Critical Thinking

1. Topic / Issue / Title

2. What?

3. When?

4. Who?

5. Where?

6. Why?

7. What next?

8. So What?

9. What if?

10. How?

11. Description

12. Analysis

13. Evaluation

14. Thinking critically means asking questions. Instead of accepting ‘at face value’ what you read or hear, critical thinkers look for evidence and for good reasons before believing something to be true.

15. 1. Identify a topic. This can be your essay title, a subtopic, or a point you might want to explore in a particular section or paragraph. Write key words in the middle of a sheet of paper, or a blank document screen.

16. Generating critical thinking

17. 2. Try to answer the questions on the diagram starting with ‘what’ questions. Your answers may become part of an introduction, defining your terms or identifying issues.

18. 3. Using the ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ questions, generate descriptive background information. This will provide context or scene-setting material which is also useful for an introductory section.

19. 4. ‘How’ requires consideration of the ways that something operates or works – e.g. processes or procedures. Attempting to answer questions using ‘how’ takes you from descriptive to more analytical work.

20. 5. ‘Why’ also moves you deeper into analytical territory. It gets you to find reasons, explanations or causes.

21. 6. Asking questions using ‘what if’ moves you into a more evaluative phase of your thinking. It helps you to consider the possible implications or results of a particular action.

22. 7. ‘So what?’ is really the key question for an evaluation. It gets you thinking about value or values, meaning and significance.

23. 8. ‘What next?’ might refer to recommendations and predictions that your argument has brought to light.