Reading and writing critically

How to read and write critically; what critical and analytical means; references; tasks to help (formative feedback task)

Reading and writing critically is a core aspect of any Masters level study and underpins much of the work you will do in the MSc Educational Leadership. Throughout the programme you will be expected to engage critically with a range of literature and research in the field of Educational Leadership to inform, support and challenge your thinking. You will be expected to share your understandings and present critical discussions of various topics and issues, formally through written assessed pieces and more informally through discussions and reflective pieces of writing. This also forms part of the criteria for assessment

Reading and writing critically is a challenging skill to develop. This brief section highlights some key points for your consideration and offers some pointers and readings to help support your development in this area. You will receive some formative feedback during course 1 to help support your progress in this area.

You should refer to the text Wallace, M. & Wray, A. (2011) (2nd Edition) Critical Reading and Writing for postgraduates. (SAGE, London). Chapter 1 provides a good overarching introduction and Chapter 3 provides a great starting point for developing critical reading skills.

Reading and writing critically demands that you interrogate and question what you are reading and provide a discussion rather than a description of what others have written.

Reading critically will mean that you must ask questions of the text – questions about the relevance, worth, value and authenticity of the research/arguments posed. You will need to ask yourself why and how this is of interest and of use to you. You must also consider what you understand by the main arguments/points being raised and what your own position is in relation to this. You should also be able to make connections across a range of authors’ work.

To write critically you must be able to draw upon the range of reading you have done and provide a thorough, reasoned and coherent argument/discussion. This will involve more than simply describing and stating what others have said. Instead it should involve you identifying and discussing the main points or arguments, your own understanding and position and a consideration of contrasting, challenging, contradictory as well as supporting arguments.

You must use literature to support, inform and challenge your thinking.

When using the literature in your writing you should always as the ‘so what’ question. Answering these questions as you read, think and write, will help you discern which are the really useful and effective quotations/references to use in support of the argument/discussion you present and to discard those that simply show you have read an author’s work. The latter do not show any learning has taken place. Any critical reader can spot this easily.


Pick a quote that you feel has relevance and evaluate it critically.
eg. Hargreaves (1997) states that "managers should ‘lead’ not just manage"

Evaluate the impact and function of your choice of quote
Is this just a statement?
Is it really a nugget of information or thought-provoking words?
Is it just a phrase, that you could easily have used yourself e.g a single phrase/word...but thought that it would chalk up another reference to literature?
If you do evaluate it to be a nugget and want to use it to enrich your argument/discussion, you then need to make it clear to yourself, and to the reader (who will also ask, of the quote)….

So what?

To address this important question, and so show clearly how you are linking professional reading/ theory/research to your own thinking and practice:

Make it clear in your writing:

What are the implications you take from this nugget of information?
How does it challenge/add to you own knowledge/understanding/thinking/practice?
Did what you have referred to, make you question what you have thought /done before?
Try to show what it is that you know/think/do that is different from what you have read
What did/will you do/change as a result of this information?...or will you counter-argue it with another author’s work? If you do, draw and justify your conclusions. These conclusions will then probably be subject to the ‘so what’ test, once again.