what is critical thinking in english literature

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Working with sources
• What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & Examples

What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & Examples

Published on May 30, 2022 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on May 31, 2023.

Critical thinking is the ability to effectively analyze information and form a judgment .

To think critically, you must be aware of your own biases and assumptions when encountering information, and apply consistent standards when evaluating sources .

Critical thinking skills help you to:

• Identify credible sources
• Evaluate and respond to arguments
• Assess alternative viewpoints
• Test hypotheses against relevant criteria

Table of contents

Why is critical thinking important, critical thinking examples, how to think critically, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about critical thinking.

Critical thinking is important for making judgments about sources of information and forming your own arguments. It emphasizes a rational, objective, and self-aware approach that can help you to identify credible sources and strengthen your conclusions.

Critical thinking is important in all disciplines and throughout all stages of the research process . The types of evidence used in the sciences and in the humanities may differ, but critical thinking skills are relevant to both.

In academic writing , critical thinking can help you to determine whether a source:

• Is free from research bias
• Provides evidence to support its research findings
• Considers alternative viewpoints

Outside of academia, critical thinking goes hand in hand with information literacy to help you form opinions rationally and engage independently and critically with popular media.

Scribbr Citation Checker New

The AI-powered Citation Checker helps you avoid common mistakes such as:

• Missing commas and periods
• Incorrect usage of “et al.”
• Ampersands (&) in narrative citations
• Missing reference entries

Critical thinking can help you to identify reliable sources of information that you can cite in your research paper . It can also guide your own research methods and inform your own arguments.

Outside of academia, critical thinking can help you to be aware of both your own and others’ biases and assumptions.

Academic examples

However, when you compare the findings of the study with other current research, you determine that the results seem improbable. You analyze the paper again, consulting the sources it cites.

You notice that the research was funded by the pharmaceutical company that created the treatment. Because of this, you view its results skeptically and determine that more independent research is necessary to confirm or refute them. Example: Poor critical thinking in an academic context You’re researching a paper on the impact wireless technology has had on developing countries that previously did not have large-scale communications infrastructure. You read an article that seems to confirm your hypothesis: the impact is mainly positive. Rather than evaluating the research methodology, you accept the findings uncritically.

Nonacademic examples

However, you decide to compare this review article with consumer reviews on a different site. You find that these reviews are not as positive. Some customers have had problems installing the alarm, and some have noted that it activates for no apparent reason.

You revisit the original review article. You notice that the words “sponsored content” appear in small print under the article title. Based on this, you conclude that the review is advertising and is therefore not an unbiased source. Example: Poor critical thinking in a nonacademic context You support a candidate in an upcoming election. You visit an online news site affiliated with their political party and read an article that criticizes their opponent. The article claims that the opponent is inexperienced in politics. You accept this without evidence, because it fits your preconceptions about the opponent.

There is no single way to think critically. How you engage with information will depend on the type of source you’re using and the information you need.

However, you can engage with sources in a systematic and critical way by asking certain questions when you encounter information. Like the CRAAP test , these questions focus on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information.

When encountering information, ask:

• Who is the author? Are they an expert in their field?
• What do they say? Is their argument clear? Can you summarize it?
• When did they say this? Is the source current?
• Where is the information published? Is it an academic article? Is it peer-reviewed ?
• Why did the author publish it? What is their motivation?
• How do they make their argument? Is it backed up by evidence? Does it rely on opinion, speculation, or appeals to emotion ? Do they address alternative arguments?

Critical thinking also involves being aware of your own biases, not only those of others. When you make an argument or draw your own conclusions, you can ask similar questions about your own writing:

• Am I only considering evidence that supports my preconceptions?
• Is my argument expressed clearly and backed up with credible sources?
• Would I be convinced by this argument coming from someone else?

If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• ChatGPT vs human editor
• ChatGPT citations
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Using ChatGPT for your studies
• What is ChatGPT?
• Chicago style
• Paraphrasing

 Plagiarism

• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Consequences of plagiarism
• Common knowledge

Don't submit your assignments before you do this

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students. Free citation check included.

Try for free

Critical thinking refers to the ability to evaluate information and to be aware of biases or assumptions, including your own.

Like information literacy , it involves evaluating arguments, identifying and solving problems in an objective and systematic way, and clearly communicating your ideas.

Critical thinking skills include the ability to:

You can assess information and arguments critically by asking certain questions about the source. You can use the CRAAP test , focusing on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information.

