of providing a more critique-based perspective of the subject. Such a presentation would adhere to the need for information delivery, but it is not a relevant delineation of critical evaluation/ review in academic writing.

Critical writing:

Article writing can be a condition of critical thinking, and the entire meaning upholds forming arguments based on a specific subject or idea. In critical writing, one must manifest critical thinking ability while explaining a particular subject or topic through an essay. Critical evaluation of detailed writing represents the application of questions like what if, How, and what next that could help extract better critique-oriented writing as it exhibits that these type of questions helps a student to bring out a more critical and in-depth analysis of a situation by looking beyond what is delivered by other studies or authors. Hence, there is a lucid difference between critical writing and descriptive. In critical writing, the questions start with ‘W’ not be abundant in terms of leveling up to the requirements of critical writing.

How to achieve ‘critical evaluation/review’ in essay writing

There are a few measures that are important to consider while attempting for the critical evaluation in writing. First, a writer or a student needs to go through the secondary materials to provide information about specific topics. Unlike descriptive essays, the critical evaluation review needs to include the questions based on possibilities around the circumstance, which is evident in providing better answers to the readers’ requirements.

Students need to understand the fundamental difference between descriptive and critical writing, and to achieve that, a thorough reading of the secondary sources for the articles is essential. It manifests that as an author has presented some research-based information to their research papers, it does not mean that it should not be questioned. Critical evaluation appertains the ability of the student to explain what and why the author has served the search information while providing different and personal perspectives to that information for expounding its purpose. While closing the discussion, we need to understand certain academic writing examples of sections where critical evaluation or review are found, such as in methodology or discussion sections. Most importantly, critical evaluation refers to putting the information provided by an author or a secondary source under the light of essential perspectives and thinking. By considering the questions, a student can perform a better critical evaluation while highlighting the aspects of information that the author has not conveyed to its readers through an essay. Critical evaluation/review is also a great source of enhancing individual ability to practice critical thinking across different fields.

How to Write a Critical Book Review

Your review should have two goals: first, to inform the reader about the content of the book, and second, to provide an evaluation that gives your judgment of the book’s quality.

Your introduction should include an overview of the book that both incorporates an encapsulated summary and a sense of your general judgment. This is the equivalent to a thesis statement.

Do NOT spend more than one-third or so of the paper summarizing the book. The summary should consist of a discussion and highlights of the major arguments, features, trends, concepts, themes, ideas, and characteristics of the book. While you may use direct quotes from the book (make sure you always give the page number), such quotes should never be the bulk of the summary. Much of your grade will depend on how well you describe and explain the material IN YOUR OWN WORDS. You might want to take the major organizing themes of the book and use them to organize your own discussion. This does NOT mean, however, that I want a chapter-by-chapter summary. Your goal is a unified essay.

So what do I want, if not just a summary? Throughout your summary, I want you to provide a critique of the book. (Hence the title: “A Critical Book Review.”) A critique consists of thoughts, responses, and reactions. It is not necessarily negative. Nor do you need to know as much about the subject as the author (because you hardly ever will). The skills you need are an ability to follow an argument and test a hypothesis. Regardless of how negative or positive your critique is, you need to be able to justify and support your position.

Here are a number of questions that you can address as part of your critique. You need not answer them all, but questions one and two are essential to any book review, so those must be included. And these are ABSOLUTELY NOT to be answered one after another ( seriatim ). Don’t have one paragraph that answers one, and then the next paragraph that answers the next, etc. The answers should be part of a carefully constructed essay, complete with topic sentences and transitions.

