Adopting a critical position

1. Clear, coherent critical position.

Have a well-defined and consistent critical position – ensure your main point is clear. Include supporting points, evidence and examples, interpretations and evaluations.

2. Signpost your critical position.

Signposts guide your reader through your argument and emphasise your critical position. Use transitional words and phrases such as “consequently”, “however”, “previously”, “whereas” and “alike”. Prepositional phrases also help to signpost your argument. Such phrases include: “in accordance with”, “in view of”, “in order to”, and “in contrast with”.

3. Use evaluative language.

Evaluative language indicates your judgement and appraisal about the particular topic. Evaluative language may express negative appraisal, positive appraisal or even a neutral appraisal. For example: “one of the limitations of X is” (negative appraisal), “This is convincing because” (positive appraisal), and “Anderson’s idea is balanced by…” (neutral appraisal).

4. Use cautious language – hedging.

Using cautious language conveys levels of certainty and underlines your critical position on a topic – you can express low, medium or high levels of certainty by your word choice. Expressing a high level of certainty is known as boosting. Hedging is achieved through applying modal verbs: “may”, “can”, “appear to”, “will”. Adverbs of probability also help establish a cautious critical position: “sometimes”, “probably”, “possibly”.

5. Use conditionals and comparatives.

Using conditionals and comparatives in your writing will indicate your critical position. Conditionals are words that express a specific requirement that must be met by a claim: “if”, “unless”. Comparatives indicate positive or negative similarities or differences: “likewise”, “better than”, “by contrast”.