Ask questions such as:

• Who is the author? Are they an expert?
• How do they make their argument? Is it backed up by evidence?

A credible source should pass the CRAAP test  and follow these guidelines:

• The information should be up to date and current.
• The author and publication should be a trusted authority on the subject you are researching.
• The sources the author cited should be easy to find, clear, and unbiased.
• For a web source, the URL and layout should signify that it is trustworthy.

Information literacy refers to a broad range of skills, including the ability to find, evaluate, and use sources of information effectively.

Being information literate means that you:

• Know how to find credible sources
• Use relevant sources to inform your research
• Understand what constitutes plagiarism
• Know how to cite your sources correctly

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search, interpret, and recall information in a way that aligns with our pre-existing values, opinions, or beliefs. It refers to the ability to recollect information best when it amplifies what we already believe. Relatedly, we tend to forget information that contradicts our opinions.

Although selective recall is a component of confirmation bias, it should not be confused with recall bias.

On the other hand, recall bias refers to the differences in the ability between study participants to recall past events when self-reporting is used. This difference in accuracy or completeness of recollection is not related to beliefs or opinions. Rather, recall bias relates to other factors, such as the length of the recall period, age, and the characteristics of the disease under investigation.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Ryan, E. (2023, May 31). What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved June 24, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/working-with-sources/critical-thinking/

Is this article helpful?

Eoghan Ryan

Other students also liked, student guide: information literacy | meaning & examples, what are credible sources & how to spot them | examples, applying the craap test & evaluating sources, get unlimited documents corrected.

✔ Free APA citation check included ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

Open Resources for English Language Teaching (ORELT) Portal

Search form

You are here, unit 5: facilitating critical thinking through literature, introduction.

Literature is an effective tool for engaging students in critical thinking. By teaching children to analyse and evaluate literary texts appropriate to their age and interests, we can help them develop critical thinking skills. This involves seeing relationships between events, drawing inferences, analysing events, synthesising evidence and evaluating both the content of a text and the language used to the express ideas contained within it.

Unit outcomes

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

Terminology

Teacher support information

The literature class gives a teacher the opportunity to engage students in discussions about the ideas expressed in literary texts. This exercise benefits students in two ways: firstly, it gives them an opportunity to express their own ideas about life and relationships, values and beliefs, and interests and dislikes; secondly, it forces them to use a more complex set of structures and a more “advanced” range of vocabulary. As a language teacher in a literature class, you can exploit this situation by engaging students in group and pair activities to read sections of texts and then give their opinions about characters in the text, for example, or the style of writing — whether it is interesting, humorous, tragic, and so on. This will let students practise expressing opinions, drawing inferences, explaining cause-and-effect relationships, comparing facts and applying ideas they have gleaned from literature to new situations. In addition, they will learn how to analyse texts based on logical reasoning and to synthesise and evaluate the information in the texts.

Activity 1: Using literature to develop critical thinking: Drawing inferences from a text

Activity 2: Evaluating a literary text

Activity 3: From critical to creative skills: Participating in creative writing workshops

Activity 4: Collaborative creative writing: Creating a big book

Unit summary

Reflections

Resource 1: Inferring information from a literary text: A sample text

Inferential questions:

Why do you think Trudy’s mother was shouting at her?

Does Trudy understand her responsibilities?

Is Trudy a tidy person?

Look up the meaning of the word “curious” in your dictionary. Is Trudy a curious person?

Did Trudy’s grandfather finally get to spend his life with Betty?

Do you think it was normal for girls and boys to meet freely during Trudy’s grandfather’s time?

Resource 2a: Critically reflecting on and responding to literary texts: Asking evaluative questions

Resource 2b: How to write a journal entry (worksheet)

Teacher question and answer

• Corpus ID: 18027278

Critical Thinking : A Literature

• Emily R Lai
• Published 2011
• Education, Philosophy

15 Citations

Effecting change on students’ critical thinking in problem solving.

• Highly Influenced

Implementation of the Jigsaw Model to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

Student’s critical thinking in solving open-ended problems based on their personality type, cognitive-behavioural reflective training for improving critical thinking disposition of nursing students, investigating critical thinking in prospective teachers: metacognitive skills, problem solving skills and academic self-efficacy, modeling the relationships between school administrators' creative and critical thinking dispositions with decision making styles and problem solving skills *, preparatory school learners’ level of critical thinking proficiency and its correlation with their academic achievement in ethiopia: the missing ingredient, teaching grammar to promote critical thinking in efl classrooms, a research on critical thinking tendencies and factors that affect critical thinking of higher education students, 49 references, the disposition toward critical thinking: its character, measurement, and relationship to critical thinking skill.