What is your overall opinion of the book? On what basis has this opinion been formulated? That is, tell the reader what you think and how you arrived at this judgment. What did you expect to learn when you picked up the book? To what extent – and how effectively – were your expectations met? Did you nod in agreement (or off to sleep)? Did you wish you could talk back to the author? Amplify upon and explain your reactions.
Identify the author’s thesis and explain it in your own words. How clearly and in what context is it stated and, subsequently, developed? To what extent and how effectively (i.e., with what kind of evidence) is this thesis proven? Use examples to amplify your responses. If arguments or perspectives were missing, why do you think this might be?
What are the author’s aims? How well have they been achieved, especially with regard to the way the book is organized? Are these aims supported or justified? (You might look back at the introduction to the book for help). How closely does the organization follow the author’s aims?
How are the author’s main points presented, explained, and supported? What assumptions lie behind these points? What would be the most effective way for you to compress and/or reorder the author’s scheme of presentation and argument?
How effectively does the author draw claims from the material being presented? Are connections between the claims and evidence made clearly and logically? Here you should definitely use examples to support your evaluation.
What conclusions does the author reach and how clearly are they stated? Do these conclusions follow from the thesis and aims and from the ways in which they were developed? In other words, how effectively does the book come together?
Identify the assumptions made by the author in both the approach to and the writing of the book. For example, what prior knowledge does the author expect readers to possess? How effectively are those assumptions worked into the overall presentation? What assumptions do you think should not have been made? Why?
Are you able to detect any underlying philosophy of history held by the author (e.g., progress, decline, cyclical, linear, and random)? If so, how does this philosophy affect the presentation of the argument?
How does the author see history as being motivated: primarily by the forces of individuals, economics, politics, social factors, nationalism, class, race, gender, something else? What kind of impact does this view of historical motivation have upon the way in which the author develops the book?
Does the author’s presentation seem fair and accurate? Is the interpretation biased? Can you detect any distortion, exaggeration, or diminishing of material? If so, for what purpose might this have been done, and what effect does hit have on the overall presentation?

These questions are derived from Robert Blackey, “Words to the Whys: Crafting Critical Book Reviews,” The History Teacher, 27.2 (Feb. 1994): 159-66.

– Serena Zabin, Feb. 2003

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Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poetry

By Amanda Petrusich

An illustrated portrait of Taylor Swift.

In the past several months, Taylor Swift has become culturally ubiquitous in a way that feels nearly terrifying. Superstardom tends to turn normal people into cartoons, projections, gods, monsters. Swift has been inching toward some sort of tipping point for a while. The most recent catalyst was, in part, love: in the midst of her record-breaking Eras Tour , Swift, who is thirty-four, began dating Travis Kelce , a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. Whenever Swift appeared at one of Kelce’s games, the broadcasters whipped their extra-high-definition cameras toward her, sending legions of amateur lip-readers scrambling for their phones. I’m paid to give legibility to such things, and even I couldn’t help but think that we were crossing some sort of Rubicon with regard to our collective sanity. Swift was everywhere, beheld by everyone. She is one of the most streamed artists of all time on Spotify; Billboard reported that, at one point, she accounted for seven per cent of all vinyl sales in the U.S. Swift is a capable and hugely savvy businesswoman (a billionaire, in fact), yet I began to worry about her in a nearly maternal way: How could anyone survive that sort of scrutiny and retain her humanity? Detaching from reality can be lethal for a pop star, particularly one known for her Everygirl candor. I thought of the oft-memed bit from “Arrested Development,” in which Lucille Bluth, the oblivious matriarch, asks, “I mean, it’s one banana, Michael—what could it cost? Ten dollars?”

This month, Swift released “The Tortured Poets Department,” her eleventh studio album. She has now reached a level of virtuosity within her genre that feels nearly immutable—she’s too practiced, too masterly, to swing and really miss. But “The Tortured Poets Department” suffers from being too long (two hours after it was released, Swift announced a second disk, bringing the total number of tracks to thirty-one) and too familiar. Swift co-wrote most of the record with Jack Antonoff and with Aaron Dessner. (The two producers have oppositional melodic sensibilities: Antonoff sharpens Swift; Dessner softens her.) The new songs suggest that, after a decade, her partnership with Antonoff has perhaps run its course. The tracks written with Dessner are gentler, more tender, and more surprising. The raw and stirring “Robin” seems to address a child—either a very young Swift (the album contains several references to her hijacked youth, including “The Manuscript,” a sombre song about a relationship with an older man), or maybe a future son or daughter.

“The Tortured Poets Department” was released following the end of Swift’s six-year relationship with the actor Joe Alwyn, and the album is mostly about the utter unreliability of love—how bonkers it is that we build our entire lives around a feeling that can simply dissipate. “You said I’m the love of your life / About a million times,” Swift sings on “Loml,” a wrenching piano ballad. “You shit-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles.” Shortly after Swift and Alwyn split, she reportedly had a fling with Matty Healy , the front man for the British rock band the 1975. (“I took the miracle move-on drug / The effects were temporary,” she sings on “Fortnight.”) Healy is a provocateur, prone to making loutish jokes; onstage, he smokes, eats raw steak, and makes out with strangers. The rumored relationship sent Swifties into spasms of outrage, and revealed the unusual extent to which Swift is beholden to her fans. She has encouraged and nurtured a parasocial affection (at times she nearly demanded it: inviting fans to her home, baking them cookies), and she now has to contend with their sense of ownership over her life. On “But Daddy I Love Him,” she scornfully chastises the “judgmental creeps” who relentlessly hounded her about her love life: “I’d rather burn my whole life down / Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning.” (She saves the nastiest barb for the final verse: “All the wine moms are still holding out.”) Regardless, things with Healy ended fast, and, a few months later, she did the most wholesome thing possible: she started dating a football player whose team would go on to win the Super Bowl.

