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The Context of Critical Analysis
This approach involves a shift away from the simpler recording and summarizing which are common in secondary school. Summary may still be necessary at times, but it will be used only to provide the basis for developing a a critical argument.
We have made an important qualification to these general statements in relation to Science and Technology emphasis may be heavily on summary and analysis in stages of a course, with criticism becoming a requirement only in later years.
MORE TO THINK ABOUT
1 Make a list of the five most important influences on your educational achievement up to the present. (It might include item such as encouragement by a relative or the teacher.)
Then, under each of your five headings, write two or three sentences which describe in more detail the effects of this influence.
Take any chapter from a textbook or any article from an academic journal which you are presently using for study in your school or university. It can be either in English or in your own language. Read three or four pages, making a note at the end of : ach paragraph of what the writer is doing:
- Is the simply presenting factual information?
- Is the summarizing other writers' ideas or theories?
- Is he comparing and contrasting the information or ideas
With those of another writer?
- Is he arguing his own particular interpretation of the facts?
- Is he criticizing the ideas of other writers?
- Is he doing a number of these things in one paragraph?
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