• Highly Influential

Teaching critical thinking for transfer across domains. Dispositions, skills, structure training, and metacognitive monitoring.

• 17 Excerpts

Assessing Students' Critical Thinking Performance: Urging for Measurements Using Multi-Response Format.

Critical thinking: a statement of expert consensus for purposes of educational assessment and instruction (the delphi report).

• 31 Excerpts

Assessing the Effectiveness of Critical Thinking Instruction

Instructional interventions affecting critical thinking skills and dispositions: a stage 1 meta-analysis, conceptualizing critical thinking.

• 11 Excerpts

Critical Thinking: The Nature of Critical and Creative Thought

Demystifying critical thinking, alternative instructional strategies for creative and critical thinking in the accounting curriculum, related papers.

Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers

English 110: Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing Through Literature

Your assignment, what is literary criticism, guides to writing literary criticism.

• Choosing Topics
• Search Strategies
• Find Articles
• Use Websites
• Scholarly Sources
• Primary vs. Secondary Sources
• Annotated Bibliographies

For research help and more: Ask a GWC Librarian!

During library open hours :

Call: (714) 895-8741 x55184

Text: 714-882-5425

Visit:  Reference Desk/LRC 2nd Floor

Library Hours: Spring 2024

Library building :, mon - thurs: 8 am - 5 pm, friday: 8 am - 12:30 pm, online research help:, mon - thurs: 8 am - 8 pm*, friday: 8 am - 12:30 pm.

*New later hours!

*January 29 - May 24*

Library Hours: Summer 2024

Mon - wed: 9 am - 1 pm.

* June 10 - August 16 *

English 110: Instructor Jereb - Textbook Citation Example

Dickinson, Emily. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.”  Literature and Its Writers: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama , edited by Ann Charters and Samuel Charters, 6th ed., Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013, p. 849.

Your assignment is to identify, evaluate, and select research material relevant about an author and their literary work or a literary movement. You are also expected to properly compile this material in order to write a research paper using MLA format.

This guide has been designed to highlight library resources to help you achieve these goals! 

Literary Criticism is the discussion, analysis or appraisal of a literary work-whether a novel, poem, play, short story or essay.

As a literary critic, you will read and study a piece of literature and attempt to:

The guide will help you find biographical and critical information about authors and their works. 

Selection of books in the library:

Click on the titles to see chapter titles and more.

• Next: Choosing Topics >>
• Last Updated: Jun 18, 2024 12:51 PM
• URL: https://goldenwestcollege.libguides.com/english110

A Guide to English: Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing

• An Introduction to Rhetoric

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing

• The Writing Process
• Formatting and Citations
• The Reference Collection
• Searching for Books
• Searching for Articles
• Bibliographic Trace
• Citation Management
• Scholarly Associations
• The English Language
• Literary Form
• Peoples and Identities
• Periods and Movements in American Literature
• Periods and Movements in Commonwealth Literatures
• Thematic Genres and "Genre Fiction"
• Award Winners (indexed)
• Criticism & Theory
• Creative Writing
• Multimodal Composition
• Text Analysis / Distant Reading
• Digital Stewardship
• Data Visualization
• GIS and Geospatial Data
• Statistical Analysis
• Programming
• Digital Scholarly Editing

In this Section

• Academic Writing: How It's Different
• Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing

On this Page

• Critical thinking
• Critical reading

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is one of the key goals and expectations of academic learning. Scholars in a range of fields (but especially philosophy, psychology, and education) have attempted to define what qualities make up what we call critical thinking, but one key aspect is the expectation that that we will master existing knowledge so that we are as well-positioned as we can be to revise existing understandings and create new knowledge. 1

One of the more influential models of critical thinking in the field of education is Bloom's Taxonomy, originally published in 1956 by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom and a group of collaborators as A Taxonomy of Educational Objectives and later revised in 2001 by "A group of cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists" as A Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment . 2

This model of learning emphasizes that we need to come to grips with the existing state of knowledge in a field -- recalling facts and basic concepts -- in order to build up to higher order tasks like understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating knowledge ourselves.