Quite a few of the album’s lyrics seem to evoke Healy: “You’re not Dylan Thomas / I’m not Patti Smith / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel / We’re modern idiots,” Swift sings on the title track, a shimmering song about broken people clinging to each other. I like that line—it suggests self-awareness—but it’s followed by one of the weirdest verses of Swift’s career: “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep / Like a tattooed golden retriever.” Other lyrics lack Swift’s signature precision: “At dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on,” she sings. Even the greatest poets whiff a phrase now and then, but a lot of the language on the record is either incoherent (“I was a functioning alcoholic till nobody noticed my new aesthetic”) or just generally bewildering (“Florida is one hell of a drug”). My favorite lyrics are the simplest, and are delivered with a kind of exhausted calm. On “Down Bad,” a woozy song about feeling like shit, Swift admits defeat: “Now I’m down bad, crying at the gym / Everything comes out teen-age petulance / Fuck it if I can’t have him.” Feel you, dude.

Each of Swift’s records has a distinct visual component—this is more or less the premise of the Eras Tour . “The Tortured Poets Department” is preoccupied with writerly accoutrements, but the vibe is ultimately more high-end stationery store than musty rare-books room. Initially, the title seemed as if it might be a smirking reference to Joe Alwyn (he once joked about being part of a WhatsApp group called the Tortured Man Club). But I find that the phrase works well as a summation of Swift’s entire self-conception. She has always made a big deal about her pain being generative. “This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on the page,” she wrote on Instagram. She has talked about this album as if the songs were mere monuments to her suffering: “Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.”

An unusual number of Swift’s songs portray love as combative, perhaps because she is so prone to working from a place of wounded longing. On “Better Than Revenge,” a song she wrote at eighteen, Swift sings about art as a useful weapon, a way to punish anyone who does her dirty: “She thinks I’m psycho / ’Cause I like to rhyme her name with things.” It’s a funny lyric, but, by Swift’s current age, most people understand that love isn’t about winning. (Art isn’t, either.) Yet, in Swift’s universe, love is often a battlefield. On “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” she catalogues the ways in which fame can pervert and destroy a person: “I was tame, I was gentle, till the circus life made me mean,” she sings. She is paranoid, wild-eyed: “Tell me everything is not about me / But what if it is ?” (After the year Swift has had, she’s not wrong to ask.) The song itself is so tightly produced that it doesn’t sound dangerous. But, midway through, her voice briefly goes feral. I found the moment thrilling, which is maybe part of the problem.

In the weeks before “The Tortured Poets Department” was released, it seemed as though a backlash was inevitable. Swift’s lyrics are often focussed on her perseverance against all odds, but, these days, she is too omnipresent and powerful to make a very convincing underdog. Still, interest in Swift has yet to diminish or fully sour. She announced the album at the Grammys, in February, as she was accepting the award for Best Pop Vocal Album, for her previous record, “Midnights.” I found her speech so profoundly mercenary it was sort of funny. “I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the last two years, which is that my brand-new album comes out April 19th,” Swift said. “I’m gonna go and post the cover.”

As I’ve grown older, I’ve mostly stopped thinking about art and commerce as being fundamentally at odds. But there are times when the rapaciousness of our current pop stars seems grasping and ugly. I’m not saying that pop music needs to be ideologically pure—it wouldn’t be much fun if it were—but maybe it’s time to cool it a little with the commercials? A couple of days before the album’s release, Swift unveiled a library-esque display at the Grove, a shopping mall in Los Angeles. It included several pages of typewritten lyrics on faux aged paper, arranged as though they had recently been tugged from the platen of a Smith Corona. (The word “talisman” was misspelled on one, to the delight of the haters.) The Spotify logo was featured prominently at the bottom of each page. Once again, I laughed. What is the point of all that money if it doesn’t buy you freedom from corporate branding? For a million reasons—her adoption of the “poet” persona; her already unprecedented streaming numbers—such an egregious display of sponsorship was worse than just incongruous. It was, as they say, cringe.

