Building an argument

Critical or analytical thinking "is that mode of thinking - about any subject, content, or problem - in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them" (Paul & Elder, 2008, as cited by The Foundation for Critical Thinking, n.d., para. 10). For more information on definitions of critical thinking, please see Defining Critical Thinking.

You're going to hear a lot about critical thinking during your time as an RRU student. After all, the demonstration of critical thinking is an essential aspect of university-level writing, and that's an exciting opportunity to connect your thinking with your reader(s).

In the Writing Centre, we recognize and welcome that there are many ways to approach critical thinking. The information in this guide is mostly focused on exploring and explaining conventional argument structures in North American academic writing, which are grounded in Western ideas about critical thinking; however, these ideas can be exclusionary and colonial, and we are working toward decolonizing our ways of thinking, knowing, and sharing information. If you're interested in learning more about critical thinking in other ways of knowing and being, please see Chirgwin and Huijser (2015), "Cultural Variance, Critical Thinking and Indigenous Knowledges: Exploring a Both-Ways Approach." 

References

Chirgwin, S. K., & Huijser, H. (2015). Cultural variance, critical thinking and Indigenous Knowledges: Exploring a both-ways approach. In M. Davies & R. Barnett (Eds.), The Palgrave book of critical thinking in higher education (pp. 335-350). Palgrave Macmillan. http://doi.org/10.1057/9781137378057.0027

The Foundation for Critical Thinking. (n.d.). Defining critical thinking. https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766

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When you start building an argument, you need to decide whether you're going to use deductive or inductive reasoning to prove your point.

Deductive reasoning

Deductive reasoning works from the more general to the more specific. Sometimes this is informally called a "top-down" approach. We might begin with thinking up a theory about our topic of interest. We then narrow that down into more specific hypotheses that we can test. We narrow down even further when we collect observations to address the hypotheses. This ultimately leads us to be able to test the hypotheses with specific data -- a confirmation (or not) of our original theories. (Trochim, 2020, para. 2)

Inductive reasoning

Inductive reasoning works the other way, moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. Informally, we sometimes call this a "bottom up" approach (please note that it's "bottom up" and not "bottoms up" which is the kind of thing the bartender says to customers when he's trying to close for the night!). In inductive reasoning, we begin with specific observations and measures, begin to detect patterns and regularities, formulate some tentative hypotheses that we can explore, and finally end up developing some general conclusions or theories. (Trochim, 2020, para. 3)

What's the difference?
When deciding whether to use inductive or deductive reasoning, keep in mind that "inductive reasoning...is more open-ended and exploratory, especially at the beginning. Deductive reasoning is more narrow in nature and is concerned with testing or confirming hypotheses" (Trochim, 2020, para. 4),

Reference