Academic Level: Undergraduate
Academic Writing Grade for the last semester: 88
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The critique is about the attached text as well as a text of your choice that will be used to compare and synthesise ideas etc…
In this critique you will write a critique on Jabra Ibrahim Jabra’s THE FIRST WELL excerpt. You will synthesize the ideas with those of a text of your choice, but of a different genre. Examples: animation or comic strip, editorial in a newspaper or magazine, an academic article, poetry.
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The critique is divided into 3 sections:
1- Introduction
2- Body : a. content
b. logic
c. language
3- Conclusion
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An introduction should contain a thesis statement that is dry, legal, extremely objective and which reflects the ideas in your writing. The thesis should be simple, clear and not sensational.
Introductions may contain:
– A very specific point which could be an example to precede the thesis statement.
– An anecdote that is a narration of a story (preferably not you own story) from something you have read ( CS, philosophy, literature, newspaper, history, politics, media…) that is related to your topic.
– Quotes : These can be found on online( Google, etc). It has to be related to the theme and it might be philosophical, historical…
– A scientific fact or statistics
– From general to specific/specific to general.
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The body is divided into three parts
a. Content :
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which should be mentioned before the other two parts. It is about what the piece actually portrays. For this part, a summary is needed.
b. Logic:
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it is the argumentative aspect of the piece. While writing this part you should ask yourself: Are the statements used logical or not? Is the writer too prejudiced? Do the ideas and words used provide clues for the ideas in the text? Does the writer gain the reader’s trust (is the idea realistic and believable?) Also check whether the ideas make sense compared to place and time. ( in an argument compare both the First Well and excerpt x) PS. There are lots of logical /illogical issues in newspaper ”journalistic writing”.
c. Language :
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which contains also style, structure, organization . you can speak about the sophistication/simplicity of the language, whether there are figures of speech or not, direct or indirect speech, sentence types, etc
The conclusion: it may contain an academic objective conclusion. This opinion shouldn’t be simplistic or general because being too general or too simplistic are examples of logical fallacies. A too general opinion doesn’t take personal differences into account. To add, you can’t attribute authority to someone who is lacks it( don’t get something from a person who doesn’t know well about it)
What goes into conclusions?
1. Discussion of a topic that might be the next topic.
2. A new glimpse but not a new analysis.
3. It could be about something that you can relate to the audience.
4. Choosing a question of style that you did not discuss in your body paragraphs.
So, a conclusion includes writing about another theme, or a certain stylistic aspect shared or not shared by the writer.
