Define Critical Practice in Essay Writing and Explain the Differences between a Critical Style and a Descriptive Style of Essay Writing

Does critical writing style enhance an essay more so than descriptive writing and if so why? These are the questions that will be looked at through this essay as well as defining what critical practice or being critical in academic works really is as well as how it relates to essay writing.

The word critical is defined as “involving skillful judgment as to truth, merit, etc… a critical analysis/

of or pertaining to critics or criticism: critical essays.” (Dictionary, 2013).

The word practice is defined as “repeated performance or systematic exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency: Practice makes perfect.” (Dictionary, 2013)

Combining these words together they relate to essay writing because a skill needs to be practised. By practising essay questions, the skill becomes more refined

What is descriptive writing

Descriptive style writing is factual with no analysis or evaluation (University of Leicester, 2009, University of Sydney, 2012). Novels and books are examples of where descriptive writing is more commonly used since it helps to set the scene of what the storyline is.

What is critical style writing

Critical style writing is to use both positive and negative analysis and to evaluate a piece of work whilst using your own interpretation of the reading to come to a summary of that research (Essay Info, 2010, University of Sydney, 2012, University of Leicester, 2009). For example, explaining research and then contributing a different interpretation of that research (University of Sydney, 2012). The analysis requires the person to ask questions about what they have just read like why is this important? (Creme, P. Lea, M.R 2003. Pg83-84). This is because this style of writing involves being able to think about what you have just read and questioning it. Evaluating the work involves giving reasons for your judgement (Creme, P. Lea, M.R 2003. Pg83-84). Without an evaluation, the person is not backing up the analysis and there would be no personal opinion on that matter.

The differences between both styles of writing compare/contrast

Descriptive and critical style writing have similarities, although not many, such as

They both appear together in a scientific report, for example description style writing would be shown through the method to collect the information and critical would be used in the discussion section.

Also, it includes the use of descriptive writing which is progressed with analysing and evaluating the text from the source of work.

(Essay Info 2010).

However, in contrast descriptive style writing gives the information whereas critical style writing draws a conclusion from the writing.