This is a post for all the people just starting their doctoral programmes. And for those supporting them.

Criticality in scholarship is the practice of approaching all knowledge claims, including your own, sceptically. It’s about developing “productive scepticism”. Productive scepticism isn’t cynicism that dismisses everything, but thoughtful inquiry that seeks to understand how knowledge is constructed, validated, framed and limited.

Think of criticality as putting on analytical glasses that help you see the meaning-making architecture behind ideas. Instead of just absorbing what authors say, you examine how they build their arguments, what assumptions they make and what evidence they use. You become interested not just in conclusions, but in the pathway from question to answer.

Here are what we might think of as the six pillars of critical scholarship.

1. Question everything (including your questions)

Critical scholars approach texts and ideas with a toolkit of probing questions: What assumptions underlie this argument? How does the author move from evidence to conclusion? What alternative explanations might exist? But you also need to examine your own questions. Why are you asking what you’re asking? What assumptions are you bringing to your analysis?

2. Evaluate your sources 

Not all sources are created equal, and criticality means becoming sophisticated about distinguishing between them. Who produced this knowledge, and what were their methods? What institutional, cultural or personal/professional interests might have shaped their work? Are you reading primary sources or interpretations of interpretations? Understanding the provenance and reliability of your sources isn’t about being suspicious, it’s about being informed.

3. Embrace context and complexity

Ideas don’t exist in vacuums. Critical scholarship holds that knowledge emerges from particular historical, cultural and political contexts that shape both what questions get asked and what answers seem reasonable. This means resisting the urge to oversimplify or to treat your field’s current assumptions as universal truths. The most interesting scholarly work often emerges from examining how contexts shape knowledge production.

4. Scrutinise methods and evidence

Whether you’re reading quantitative research or theoretical analysis, critical scholars evaluate methodology. Are the research methods appropriate for the questions being asked? Does the evidence actually support the conclusions? What are the blank and blind spots in the approach being used? Scrutiny isn’t about finding flaws to tear down others’ work, it’s about understanding the framing and boundaries of what any particular study or argument can see and say.

5. Find multiple perspectives

Criticality means actively looking for alternative viewpoints and interpretations rather than stopping at the first explanation that makes sense. This is especially important in doctoral work, where you’re expected to synthesise material across different theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches. The goal here isn’t relativism, the idea that all perspectives are equally valid, but rather being intellectual thorough.

6. Practice reflexivity

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of criticality is turning an analytical lens on yourself. What biases, assumptions, and limitations are you bringing to your work? How might your disciplinary training, personal/professional background or research interests shape what you see and don’t see? Good scholars develop the habit of regularly stepping back to examine their own analytical process.

So what does that actually mean in practice? Here are four practical strategies for developing criticality:

• Start with your reading practice. Instead of just taking notes on what authors say, write analytical memos asking: How do they know this? What would I need to believe to accept this argument? What questions does this raise that the author doesn’t address?
• Engage with work you disagree with. It’s easy to be critical of ideas you dislike and uncritical of ideas you find appealing. Challenge yourself by seriously engaging with scholarship that contradicts your initial instincts or theoretical commitments.
• Join or create reading groups. Criticality develops through dialogue. Discussing texts with peers helps you see interpretations and questions you might have missed on your own.
• Practice explaining complex ideas to non-experts. If you can’t explain your field’s key concepts and debates to an “intelligent outsider”, you may not understand them as well as you think. This exercise often reveals assumptions you didn’t know you were making.

There are also three common pitfalls to avoid:

• Criticism without construction. It’s easy to poke holes in others’ work, but genuine criticality means first of all understanding what was done not what wasn’t. It’s also proposing alternatives or improvements. Your goal should be to advance understanding, not just demonstrate your analytical prowess.
• Paralysis by analysis. Some students become so focused on finding flaws and complications that they struggle to make their own arguments. Remember that criticality serves scholarship. Criticality is a tool for producing better knowledge, not an end in itself.
• False equivalence. Being critical doesn’t mean treating all viewpoints as equally valid. Some arguments really are stronger than others, and some evidence really is more reliable. Criticality helps you make those distinctions more carefully, not avoid making them altogether.

The payoff

Developing criticality takes time and practice, but it’s what transforms you from a consumer of knowledge to a producer of it. It’s what allows you to see gaps in existing scholarship that others have missed, to bring together ideas in novel ways, and to make original contributions to your field.

Your examiner will look for evidence in your final thesis that you have developed strong criticality. But criticality is not just about passing an exam, although that is of course vital. Most importantly, criticality isn’t just an academic practice, it’s a habit of mind that serves you well beyond the academy. In a world full of competing claims, information overload, and proliferating dis- and mis-information, the ability to think critically and analytically is invaluable.

Your doctoral programme will support you not just to know things but to know how to evaluate what you know. Embrace that process. The questions you learn to ask now will shape the scholar, and the thinker, you already are and are becoming.