Critical analysis(a practical model)

The ability to bring a critical eye and perspective to information and opinions is a key part of generating robust original ideas and new discoveries in an area of study. This model is meant to help you think about how you might approach critical analysis successfully. It is not meant to be linear (so you won’t necessarily do each part in order over and over again), but it is meant to give you a structure to help frame your thinking, allow you to easily communicate your thought-process and evidence your ideas and conclusions.

First part: Learn — move from “new” to “know”

First of all, it is crucial that you understand what you are trying to analyse. If you are struggling to take a critical approach, you might need to spend more time investigating and reading around a topic to gain a firmer understanding of the nuances and details. This might include:

1. learning new discrete facts (dates, names, places or equations you might be expected to memorise or have to hand)
2. understanding a graph, illustration or model
3. understanding a theoretical model or methodology or some wider overarching theme that fits in with your studies

It is difficult to make connections or to analyse a topic if you still have some exploration to do! Give yourself time to understand the new information. You will not need to be perfect in your understanding, but if you find it difficult to make connections in the next step or to add additional original interpretations, it may be that you need to return to learn and spend some more time with what you need to know.

This step of the model is a great place to check out different ways of note-making (insert link to resource) and practice checking for understanding using spaced retrieval (insert link).

Second part: Connect — your knowledge and the bigger picture

After you have learnt what you need to know, you will need to contextualise your new knowledge. This part of the model should do two things. First, it will allow you to begin to see where your new knowledge fits in the wider picture of your degree programme, topic or module. Second, it will help you check for understanding of the new information you are absorbing.

For this step of the process, you will want to pull out the notes you made and any texts or other materials you might want to refer to. You will be taking the new information and building connections to what you already understand.

To prompt your connections you could look at:

1. What can you add on to the new information you have just learned?
2. Where does what you have just learned connect to what you already know? Is there a common place? time? theory?
3. What else do you need to know to build strong connections? Should you go back and investigate something further?

One way you could do this would be to draw out a mindmap:

Place your new information in the centre of the map and draw out the other facts, theories and connections that link this new information to your wider area of study.

Another option would be to take your new information and approach it via a technique like Cornell note-taking (link) where you would ask questions and comment on the information in order to draw out connections between what you have learnt and what you already know.

Third part: Create — add your original thoughts and perspective

After you’ve learnt the new information and placed it in a broader context, you will be ready to get to the “being critical” part of the process. At this point you should be able to clearly explain what you have learnt and how it fits into the wider context of your area of study. After you feel comfortable explaining (and a great way to check this is to try and summarise what you have learnt and where that fits in a few sentences!), then you will need to take a step back and think about the nuance or perspective you can bring to the idea or concept.

You can begin to do this by asking yourself some questions:

1. Why is it important to place this information in that particular context?
2. What effect does adding in this new understanding have on a theory, model or overarching idea?
3. What is a logical “next” step or thought you might discuss?

You might also try taking the connections you have made and trying to group them into a broader topic or area, blending a few of them together or noting a higher level model or theory that links several different areas. As you go through this process, you might find yourself:

1. coming to an original conclusion about the information and its context
2. putting forward an elegant solution to an issue or barrier
3. suggesting a step forward in thinking or doing
4. describing a “bridge” that connects to related areas

This part of the model is where you would usually find yourself generating the ideas, theories and opinions you would put forward as your critical analysis of a topic. You can then go back to the connect and learn parts of the model to use those elements as evidence to showcase your thought process and the supporting detail that led you to your conclusions.

As you finish — keep the cycle going

This model is meant to support you in approaching being critical as a continuous process, so you will find that, even after you have “finished”, there is work to do. You might look at the conclusion you are presenting and realise you need to read around a theory that might impact it. You might even feel inspired to put your thoughts together in a paper or presentation to hear what other’s think about them.

Feel free to return to any part of the model, whenever you need it, to help you keep moving your understanding and original thinking forward.