169
Writing as Critical Thinking
(see the bottom section of Table 14.2). Such outcomes are important, but we do not want
to dilute the importance of basic writing tasks and process issues—we view these categories
of writing activities as being on the same level of importance as finished formal papers. We
hasten to add that informal writing activities, such as in-class writing, short reaction
papers, or even the creation of poster summaries of research, also constitute valuable,
if circumscribed, writing experiences. The importance of helping students learn to offer
written comments quickly and efficiently should not be underestimated, especially because
most of the budding writers in our classes will not become psychologists. Nonetheless, we
have an obligation to refine their writing abilities within our sphere of disciplinary
influence.
Following Rickabaugh (1993), we believe that students benefit from maintaining an
ongoing portfolio of the writing they do in and for psychology classes. Such a portfolio
contains the incidental as well as major writing assignments they do for work in the major.
Routine examination of the portfolio’s contents can demonstrate developmental progress
and allow students to examine outcomes from the past to avoid repeating writing errors
(e.g., passive voice, formatting problems, ill-conceived research claims). Faculty, too, can
consult these writing portfolios as a periodic check of formative assessment or a summative
evaluation measure of a department’s focus on teaching writing as a form of critical
thinking.
Writing in APA Style as a Mode of Critical Thinking
Writing APA-Style Papers
Madigan, Johnson, and Linton (1995) conceptualized APA style as epistemology, a point
with which we largely agree. As such, learning APA style goes far beyond a set of rules for
writing and actually helps students learn how psychologists think; ideally, students begin
thinking in the same manner themselves, a process that Madigan et al. referred to as
“paradigmatic thinking” (p. 249). In this manner, students gain some ability to think
critically through the writing process because they learn to think in the paradigm that
psychologists use.
Writing each section of an APA-style report forces students to learn to apply different
types of critical thinking skills. For example, the Abstract requires students to discern the
most important elements of their study and report only those—all within a 120-word
limit. The introduction requires several critical thinking skills. Students must perform a
critical literature search; although it may be simple to find many studies related to their
topic, they must sift among those many to find the truly important ones. Next, they must
arrange these studies in a logical progression—although chronological order may seem
logical, it may not be the best way to tell the “story” leading to their study. Finally, they
must learn to piece the story together so that the reader can see that their experiment is the
next logical step in the progression of research. The Method section forces students to
think critically about how to actually test the hypothesis that they have developed, as
well as how to report what they have done so that the picture is complete for the reader.