Critical Reading and Writing for Postgraduates

Reading critically, and writing using critical techniques, are crucial skills you need to apply to your academic work.  Practical and engaging, Critical Reading and Writing for Postgraduates is bursting with tools for analysing texts and structuring critical reviews, helping you to gradually build your skills beyond undergraduate level and gain confidence in your ability to critically read and write. 

New to this 3rd edition:

• Introduces a technique for developing critical thinking skills by interrogating paper abstracts

• Additional diagrams, exercises and concept explanations, enabling you to more easily understand and apply the various approaches

• A glossary, to help with understanding of key terms.

Also new for this edition, a Companion Website provides additional resources to help you apply the critical techniques you learn.  From templates and checklists, access to SAGE journal articles and additional case studies, these free resources will make sure you successfully master advanced critical skills.

If you need to engage with published (or unpublished) literature such as essays, dissertations or theses, research papers or oral presentations, this proven guide helps you develop a reflective and advanced critical approach to your research and writing.

The Student Success series are essential guides for students of all levels. From how to think critically and write great essays to planning your dream career, the Student Success series helps you study smarter and get the best from your time at university. Visit the SAGE Study Skills hub for tips and resources for study success!

Mike Wallace is a Professor of Public Management at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. From 2009 to 2012 he was the Economic and Social Research Council’s Strategic Adviser for Researcher Development. His research on managing change in the public services is reported in many books and academic journals. He is co-author, with Eric Hoyle, of the book Educational Leadership: Ambiguity, Professionals, and Managerialism (Sage, 2005), lead editor, with Michael Fertig and Eugene Schneller, of the book Managing Change in the Public Services (Blackwell, 2007), and lead co-author, with Michael Reed, Dermot O′Reilly, Jonathan Morris, Michael Tomlinson and Rosemary Deem, of the book Developing Public Service Leaders: Elite Orchestration, Change Agency, Leaderism, and Neoliberalization (Oxford University Press, 2023). His contribution to teaching at Cardiff centres on the design of postgraduate research programmes incorporating research methods training.

Alison Wray is Emerita Research Professor of Language and Communication at Cardiff University. One of her main research areas is lexical storage and processing, particularly formulaic expressions, applied to language learning, evolution of language and language disability. She has also extensively researched communication in the context of dementia. Her major monographs, Formulaic Language and the Lexicon (Cambridge University Press, 2002), Formulaic Language: Pushing the Boundaries (Oxford University Press, 2008), and The Dynamics of Dementia Communication (Oxford University Press, 2020), are internationally acclaimed and award-winning. She has also written the scripts for three animated films used for training dementia carers. She has a longstanding commitment to researcher training and the development of academic expertise and is lead author of the popular undergraduate textbook Projects in Linguistics and Language Studies (Hodder, 2012).