Among the other clues Swift doled out were five exclusive playlists for Apple Music (sorry, Spotify!), comprising her own songs and organized according to the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. At first, I thought the playlists were just another bit of overwrought marketing, but the more I listened to “The Tortured Poets Department” the more germane the concept felt. Anyone who has grieved knows that these categories are not a ladder you climb toward peace: it is possible, instead, to feel all of them at once, briefly or forever. Each stage is evident on “The Tortured Poets Department.” Sometimes they oppose one another: Swift is cocky and self-loathing, tough and vulnerable, totally fine and completely destroyed. She is free, but trapped. Dominant, powerless. She wants this, but she doesn’t. Those sorts of contradictions can be dizzying, but, in the end, they’re also the last things keeping her human. ♦

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How to Write Critical Reviews
To write a good critical review, you will have to engage in the mental processes of analyzing (taking apart) the work-deciding what its major components are and determining how these parts (i.e., paragraphs, sections, or chapters) contribute to the work as a whole. Analyzing the work will help you focus on how and why the author makes certain ...
PDF Planning and writing a critical review
What is a critical review? A critical review (sometimes called a critique, critical commentary, critical appraisal, critical analysis) is a detailed commentary on and critical evaluation of a text. You might carry out a critical review as a stand-alone exercise, or as part of your research and preparation for writing a literature review. The
PDF How to Undertake Critical Analysis
What does being 'critical' mean? Being 'critical' does not always mean being negative or disagreeing with the premise of a particular text. Instead, being 'critical' refers to the act of questioning information, arguments or content presented in a text and offering an evaluation of it (UNSW 2015). To think and write
Writing a Critical Review
The critical review is a writing task that asks you to summarise and evaluate a text. The critical review can be of a book, a chapter, or a journal article. Writing the critical review usually requires you to read the selected text in detail and to read other related texts so you can present a fair and reasonable evaluation of the selected text.
Writing a Critique
Writing a Critique. A critique (or critical review) is not to be mistaken for a literature review. A 'critical review', or 'critique', is a complete type of text (or genre), discussing one particular article or book in detail. In some instances, you may be asked to write a critique of two or three articles (e.g. a comparative critical review).
Writing Critical Reviews: A Step-by-Step Guide
Ev en better you might. consider doing an argument map (see Chapter 9, Critical thinking). Step 5: Put the article aside and think about what you have read. Good critical review. writing requires ...
PDF Writing a Critical Review
The critical review is a writing task that asks you to summarise and evaluate a text. The critical review can be of a book, a chapter, or a journal article. Writing the critical review usually requires you to read the selected text in detail ... At university, to be critical does not mean to criticise in a negative manner. Rather it requires ...
Start Here
A critical review is a description and evaluation of a source, usually a journal article or book. It moves beyond a summary to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the source and to comment on the quality of the source as a whole. Do not be confused by the term "critical": it does not mean that you only look at the negative aspects of ...
How to Write a Critical Review
CPD. When an academic assignment asks you to "critically review" or include a "critical analysis" of the work of other people, it generally means that you'll need to "think critically". This means analysing and assessing the work in terms of what the author was trying to achieve, the approach they took, how they conducted the ...
Guides: Write a Critical Review: Parts of a Critical Review
To assert the article's practical and theoretical significance. In general, the conclusion of your critical review should include. A restatement of your overall opinion. A summary of the key strengths and weaknesses of the research that support your overall opinion of the source. An evaluation of the significance or success of the research.
PDF Writing a critical review
Writing a critical review What is a critical review? A critical review is a critical evaluation of a document (or book or chapter or article). It is not just a summary of the contents. You are expected to read, make judgments about the document and justify these judgments by using the criteria given to you by your lecturer or indicated in the ...
A Critical Review: How to Do it Step by Step
No standard length: Critical reviews can range from 500 to 800 words depending on the complexity of the work being analysed. Five-part structure: Include a title, introduction, summary, critical commentary, and conclusion in your review. Create a compelling title: A title should summarise your general opinion; consider writing it after ...
Structure of a Critical Review
Summarising and paraphrasing are essential skills for academic writing and in particular, the critical review. To summarise means to reduce a text to its main points and its most important ideas. The length of your summary for a critical review should only be about one quarter to one third of the whole critical review. The best way to summarise.
Critical review
Most critical reviews will involve some summarising of the main argument of the text and some judgement about the quality and usefulness of the argument. The evaluation and judgement parts normally count for more marks. This guide gives you questions to help prompt both your summary and evaluation, plus an annotated example of a critical review:
How to Write a Critical Essay
A critical essay is a form of academic writing that analyzes, interprets, and/or evaluates a text. In a critical essay, an author makes a claim about how particular ideas or themes are conveyed in a text, then supports that claim with evidence from primary and/or secondary sources. In casual conversation, we often associate the word "critical ...
Writing Critical Reviews
Just because the iPad does not work for Doctorow does not mean it will not work for others. Reference. Doctorow, C. (2010, April 2). ... Homework: Compose a Critical Review Essay. Draw upon what you did in Activity B to write an essay that critiques "The Work Colleague of the Future: A Report on the Long-Term Health of Office Workers ...
PDF Writing a Critical Review
The critical review is a writing task that asks you to summarise and evaluate a text. The critical review can be of a book, a chapter, or a journal article. Writing the critical review usually requires you to read the selected text in detail and to also read other related texts so that you can present a fair and reasonable evaluation of the ...
Review Essay Guide
A well-structured essay not only guides the reader through your arguments but also enhances the impact of your analysis. To achieve this, a review essay should be clear, concise, focused, and analytical. Clear and Concise Communication: The hallmark of a good review essay is its clarity.
Essay question words: "critically evaluate/review"
Typically, the word "critical" has a negative connotation. Think of words like "critique" and "criticise" and you see why. However, with essay writing, being asked to write "critically" does not necessarily mean you need to be negative. Instead, you are voicing your opinion in a logical and coherent way that is based upon ...
Critical review
Critical review. During your studies, you may be asked to write a critical review of a book, a book chapter or a journal article. This form of assessment requires you to critically examine a piece of writing in the light of what you know about that field of research. Your critical review is written for a reader (your lecturer or tutor) who is ...
Essay Question Words: "Critically Evaluate/Review."
Critical does not always mean brutal or complex, but in the case of essays, we often apprehend the negative connotation of the word 'critically evaluate or critical review'. ... How to achieve 'critical evaluation/review' in essay writing. There are a few measures that are important to consider while attempting for the critical evaluation ...
How to Write a Literature Review
Examples of literature reviews. Step 1 - Search for relevant literature. Step 2 - Evaluate and select sources. Step 3 - Identify themes, debates, and gaps. Step 4 - Outline your literature review's structure. Step 5 - Write your literature review.
How to Write a Critical Book Review
This does NOT mean, however, that I want a chapter-by-chapter summary. Your goal is a unified essay. So what do I want, if not just a summary? Throughout your summary, I want you to provide a critique of the book. (Hence the title: "A Critical Book Review.") A critique consists of thoughts, responses, and reactions. It is not necessarily ...
Taylor Swift's Tortured Poetry
This month, Swift released "The Tortured Poets Department," her eleventh studio album. She has now reached a level of virtuosity within her genre that feels nearly immutable—she's too ...

