Louise Katz - Critical Thinking and Persuasive Writing for Postgraduates

Critical Thinking and Persuasive Writing for Postgraduates

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CriticalThinkingand Persuasive Writing for Postgraduates

Louise Katz

Louise Katz 2018

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First published 2018 by

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ISBN 9781137604422 paperback

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Contents

Introduction

Education at all levels is an animated process produced in the communicative exchanges of teachers and learners. In this spirit, Critical Thinking and Persuasive Writing for Postgraduates provides suggestions for postgraduates (and undergraduates looking ahead to higher degrees) and their teachers on how to continually work towards improving on these skills. There is already a fair bit of literature available that is geared towards undergraduate study, but this book deals with the particular concerns of postgraduates those engaged in coursework who are not yet experienced writers, those in research programmes at masters and doctoral levels, and students and academics involved in independent research projects. It also includes a strong theoretical component. There are two reasons for this. One, to enrich the readers understanding of processes involved in refining higher learning skills and writing practices; and two, to contextualise notions of critical thinking within a historical and cultural framework.

Often the literature on critical thinking focuses on its application to study and workplace situations or to assist in decision-making and problem-solving, whether professionally or ethically. This is of course vital: thinking well does not begin with a course of study and end with a university degree. Good employers look for people who can make thoughtful decisions and who have the ability to ask the sort of questions that will benefit their institution. To do this, they need to be able to think of those questions in the first place. Such employers also want people who have long-term vision, are at home with complexity, and can not only work out solutions to problems but actively look for problems to solve. (Problem-finding requires a much higher order of cognitive ability than solving already identified problems!) Imaginative and independent thinkers are needed those able to make intelligent inferences and can put all of these attributes to practical use. Sounds like a lot? It is. These are all aspects of critical practice treated in this book, aspects that rely on linking, rather than dividing, criticality and creativity.

However, while considering vocational requirements and also explicating the ethical dimensions of independent, active thinking, Critical Thinking and Persuasive Writing for Postgraduates sees being critical firstly as an attitude of mind rather than simply the deployment of analytical tools from an adaptive skill set. In planning stages I have also been mindful of certain assumptions frequently made by both staff and students at universities: that critical practices are somehow embedded in postgraduate curricula. My experience and research show that this really isnt always so. In fact, often enough only limited critical skills are taught for the purposes of interrogating and analysing texts within narrow frameworks while missing the much greater possibilities for criticality available to us when such thinking skills are fully extended and exercised. This is like using the energy of a nuclear reactor to shell a bowl of peas.