Critiquing Forms

Again, critiquing does not mean you are looking only for the negative points in a source; you can also discuss elements you like or agree with in the article. Also, you may generally get a positive impression from the source but have some issues with some aspects for which you can provide constructive criticism—perhaps what the author could have done better, in your opinion, to make a stronger and more effective impact. There are four critiquing forms on which you can structure your analysis of a source. These are: Rhetorical Ideas Reflection Blended The critiquing elements you will be required to apply to each assignment will vary depending on your instructor’s directions, the purpose of the assignment, and the writer (you). In some cases, your instructor will want to see very little of your own voice in the paper, so you will want to avoid using personal reflection; on the other hand, some instructors will only want to see how your personal experiences connect to the content. You will need to confirm with your instructor what his or her preferences and expectations are. For this course, you need to produce a blended critique, which means you will need to include at least one rhetorical, one idea, and one reflective discussion. Rhetorical We have discussed previously the use of rhetorical questions, the type of questions meant to engage the reader in the content. Here, rhetorical refers to the technique or way of using the questions. It relates to the construction or mechanics of how the question is used. The term rhetorical refers to the way a source is constructed and organized and whichwriting techniques are used. A rhetorical critique will also evaluate how effectively an author has achieved his or her purpose or intended goals. If the writer intended to convince or persuade the reader to a particular point of view, did he or she use credible sources to support the ideas or use primarily newspapers and blogs? We have seen, and will do so again later, that the types of evidence can affect how convincing the argument becomes. Furthermore, if the writer has only has presented a limited discussion without much evidence, and the discussion is mostly opinion based, will the reader be convinced? Probably not. Conversely, if the author considered all points of view in the discussion and provided suitable, trustworthy evidence, the reader will more likely be convinced, and the writer will have successfully achieved the purpose. Often when trying to come up with a thesis statement, considering all points of view is where you should probably start because it will demonstrate to the reader of your critique what your overall impression was when you examined the original source. If you look back at the sample critique in Self–Practice Exercise 8.1, you’ll see that the thesis is the first sentence:

Vetter and Perlstein’s work on terrorism and its future is an excellent basis for evaluating views and attitudes to terrorism before the tragic events of 9/11.

This statement outlines the authors’ purpose (bold) and the critique writer’s general opinion of the work (underlined). From the exercise you completed earlier, you saw not everything in the critique was positive; however, this first sentence provides the overall impression the critique author had. Just as with any other thesis, the content in the rest of the essay will connect back to this thesis, saying how it supports or goes against the authors’ purpose. Once you choose an article that meets the required criteria, scan the article and make note of some answers to the guiding questions below. You can then choose three to four of the questions/answers you feel you can support and discuss most as your essay points.

Guiding Questions: Rhetorical

Focusing on the rhetorical elements when critiquing means you are looking at the construction elements of a source. Use the following questions as a reference point when you are going through your article to provide you with some focus and help you generate ideas for your paper (not all may be relevant to your article).

A note of warning when using these questions: you should not use more than two of these in your short critique. For this assignment, choose only one or two to develop thoroughly. If you include brief answers to all of the questions, you will have not have space to develop your ideas or show you really engaged with the content. By choosing just one or two, you will have the opportunity to really explain the impact and significance of what you have decided to discuss, showing to your audience you have thoroughly considered the meaning and importance of your points and demonstrating excellent critical analysis skills.

Ideas: When discussing the ideas of a source, you are examining the topic presented in the source. You explore how the author’s ideas mesh with your own and state whether you agree or disagree; you are essentially joining the discussion on that topic. You may find you agree with some parts of the discussion but not others, or you may completely agree or disagree, or you may think the author has great points but does not develop them adequately. Also, you may want to provide differing points of view from other sources to show you have not just accepted what the first author wrote; you have explored the topic further and will present a thorough discussion in your own critique.

Guiding Questions: Ideas

Reflection: By providing a personal reflection on the source, you are being introspective and showing you have thought about how the source affects you personally and connects to your personal experiences, beliefs, and values. In this case, you can give personal observations and experiences as your own forms of supporting evidence; however, you do not want your paper to solely use this type of support because you need more factual evidence to convince your reader. Also, remember to check with your instructor if this is a form you are required to use.

Guiding Questions: Reflection

Blended:  In a blended form, your critique pretty much evolves however you want it to. You can take certain elements from each of the three previous forms: whichever questions are the easiest for you to discuss and are maybe the most interesting for you. This shows how paying attention to your reactions when you initially read the source is helpful; once you have made note of where and what you reacted to, you can go back each list of guiding questions and decide which best relate to each of your notations. There are no guiding questions for the blended form because you use you mix and match the questions already provided in the earlier sections. In a blended critique, you demonstrate an extremely high level of critical thinking ability because you are not only synthesize your ideas with external sources, you also connect personally to one source, external sources, and different forms or aspects of analyzing written works.

