Critical Thinking
The majority of the time people associate critical thinking with being negative and finding what it wrong with the topic of discussion, however this is not the case. Critical thinking as actually a skill of evaluation and weighing up the positives and negative of a topic in order to gain a reasonable conclusion. To think critically about something a good understanding must be made first and any opinion made must then be backed up with some hard evidence (quote, image etc.).
Prior to reading this chapter on critical thinking (Critical Thinking: an exploration of theory and practice, Jennifer Moon, 2008) I would have been unable to give a detailed explanation as to what critical thinking is and how I could write in this way in the future. After reading several descriptions and comparing them to each other I am now a lot clearer of the meaning and what is expected when being asked to write in this way.
Definition Examples:
Prior to reading this chapter on critical thinking (Critical Thinking: an exploration of theory and practice, Jennifer Moon, 2008) I would have been unable to give a detailed explanation as to what critical thinking is and how I could write in this way in the future. After reading several descriptions and comparing them to each other I am now a lot clearer of the meaning and what is expected when being asked to write in this way.
Definition Examples:
- "Critical thinking is the ability to consider a range of information derived from many different sources, to process this information in a creative and logical
manner, challenging it, analysing it and arriving at considered conclusions which can be defended and justified. Its opposites are prejudice and the risk to judgement. Knowledge has to be constructed – and its meanings change with the context." - "It is to develop your own argument, deconstructing ideas or synthesizing a range of ideas associated with complex ideas. There may be different routes to the same conclusion or different conclusions to the same issues."
- "Critical thinking is trying to understand a subject, thinking about it, appreciating it, understanding the strengths and limitations of it and then developing a point of view on the subject."
Plagiarism
The resources that can be used to detect plagiarism are becoming more and more advanced and therefore the risk of getting caught is significantly higher. No matter where the text is found in an essay or where is has been taken from it will always be classed a plagiarism unless it has been quoted and referenced sufficiently. A lot of text on the internet has come from books and journals and therefore the chances of copy and pasting this information with it going unnoticed is extremely low. Every time another source has been used it should be cited with the author, publication date and page number within the text and then referenced in the bibliography with the author, publication date, book title, book publisher and where it was published. there are many different ways a tutor can tell if a student has plagiarised for example; unformatted and formatted text, difference in work quality, writing style changes etc. However almost all universities now use a plagiarism detection service known as Turnitin. This website is used to upload almost every past essay onto containing in excess of 9 billion items. Therefore the chances of successfully plagiarising are extremely low. The point at which an essay will be deemed suspicious is when it contains an amount of non-originality greater than10%. In order to prevent unnecessary plagiarism it is a good idea to take notes from required text and then write the essay using those notes. Even though the source still has to be documented there will be very little text that has been carried across. (Breach, 2009, 123-133). Having read the chapter written by Breach I now have a greater understanding of what may be classified as plagiarism and how I can prevent my essays from sustaining a non-originality level of under 10%.