How to Write Critically

your feedback says lacks critical analysis "Lacks critical analysis" you have cited 30 papers you have discussed your methodology and you're asking yourself what am I missing here is exactly what critical writing looks like and again I'll be using a real example from climate change and crop research it's funny that students can spot critical thinking in other people's writing but they cannot see that their own writing is not critical the simple reason is that description feels analytical when you are writing it you know the material you are explaining it carefully it feels like analysis but often times it's just description with extra words let me show you the real difference using an actual example let's examine this topic Topic: The effect of elevated carbon dioxide on wheat yield under drought stress conditions The effect of elevated CO2 on wheat yield under drought stress conditions I'll show you the same content written at 4 levels pure description basic analysis good analysis and excellent analysis now pure description will read like this "Sam et al., 2018 studied the effect of elevated CO2 on wheat. They found that elevated CO2 increased photosynthesis. Smith and Jones 2019 also studied CO2 effects on crops, they found similar results. Isaiah et al., 2020 conducted experiments in controlled conditions, they measured yield, and found elevated CO2 had positive effects." what you have just done here is this you have listed three sources you have listed what they found you have evaluated nothing you have not created a connection between the sources and you have not told the reader what these things mean you have not analyzed Level 2 basic analysis for the same example Research consistently demonstrates that elevated CO2 enhance wheat photosynthetic rates and improve water use efficiency under drought conditions (Sam et al., 2018; Smith and Jones 2019; Isaiah et al., 2020). This relationship has important implication for understanding wheat productivity under future climatic change scenarios. in this one you have synthesized which is nice you have one interpretive statement but you have not evaluated evidence quality you have not acknowledged complexity or contradiction and the implication is still vague let me just give you what an excellent analysis will look like While elevated CO2 consistently improves wheat's water use efficiency and photosynthetic rates under drought stress in controlled conditions (Sam et al., 2018; Smith and Jones 2019; Isaiah et al., 2020), the translation of these benefits to real world agricultural contexts is substantially more complex. Laboratory and growth chamber studies which dominate literature, typically control temperature, isolate CO2 as the only variable, and use well fertilized plants--conditions that rarely reflect the farmer's reality. now you can continue to build like this and build like this state the conditions that people have done the previous research maybe the temperature that in which they did their research or the region in which they did their research find out context find out the fallibility of those experimental setups you acknowledge what is known you identify methodological limitations you introduce complicating evidence you draw an original insight from all of that and you generate implications so take a paragraph that you have written find the sentence where you say what the source found now add one sentence however this finding is limited because you can even add this suggests that that way you are making your writing more critical and that is how you build critical writing I'll see you in the next one