Introduction
Academic writing is a complex process that includes several stages. Applying the skills of descriptive and critical thinking is an integral part of this process. The students should know how to develop an appropriate paragraph structure and build the argument consistently. Critical thinking is required to persuade the reader of some position, while descriptive thinking is utilized to create the background and provide evidence for the arguments. Critical thinking requires a deeper understanding of the learning material since the students have to know how to make inferences, recognize assumptions, make deductions and come to conclusions (Sheffield Halam University, 2020). This paper aims to explain the academic writing process and evaluate the importance of each stage, with particular attention to the critical thinking skills application.
The First Stage and the Second Stage
Academic writing involves several stages, including reading and understanding the relevant information, evaluating sources, and writing down the original creative ideas under the requirements for the paper structure. During the first stage of reading and understanding, Bloom’s Taxonomy can be an excellent choice to verify whether the student understood the information comprehensively (Colorado College, n.d.). For instance, Bloom’s Taxonomy implies that the students should demonstrate the skills of remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating information (Churches, n.d.). These steps can also be seen as the phases of the critical thinking process when reading information on the topic and gathering the evidence. The second stage of evaluation of sources requires understanding, analyzing, and evaluating skills. The first two stages are important, as they constitute the main factual body of the paper, and during these stages, the students come up with conclusions regarding the information they use.
The Third Stage
The third stage is the creation of the academic paper, following the particular structure. The structure of the paper may differ according to the type of assignment, but usually, at this stage, some general approaches are widely accepted in academic circles. First, the paragraphs should have a specific structure and include three parts – the topic presentation, the evidence, and the discussion (Sheffield Halam University, 2020). In the topic presentation and evidence section, the students can apply their descriptive thinking, since these parts require setting the background and presenting the relevant data.
Then, in the discussion section, the students should use their critical thinking, since in this part they are required to explicitly evaluate the topic, that is, share their opinion and persuade the reader. No less important, students should present the information, using logical argumentation (Gillet, 2015). Arguments should be introduced as evidence that proves some point and leads the reader to a specific conclusion. The third stage is important, since, during this stage, the students develop their skills of creative and critical thinking, presenting their argumentation in a logical order.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a distinguished skill that is widely discussed in academic circles. This skill requires a more subtle understanding of the information compared to the mere description of facts. Most importantly, it requires “developing a reasoned argument and participating in academic debate” (University of Hull, 2020, para. 4). In other words, the students are persuading their readers in their position, by using the information in some way. For instance, the students demonstrate why the argument is relevant to the topic, how it relates to the focus of the assignment, or how the theory could be put into practice. The type of argumentation may depend on the type of the assignment and academic requirements.
Conclusion
Thus, the academic writing process was explained and the importance of each stage was evaluated. Particular attention was paid to the critical thinking skills application since this activity is inherent in academic writing. Three main stages of writing an academic paper include reading and understanding the information, evaluating the sources, and writing the paper following the logical structure. All three stages are important, and one comes from another.
References
Churches, A. (n.d.) Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy.
Colorado College (n.d.) Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.
Gillet, A. (2015) Successful academic writing. Longman.
Sheffield Halam University (2020). Critical writing.
University of Hull (2020).Critical writing: Descriptive vs critical.