Critical (Academic) Reading Workshop

The short link to this page is http://bit.ly/critrdg

Here are the materials and links you will need for this workshop:

• Workshop slides
• Article by Bryant & Carless (2009) — download and have a quick read before the session starts; you may also like to print it out
• The same article for commenting on in Activities 2 and 3 — open this on a separate tab (do not use audio/video on Etherpad)
• Padlet for Activity 1 and the 1-minute paper at the end — open this on a separate tab
• The CRAAP Test:

• A mental map for finding your way through academic lit (this may be difficult to visualise when you are new to a topic):

• Guide to critically analysing an academic text (“value stance” in 2(c) refers to the authors’ attitude towards their object of investigation — is it relatively impartial, critical, positive, unclear?):

What do you do with your critical analyses of literature? To keep them organised (and to help you with citation), add them to your Reference Management software.

More resources on critical reading for postgraduate students:

• Companion website to the book by Wallace and Wray
• Critical reading (OU)
• Being critical in your reading (OpenLearn)
• Critical reading for graduate students (Queen’s University)

Resources on academic writing:

• The structure of a typical Applied Linguistics journal article (also applicable to Education and other social sciences)
• Academic Phrasebank
• More basic resources on academic writing (Google Site)