Being Critical
As an academic writer, you are expected to be critical of the sources that you u. This esntially means questioning what you read and not necessarily agreeing with it just becau the information has been published. Being critical can also mean looking for reasons why we should not just accept something as being correct or true. This can require you to identify problems with a writer's arguments or methods, or perhaps to refer to other people's criticisms of the. Constructive criticism goes beyond this by suggesting ways in which a piece of rearch or writing could be improved.
...... being against is not enough. We also need to develop habits of constructive thinking. Edward de Bono
Introducing questions, problems and limitations (theory)
One question that needs to be asked, however, is whether ......
A rious weakness with this argument, however, is that ......
One of the limitations with this explanation is that it does not .
One criticism of much of the literature on X is that ......
The key problem with this explanation is that ......
The existing accounts fail to resolve the contradiction between X and Y.
However, there is an inconsistency with this argument.
Smith's argument relies too heavily on qualitative analysis of ......
It ems that Jones' understanding of the X framework is questionable.
Smith's interpretation overlooks much of the historical rearch ......
One major criticism of Smith's work is that .....
Many writers have challenged Jones' claim on the grounds that .......
X's analysis does not take account of ..... nor does he examine ......
Introducing questions, problems and limitations (method/practice)
Another problem with this approach is that it fails to take X into account.
Perhaps the most rious disadvantage of this method is that .....
Difficulties ari, however, when an attempt is made to implement the policy.
Nevertheless, the strategy has not escaped criticism from governments, agencies and academics. One major drawback of this approach is that ......
The main limitation of biosynthetic incorporation, however, is ......
However, this method of analysis has a number of limitations.
However, approaches of this kind carry with them various well known limitations.
All the studies reviewed so far, however, suffer from the fact that .......
However, there are limits to how far the idea of/concept of X can be taken.
However, such explanations tend to overlook the
A better study would examine a large, randomly lected sample of societies with ......
A much more systematic study would identify how X interacts with other variables that are believed t
o be linked to ......
Highlighting inadequacies of previous studies
Most studies in the field of X have only focusd on ......
Most studies in X have only been carried out in a small number of areas.
The generalisability of much published rearch on this issue is problematic.
The experimental data are rather controversial, and there is no general agreement about ......
Such expositions are unsatisfactory becau they .....
However, few writers have been able to draw on any structured rearch into the opinions and attitudes of ......
The rearch to date has tended to focus on X rather than Y.
The existing accounts fail to resolve the contradiction between X and Y.
Rearchers have not treated X in much detail.
Previous studies of X have not dealt with ......
However, the studies ud non-validated methods to measure .....
Half of the studies evaluated failed to specify whether ......
However, much of the rearch up to now has been descriptive in nature ….
Although extensive rearch has been carried out on X, no single study exists which adequately covers ......
However, the results were bad upon data from over 30 years ago and it is unclear if the differences still persist.
Introducing other people's criticisms
However, Jones (2003) points out that .....
Many analysts now argue that the strategy of X has not been successful. Jones (2003), for example, argues that .....
Non-government agencies are also very critical of the new policies.
The X theory has been / vigorously / strongly challenged in recent years by a number of writers. Smith's analysis has been criticid by a number of writers. Jones (1993), for example, points out that ……
Smith's meta-analysis has been subjected to considerable criticism.
The most important of the criticisms is that Smith failed to note that ......
Jones (2003) is probably the best known critic of the X theory. He argues that .….
The latter point has been devastatingly critiqued by Jones (2003).
Critics have also argued that not only do social surveys provide an inaccurate measure of X,
Critics question the ability of poststructuralist theory to provide ......
More recent arguments against X have been summarid by Smith and Jones (1982):