Some students come into college believing that if they simply memorize a bunch of facts about a topic, use impressive words, and repeat them accurately and in the correct format, that will lead to a high grade. However academic culture comes with a different set of expectations. We are expected to go beyond remembering and understanding facts.

In academic writing, we aim to become full participants in an ongoing scholarly discourse , the discussion about our topic that is already taking place among experts in our field. This requires us to understand, apply, analyze, and evaluate the existing scholarly discussion about our topic, and engage with the evidence to contribute our own findings ( They Say, I Say ).

1 Lai, Emily R. "Critical thinking: A literature review." Pearson Assessments, 2011. URL: http://images.pearsonassessments.com/images/tmrs/CriticalThinkingReviewFINAL.pdf

2 Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved October 9, 2022 from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/.

Critical Reading

In chapter 2 of his book, Writing in Response on "Active Reading," Matthew Parfitt discusses the following strategies for critically reading a text:

• Read from Beginning to End (45)
• Mark up the text (46)
• Note the Knowledge Problem, Thesis Statement, and Key Claims (49)
• Note Divisions, Turning Points, and Signposts (50)
• Note Things That Puzzle You (51)
• Gloss Unfamiliar References (51)

Parfitt also explains how to keep a Reading Journal to keep track of your own thoughts, and offers a number of further strategies for analyzing and evaluating the author's arguments, mapping the text, and ensuring that we represent the author's ideas fairly and accurately when we cite and respond to them in our papers.

• << Previous: An Introduction to Rhetoric
• Next: The Writing Process >>
• Last Updated: Apr 2, 2024 10:54 AM
• URL: https://libguides.gustavus.edu/english

• Schools & departments

Critical thinking

Advice and resources to help you develop your critical voice.

Developing critical thinking skills is essential to your success at University and beyond.  We all need to be critical thinkers to help us navigate our way through an information-rich world. 

Whatever your discipline, you will engage with a wide variety of sources of information and evidence.  You will develop the skills to make judgements about this evidence to form your own views and to present your views clearly.

One of the most common types of feedback received by students is that their work is ‘too descriptive’.  This usually means that they have just stated what others have said and have not reflected critically on the material.  They have not evaluated the evidence and constructed an argument.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the art of making clear, reasoned judgements based on interpreting, understanding, applying and synthesising evidence gathered from observation, reading and experimentation. Burns, T., & Sinfield, S. (2016)  Essential Study Skills: The Complete Guide to Success at University (4th ed.) London: SAGE, p94.

Being critical does not just mean finding fault.  It means assessing evidence from a variety of sources and making reasoned conclusions.  As a result of your analysis you may decide that a particular piece of evidence is not robust, or that you disagree with the conclusion, but you should be able to state why you have come to this view and incorporate this into a bigger picture of the literature.

Being critical goes beyond describing what you have heard in lectures or what you have read.  It involves synthesising, analysing and evaluating what you have learned to develop your own argument or position.

Critical thinking is important in all subjects and disciplines – in science and engineering, as well as the arts and humanities.  The types of evidence used to develop arguments may be very different but the processes and techniques are similar.  Critical thinking is required for both undergraduate and postgraduate levels of study.

What, where, when, who, why, how?

Purposeful reading can help with critical thinking because it encourages you to read actively rather than passively.  When you read, ask yourself questions about what you are reading and make notes to record your views.  Ask questions like:

• What is the main point of this paper/ article/ paragraph/ report/ blog?
• Who wrote it?
• Why was it written?
• When was it written?
• Has the context changed since it was written?
• Is the evidence presented robust?
• How did the authors come to their conclusions?
• Do you agree with the conclusions?
• What does this add to our knowledge?
• Why is it useful?

Our web page covering Reading at university includes a handout to help you develop your own critical reading form and a suggested reading notes record sheet.  These resources will help you record your thoughts after you read, which will help you to construct your argument. 

Reading at university

Developing an argument

Being a university student is about learning how to think, not what to think.  Critical thinking shapes your own values and attitudes through a process of deliberating, debating and persuasion.   Through developing your critical thinking you can move on from simply disagreeing to constructively assessing alternatives by building on doubts.

There are several key stages involved in developing your ideas and constructing an argument.  You might like to use a form to help you think about the features of critical thinking and to break down the stages of developing your argument.

