Learn how to understand, evaluate and create academic arguments
How does critical thinking apply to your University work?
Learn more about critical thinking at university by watching the video below.
Why are arguments important in Critical Thinking?
Arguments are found in advertisements, political speeches, textbooks, and anywhere else where reasons are presented in an attempt to get the reader or listener to believe that the conclusion is true.
A crucial part of critical thinking is to understand, evaluate, and construct arguments.
How to work with arguments at University
In essence, an academic argument consists of two parts:
- A claim or statement that summarises the main idea.
- Reasons why that claim is true, and/or evidence to support that claim.
For example:
The claim:
Electric vehicles are not the ultimate solution to sustainable transportation.
The reasons:
- While electric vehicles produce less emissions than petrol vehicles, their production and maintenance also cause environmental harms.
- Lithium mining, used in many EV batteries, has caused degradation and damage to local ecosystems.
- Additionally, the power used to recharge the batteries is not always sustainably sourced.
As you read you will need to evaluate the claims that are being made to see if they follow a clear line of reasoning.
Be enquiring
Your lecturers will expect you to be intellectually independent and avoid accepting knowledge unquestioningly. No matter how ‘authoritative’ you consider a source or author to be, you’ll need to guard against taking information at face value by breaking ideas down and judging their strength and value. A good way to start is to pay attention to fine detail and look at things from different perspectives.
Ask questions –
- Is there any evidence?
- What are we not being told?
- What information is missing?
- Are there other (better) reasons?
- Are the reasons they are giving you good reasons?
- Are there any flaws in the argument?
You will also need to evaluate the evidence that the author has used to support their claim. An evaluation framework can help you to decide if you think the evidence is credible.
The following steps will assist you with building clear arguments:
- Start by drafting your claim. Consider you assignment question, do you agree or disagree?
- Provide sound reasons to back up your claim.
- Support your reasoning with evidence. Read widely, evaluate your information, think critically, and synthesise your sources.
- Identify and address counter arguments. Consider the evidence and reasons both in support of your claim and those against it.
- Conclude by summarising your position.