Blended Critique: Two Formulas

Once you have chosen a source and used the guiding questions to help generate points to discuss in your critique, you will need to decide how to best organize your ideas. There are two formulas you can apply as a framework when organizing your critique ideas. Remember that although the formulas below show each section as an individual paragraph, you may actually need to create more than one paragraph to fully develop your ideas.

Formula 1

Organizing your critique following this model is fairly straightforward as there is not much overlap between the sections. You may want to choose this formula if you are feeling a little unsure of how to organize your ideas and prefer a more guided structure.

1. Introduction
   • Attention getter
   • Background
   • Thesis + author’s last name, publication date, and title of source
   • Signposts (including that the next paragraph will be a summary)
2. Summary
   • Restate author’s name, publication date, and title of source (provides a citation for the paragraph).
   • This needs to be brief and include only the points significant to your later discussion.
   • If you include too much here, you may end up repeating yourself later.
3. Rhetorical
   • Give topic sentence explain this paragraph/section will cover rhetorical points
   • State point
   • Give explanations
   • Give examples and make connections relating directly back to section(s) of original source + citations
   • Provide concluding statement summarizing rhetorical element discussion
4. Ideas
   • Give topic sentence explain this paragraph/section will cover idea points
   • State point
   • Give explanations
   • Give examples and make connections relating directly back to section(s) of original source + citations
   • Provide concluding statement summarizing idea or topic element discussion
5. Reflection
   • Give topic sentence explain this paragraph/section will cover reflection points
   • State point
   • Give explanations
   • Give examples and make connections relating directly back to section(s) of original source + citations
   • Provide concluding statement summarizing reflection element discussion
6. Conclusion
   • Restate author’s last name, publication date, and source’s title
   • Summarize your discussion points
   • Restate your thesis

Formula 2

This model is a little more challenging to stay organized and to not go off on a tangent when you are critiquing; however, it allows you to have much more freedom in how you piece your ideas together. When you use this formula, it is important to remember to keep referring to the outline you created before writing and to thoroughly develop ideas by connecting one critiquing form to another. This model differs from Formula 1 because the summary is briefly included in the introduction section, and the discussion points are not divided by critiquing points but rather by topic. That is, multiple critiquing forms are used to develop one topic point. Because this formula is a little more complicated to explain, an example outline is provided for you after the template.

1. Introduction
   • Attention getter
   • Thesis + author’s last name, publication date, and title of source
   • Background (this includes the briefest of summaries of the source: one to two sentences only)
   • Signposts
2. Point 1: A
   • Choose one topic to focus on using the guiding questions (one of three forms)
   • Give a topic sentence introducing the point
   • Restate author’s name, publication date, and title of source (provides a citation for the paragraph)
   • Develop point making connections relating directly back to section(s) of original source + citations
   • Provide brief concluding sentence for paragraph
3. Point 1: B
   • Give topic sentence explaining that this paragraph/section connects to or expands on previous paragraph (different form used in previous paragraph)
   • Restate author’s name and publication date (provides a citation for the paragraph)
   • Develop point making connections relating directly back to section(s) of original source + citations and to previous paragraph
   • Provide concluding statement summarizing entire discussion of point 1
4. Point 2: A
   • Choose one topic to focus on using the guiding questions (one of three forms)
   • Give a topic sentence introducing the point
   • Restate author’s name and publication date (provides a citation for the paragraph)
   • Develop point making connections relating directly back to section(s) of original source + citations
   • Provide brief concluding sentence for paragraph
5. Point 2: B
   • Give topic sentence explaining this paragraph/section connects to or expands on previous paragraph (different form used in previous paragraph)
   • Restate author’s name and publication date (provides a citation for the paragraph)
   • Develop point making connections relating directly back to section(s) of original source + citations and to previous paragraph
   • Provide concluding statement summarizing entire discussion of point 2
6. Conclusion
   • Restate author’s last name, publication date, and source’s title
   • Restate your thesis
   • Summarize your discussion points

Hopefully this example helps you to see how Formula 2 allows a lot more flexibility in organizing the discussion points. You can probably also see how easy it would be for the writer to get off topic. The key is to connect the ideas together. This formula definitely shows a greater complexity of thought development and synthesis of ideas, both of which your instructor will appreciate. However, you need to make sure you have a solid formal sentence outline before you begin the writing process, or you may confuse your reader too much for him or her to follow your development.