Features of critical thinking (pdf)

Features of critical thinking (Word rtf)

Our webpage on Academic writing includes a useful handout ‘Building an argument as you go’.

Academic writing

You should also consider the language you will use to introduce a range of viewpoints and to evaluate the various sources of evidence.  This will help your reader to follow your argument.  To get you started, the University of Manchester's Academic Phrasebank has a useful section on Being Critical. 

Academic Phrasebank

Developing your critical thinking

Set yourself some tasks to help develop your critical thinking skills.  Discuss material presented in lectures or from resource lists with your peers.  Set up a critical reading group or use an online discussion forum.  Think about a point you would like to make during discussions in tutorials and be prepared to back up your argument with evidence.

For more suggestions:

Developing your critical thinking - ideas (pdf)

Developing your critical thinking - ideas (Word rtf)

Published guides

For further advice and more detailed resources please see the Critical Thinking section of our list of published Study skills guides.

Study skills guides  

This article was published on 2024-02-26

Critical Thinking with Literature: It’s Problem-Solving

• By Sharon Crowley
• June 29, 2015

Critical thinking tops the list of skills students need for success in the complex 21st century. When it comes to science and math, most people equate critical thinking with problem solving. In those content areas, students apply their understanding of basic concepts to a task for which the solution is not known in advance. By grappling with a challenging problem, students extend their learning. Critical thinking about literature is not so different. With a written work, the problem or task is often an open-ended, text-based question. Students use their comprehension of the text to develop interpretations—or solutions to the problem.

If you want your students to engage in higher-order thinking as they read and discuss literature, include these key elements of problem-solving activities:

Genuine, intriguing questions. To think critically, there must be something to think critically about. With literature, it’s a text that leaves your students puzzling and asking questions about a character, event, symbol, or structure. Predictable or moralistic texts with flat characters don’t generate intriguing questions. When texts are sufficiently complex, the questions that spring from them present engaging problems.

Divergent answers. Just as genuine problems in math or science allow for multiple strategies and solutions, a discussion-worthy question about a piece of literature should invite multiple interpretations or answers. In Shared Inquiry discussions, considering divergent ideas is what drives students to find deeper meaning in a text.

Ample evidence. As in math or science, for an answer or solution to be sound, there must be relevant reasons behind it. Likewise, ideas about the meaning of literary texts must be supported with the evidence from the work itself. Evidence and reasoning make ideas valid and debatable. Without evidence, ideas are simply guesses.

Opportunities to evaluate evidence. Some pieces of scientific or mathematical data are more compelling than others. The same is true when exploring a question about a rich work of literature. Collaborative discussion is a time for participants to share the evidence that supports their ideas, to weigh that evidence, and to strengthen ideas by debating each other’s assertions or suggesting additional evidence.

Collaboration. A good discussion question, or problem, is one that students want to work on together. Just as students benefit from combining their skills and perspectives when solving a math or science problem, discussing an interpretive question as a group yields more thoughtful and considered answers than if students had worked alone. Follow-up questions that ask students to clarify, elaborate, and explain their ideas help deepen and enliven the conversation.

I’m looking to enroll my daughter, in a local program in Detroit,MI

Thank you for your interest in Great Books! We’re confident your daughter would enjoy and benefit from participating in the program. Tom Kerschner, the Great Books Consultant for Michigan, will be in touch with you soon. Watch for an email ending with @greatbooks.org.

I am looking for a Great Books Program in the Detroit, Michigan, area for my ten year old daughter. Thank you, Kym

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

• Programs & Services
• Delphi Center

Ideas to Action (i2a)

• What is Critical Thinking?

The ability to think critically calls for a higher-order thinking than simply the ability to recall information.

Definitions of critical thinking, its elements, and its associated activities fill the educational literature of the past forty years. Critical thinking has been described as an ability to question; to acknowledge and test previously held assumptions; to recognize ambiguity; to examine, interpret, evaluate, reason, and reflect; to make informed judgments and decisions; and to clarify, articulate, and justify positions (Hullfish & Smith, 1961; Ennis, 1962; Ruggiero, 1975; Scriven, 1976; Hallet, 1984; Kitchener, 1986; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991; Mines et al., 1990; Halpern, 1996; Paul & Elder, 2001; Petress, 2004; Holyoak & Morrison, 2005; among others).

After a careful review of the mountainous body of literature defining critical thinking and its elements, UofL has chosen to adopt the language of Michael Scriven and Richard Paul (2003) as a comprehensive, concise operating definition:

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.

