Despite the fact that academic texts should be read critically, it is important that you do so in a balanced and careful way. What made the above examples a success was that critical thought was developed in conjunction with evidence. This is where reading comes in. After all, if you were to approach the reading for an essay in business management like Descartes approached his work you’d spend far too much time musing over the very nature of existence itself, as opposed to understanding how best to structure a business! Therefore, the secret to good critical thinking is to learn how to balance criticism with context and evidence developed through your academic reading. To return to the definition offered by Bailin et al. (1999, p.287) good critical thinking needs to meet the ‘standards of adequacy and accuracy’: it has to be done with reference to evidence from your reading.

It is evidence that separates criticality from conspiracy. For example, we can think about the reasons for and against vaccine passports. An example of critical thinking may be the following:

“Vaccine passports are wrong as they deny people the ability to make their own choices about their health. This reduces people’s freedom and bodily autonomy by preventing them from travelling on planes and attending events.”

Whilst this is not a mainstream view, and one you don’t need to agree with, it does meet the definition offered by Bailin et al. It exhibits someone’s opinion, but it also justifies that opinion by reference to acceptable evidence – that is vaccine passports do stop people without them from enjoying certain freedoms.

In contrast, the following can be said to not meet the standards of good critical thinking:

“Vaccine passports are wrong. The government are just trying to put microchips into us! I saw it on TikTok.”

The author, like in the previous example, does have a clear opinion, but that clear opinion is not born out by good evidence. It is this latter element that is needed for good critical reading. If we don’t have good academic reading skills, then we won’t have the evidence we need to make good critical arguments. The difference between critical thinking and conspiracy is, therefore, formed by evidence and our reading. Once again, academic reading is your friend.

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