Academic writing and being critical

Academic writing is daunting. Capturing all your thoughts and analysis and putting them down onto paper in some sort of understandable fashion is a challenge. Did you know we have resources in our Cranfield Study Skills Hub to make this process easier to manage?

It is important to think critically when writing. Use our Critical Thinking section to learn more about this process and find examples of the critical questions you should be asking when you gather information and prepare to write.

Our Writing Critically section helps you expand from being merely descriptive to showing the significance of your findings, providing your interpretation of the evidence and source material, building a critical argument and demonstrating your own understanding and position on the topic.

The Academic writing section brings you the essence of writing;

• forms of writing (descriptive, critical or reflective),
• key features of academic writing (formal, objective, precise, balanced, structured, evidenced and critical),
• the writing process including planning, editing and proofreading your work,
• overcoming writer’s block; which is very common and can be overcome,
• the writing stages including clarifying, linking your key elements together, and things to watch out for!

We also understand that conducting a literature review and writing your thesis can be a daunting process. The Writing your thesis page includes key guides and resources to help you write, format and submit your thesis.

Looking for a training workshop? We run a number of  ‘Academic language support’ workshops in DATES on various aspects of writing, including how to avoid plagiarism, what it means to write critically and in an academic style, and how to structure a text to improve flow and clarity.

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