Paul and Scriven go on to suggest that critical thinking is based on: "universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness. It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue, assumptions, concepts, empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions, implication and consequences, objections from alternative viewpoints, and frame of reference. Critical thinking - in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes - is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking."

This conceptualization of critical thinking has been refined and developed further by Richard Paul and Linder Elder into the Paul-Elder framework of critical thinking. Currently, this approach is one of the most widely published and cited frameworks in the critical thinking literature. According to the Paul-Elder framework, critical thinking is the:

• Analysis of thinking by focusing on the parts or structures of thinking ("the Elements of Thought")
• Evaluation of thinking by focusing on the quality ("the Universal Intellectual Standards")
• Improvement of thinking by using what you have learned ("the Intellectual Traits")

Selection of a Critical Thinking Framework

The University of Louisville chose the Paul-Elder model of Critical Thinking as the approach to guide our efforts in developing and enhancing our critical thinking curriculum. The Paul-Elder framework was selected based on criteria adapted from the characteristics of a good model of critical thinking developed at Surry Community College. The Paul-Elder critical thinking framework is comprehensive, uses discipline-neutral terminology, is applicable to all disciplines, defines specific cognitive skills including metacognition, and offers high quality resources.

Why the selection of a single critical thinking framework?

The use of a single critical thinking framework is an important aspect of institution-wide critical thinking initiatives (Paul and Nosich, 1993; Paul, 2004). According to this view, critical thinking instruction should not be relegated to one or two disciplines or departments with discipline specific language and conceptualizations. Rather, critical thinking instruction should be explicitly infused in all courses so that critical thinking skills can be developed and reinforced in student learning across the curriculum. The use of a common approach with a common language allows for a central organizer and for the development of critical thinking skill sets in all courses.

• SACS & QEP
• Planning and Implementation
• Why Focus on Critical Thinking?
• Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework
• Culminating Undergraduate Experience
• Community Engagement
• Frequently Asked Questions
• What is i2a?

Copyright © 2012 - University of Louisville , Delphi Center

• Games & Quizzes
• History & Society
• Science & Tech
• Biographies
• Animals & Nature
• Geography & Travel
• Arts & Culture
• On This Day
• One Good Fact
• New Articles
• Lifestyles & Social Issues
• Philosophy & Religion
• Politics, Law & Government
• World History
• Health & Medicine
• Browse Biographies
• Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates
• Bugs, Mollusks & Other Invertebrates
• Environment
• Fossils & Geologic Time
• Entertainment & Pop Culture
• Sports & Recreation
• Visual Arts
• Demystified
• Image Galleries
• Infographics
• Top Questions
• Britannica Kids
• Saving Earth
• Space Next 50
• Student Center
• Introduction
• Medieval period
• The Renaissance
• Neoclassicism and its decline
• Romanticism
• The late 19th century
• The influence of science
• Criticism and knowledge

literary criticism

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

• Internet Archive - "Literary Criticism"
• Academia - Literary Criticism and Literary Theory: A Study
• Humanities LibreTexts - About Literary Criticism
• literature - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• literature - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

literary criticism , the reasoned consideration of literary works and issues. It applies, as a term, to any argumentation about literature , whether or not specific works are analyzed. Plato ’s cautions against the risky consequences of poetic inspiration in general in his Republic are thus often taken as the earliest important example of literary criticism .

More strictly construed, the term covers only what has been called “practical criticism,” the interpretation of meaning and the judgment of quality. Criticism in this narrow sense can be distinguished not only from aesthetics (the philosophy of artistic value) but also from other matters that may concern the student of literature: biographical questions, bibliography , historical knowledge, sources and influences, and problems of method. Thus, especially in academic studies, “criticism” is often considered to be separate from “scholarship.” In practice, however, this distinction often proves artificial, and even the most single-minded concentration on a text may be informed by outside knowledge, while many notable works of criticism combine discussion of texts with broad arguments about the nature of literature and the principles of assessing it.

Criticism will here be taken to cover all phases of literary understanding, though the emphasis will be on the evaluation of literary works and of their authors’ places in literary history. For another particular aspect of literary criticism, see textual criticism .