How to Write Critical Reviews

Understanding the Assignment

Write the introduction

Introduce your review appropriately

Explain relationships

Provide an overview

Write the body

Organize using a logical plan

Questions to keep in mind as you write

Keep your opinions distinct and cite your sources

Write the conclusion

Academic and Professional Writing

Analysis Papers

Grant Proposals

Job Materials and Application Essays

Proposals and Dissertations

Research Papers

Thank-You Notes

Scientific Reports

Writing for the Web

Writing a Critique

Read and Take Notes

Organising your writing

Explicit evaluation

Implicit evaluation

Linguistic features of a critical review

Summary language

Evaluation language

Conclusion language

Example extracts from a critical review

Use of source material in example a:

Use of source material in example b:

Further resources

IOE Writing Centre Online

Write a Critical Review

Video: How to Integrate Critical Voice into Your Literature Review

Video: Note-taking and Writing Tips to Avoid Plagiarism

More help: Writing

A Critical Review: How to Do it Step by Step

Key Takeaways section on how to write a Critical Review

What to take into account when writing a critical review?

The structure of a critical review

How to prepare a critical review

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Structure of a Critical Review

Introduction

Conclusion & References

Summarising and paraphrasing for the critical review

Next: Some general criteria for evaluating texts

How to Write a Critical Essay

What Makes an Essay "Critical"?

Characteristics of a Critical Essay

Tips for Writing a Critical Essay

Writing Critical Reviews

Share This Book

Key steps in beginning your review

Structuring the review

Introduction

Compare and contrast critical review

Other assessments

Explaining the descriptive writing:

Critical writing:

How to achieve ‘critical evaluation/review’ in essay writing

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