A short guide to critical thinking students often tell us that they find critical thinking to be confusing so what is critical thinking and how do you do it at university we think of critical thinking as asking and answering questions to help you make sense of something you probably do this everyday without realizing it but at university it may mean asking questions about something you've read or an assignment topic you're planning and starting to write we want to share some tips for thinking critically Plymouth University devised a great model to help generate critical thinking and it identifies three stages that can be applied to any aspect of your studies as an example we're going to apply the plymouth critical thinking model to reading at university you can use the what when who and where questions to better understand your topic or subject this is the description phase if you apply this to reading you may ask what key points is the author making when was it written who is the author and what is their expertise or where was it published the questions why and how can help you look a bit deeper into the topic or issue this is the analysis stage you may ask why the author is meeting their arguments or how the arguments are constructed for example does the author use a theoretical framework to enhance their arguments or how does the author support their claims do they provide evidence the three questions are what if so what and what next can help you come to your own conclusions and make judgments about what you've read this is the evaluation stage by asking what if you may consider the limitations of what you've read by asking so what you can question the significance of what you and by asking what next you can judge what you will do with the information this more detailed version of the Plymouth model suggests some other questions you can apply to your studies for more study skills support including diets and videos visit the study skills pages on the library website