The functions of literary criticism vary widely, ranging from the reviewing of books as they are published to systematic theoretical discussion. Though reviews may sometimes determine whether a given book will be widely sold, many works succeed commercially despite negative reviews, and many classic works, including Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851), have acquired appreciative publics long after being unfavourably reviewed and at first neglected. One of criticism’s principal functions is to express the shifts in sensibility that make such revaluations possible. The minimal condition for such a new appraisal is, of course, that the original text survive. The literary critic is sometimes cast in the role of scholarly detective, unearthing, authenticating, and editing unknown manuscripts. Thus, even rarefied scholarly skills may be put to criticism’s most elementary use, the bringing of literary works to a public’s attention.

The variety of criticism’s functions is reflected in the range of publications in which it appears. Criticism in the daily press rarely displays sustained acts of analysis and may sometimes do little more than summarize a publisher’s claims for a book’s interest. Weekly and biweekly magazines serve to introduce new books but are often more discriminating in their judgments, and some of these magazines, such as The (London) Times Literary Supplement and The New York Review of Books , are far from indulgent toward popular works. Sustained criticism can also be found in monthlies and quarterlies with a broad circulation, in “little magazines” for specialized audiences, and in scholarly journals and books.

Because critics often try to be lawgivers, declaring which works deserve respect and presuming to say what they are “really” about, criticism is a perennial target of resentment. Misguided or malicious critics can discourage an author who has been feeling his way toward a new mode that offends received taste. Pedantic critics can obstruct a serious engagement with literature by deflecting attention toward inessential matters. As the French philosopher-critic Jean-Paul Sartre observed, the critic may announce that French thought is a perpetual colloquy between Pascal and Montaigne not in order to make those thinkers more alive but to make thinkers of his own time more dead. Criticism can antagonize authors even when it performs its function well. Authors who regard literature as needing no advocates or investigators are less than grateful when told that their works possess unintended meaning or are imitative or incomplete.

What such authors may tend to forget is that their works, once published, belong to them only in a legal sense. The true owner of their works is the public, which will appropriate them for its own concerns regardless of the critic. The critic’s responsibility is not to the author’s self-esteem but to the public and to his own standards of judgment, which are usually more exacting than the public’s. Justification for his role rests on the premise that literary works are not in fact self-explanatory. A critic is socially useful to the extent that society wants, and receives, a fuller understanding of literature than it could have achieved without him. In filling this appetite, the critic whets it further, helping to create a public that cares about artistic quality. Without sensing the presence of such a public, an author may either prostitute his talent or squander it in sterile acts of defiance. In this sense, the critic is not a parasite but, potentially, someone who is responsible in part for the existence of good writing in his own time and afterward.

Although some critics believe that literature should be discussed in isolation from other matters, criticism usually seems to be openly or covertly involved with social and political debate. Since literature itself is often partisan, is always rooted to some degree in local circumstances, and has a way of calling forth affirmations of ultimate values, it is not surprising that the finest critics have never paid much attention to the alleged boundaries between criticism and other types of discourse. Especially in modern Europe, literary criticism has occupied a central place in debate about cultural and political issues. Sartre’s own What Is Literature? (1947) is typical in its wide-ranging attempt to prescribe the literary intellectual’s ideal relation to the development of his society and to literature as a manifestation of human freedom. Similarly, some prominent American critics, including Alfred Kazin , Lionel Trilling , Kenneth Burke , Philip Rahv , and Irving Howe , began as political radicals in the 1930s and sharpened their concern for literature on the dilemmas and disillusionments of that era. Trilling’s influential The Liberal Imagination (1950) is simultaneously a collection of literary essays and an attempt to reconcile the claims of politics and art.

Such a reconciliation is bound to be tentative and problematic if the critic believes, as Trilling does, that literature possesses an independent value and a deeper faithfulness to reality than is contained in any political formula. In Marxist states, however, literature has usually been considered a means to social ends and, therefore, criticism has been cast in forthrightly partisan terms. Dialectical materialism does not necessarily turn the critic into a mere guardian of party doctrine, but it does forbid him to treat literature as a cause in itself, apart from the working class’s needs as interpreted by the party. Where this utilitarian view prevails, the function of criticism is taken to be continuous with that of the state itself, namely, furtherance of the social revolution. The critic’s main obligation is not to his texts but rather to the masses of people whose consciousness must be advanced in the designated direction. In periods of severe orthodoxy, the practice of literary criticism has not always been distinguishable from that of censorship.

Pardon Our Interruption

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

• You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
• You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
• You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
• A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article .

To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.