WRITING CRITICALLY AND INTEGRATING EVIDENCE
chris.mcmillan@brunel.ac.uk
This Morning Working with feedback
What does it mean to write critically?
Why do we bother with evidence?
What counts as quality evidence?
Maintaining an argumentative structure
The Importance of Feedback
The purpose of the first year is to develop the academic skills, knowledge and attitude to apply in the rest of your degree and beyond
Feedback is not *just* criticism, but advice for how to improve your writing
Feedback is not limited to the words on the page, but includes the discussions you have to improve your work
I strongly recommend you discuss the feedback with your lecturer, with your personal tutor or with ASK
Where do you want to improve?
For those who have feedback, note down three things they need to improve
For those who haven’t yet, write down three things you struggled with
This is where you NEED to improve!
Going beyond superficial explanations
Using quality academic evidence to add authority
Maintaining structure
Editing and proof-reading
Returning to Arguments
I have previously suggested that the key to academic writing is making arguments
This argument needs to be stated in the introduction and defended throughout
This defence needs to be organised into a logical structure
Each point needs to be critically constructed and defended with evidence
Beyond Description
Academic writing is always a mix of description and critique
Key ideas are established, but need to be expanded on in detail and the implications drawn out
Not just what is being said, but why and what are the consequences
Ask, ‘So What?’
The State, Empire and Imperialism John Roberts 2010 58: 833 Current Sociology (p.842).
The ‘Washington Consensus’ of the early 1990s gave way by the late 1990s to the ‘post-Washington Consensus’ and the new humanitarianism of ‘soft neoliberalism’ (see Fine, 2001), including the World Bank’s initiation of a threepart study of poverty titled Voices of the Poor for the World Development Report 2000/2001. This study sought to highlight regional patterns of global poverty while providing the world’s poor with a platform through which they could speak about their plight in their own words (see, for example, Narayan et al., 2000). Uniquely, this study was built on interviews with the poor around the world and sought to understand the everyday feelings and relationships of what it means to be poor. This heralded, as Pupavac (2005) rightly notes, a more psychological and intangible way of studying poverty; one that highlighted the importance of ‘tacit knowledge’ in the shape of individual stories, narratives and feelings about what it means to live in hardship and deprivation in order to build a definition of poverty based on first-hand accounts
The ‘Washington Consensus’ of the early 1990s gave way by the late 1990s to the ‘post-Washington Consensus’ and the new humanitarianism of ‘soft neoliberalism’ (see Fine, 2001), including the World Bank’s initiation of a threepart study of poverty titled Voices of the Poor for the World Development Report 2000/2001. STATEMENT
This study sought to highlight regional patterns of global poverty while providing the world’s poor with a platform through which they could speak about their plight in their own words (see, for example, Narayan et al., 2000). Uniquely, this study was built on interviews with the poor around the world and sought to understand the everyday feelings and relationships of what it means to be poor. EVIDENCE AND EXPLANATION
So what? This heralded, as Pupavac (2005) rightly notes, a more psychological and intangible way of studying poverty; one that highlighted the importance of ‘tacit knowledge’ in the shape of individual stories, narratives and feelings about what it means to live in hardship and deprivation in order to build a definition of poverty based on first-hand accounts.
Moral and security concerns were sustained by reports issued by various global governance organizations. For example, the Commission of Human Security’s Human Security Now (2003) report argued that global security should be increased by ensuring that essential freedoms are in place for people around the world. A global strategy should integrate, coordinate and centralize different regulatory, voluntary and private companies so as to produce an international framework that will protect people from global threats, including the threat of poverty. Thus the global social policy domain in the form of PPPs, and including issues ranging from the environment, education and healthcare provision, is seen as an integral arena in developing and maintaining this new security ethos (Duffield and Waddell, 2006: 8– 9; see also Duffield, 2002). More generally, these and other policies went on to justify, promote and politicize strategically selective humanitarian intervention across the globe (Fassin, 2007: 509).
p.848
Top Tip Extend your reasoning in order to make a critical argument
Evidence: Why bother?
A regular concern with first year essays is the use of evidence, primarily: Points
are not supported by evidence Too few sources are used Evidence is not academic Evidence is not from original sources
Are you lying?
Every assertion you make has to be supported by some form of evidence to ensure it has authority
A strong point will not just be what you think, but is illustrated by ‘external’ evidence
This evidence can be about what someone has said, or about a societal circumstance
Using evidence Marxists have argued that capitalism is able to provide more entertaining television. Television is vital for maintaining social cohesion and keeping people from overthrowing their masters and losing their chains. More people watch television than any other form of entertainment.
What’s wrong?
Separate and not equal
Whilst evidence is required, different forms of evidence have different levels of authority
Your role as a social scientist is to be able to evaluate evidence and decide what is appropriate to justify your ideas
A greater range of sources demonstrates wider reading and reduces the possibility of ‘bias’
Academic Sources 

What makes an academic source academic? o Peer reviewed (Validated within community of scholars) How can you identify an academic source from a non-academic one? (especially online ones) Where did you find this information? o
use the library databases
Who is it published by? o
A university, a scholarly journal or a professional society?
Is full publication data available?
What to avoid
Official statistics are okay, if they support the point you want to make (and they can be problematic as well)
These sources are best accessed through the internet, but…
Internet sources are generally not academic and…
Non-academic secondary sources are not appropriate
Why not?
Extending reasoning with evidence

Read through the paragraphs in the hand-out and try to identify what you would do differently
Maintaining Structure
In order to build a convincing argument, it is necessary that each point builds towards a whole
I recommend: Write
an outline beforehand Review your overview structure afterwards and ask: What
Write
does this paragraph say and what does it do?
down the completed outline – Does it make sense?
Editing… …is about actively improving your writing in terms of both form and content. Ideas Arguments Logic Style Clarity ‘Flow’
Proofreading… …is mostly about catching the small errors and inconsistencies.
Spelling Grammar Repetition Typos Consistency (reference style, abbreviations, etc)
Here’s a hint. Most of what we call ‘the writing process’ is editing. Or it should be…
A writing process Editing Drafting
Proofing
The problem: Too often we get through the drafting stage and think they are done.
Further Support
Speak to your lecturer, personal tutor or ASK to clarify feedback: support is available, but it is up to you to use it
Make an appointment with your personal tutor to review your progress this term
Check the resources on the ASK BBL page, make an appointment to see us, or email ask@brunel.ac.uk