The Essay: Importance Of Critical Thinking In Academic Writing And Evaluation.

How is it important to  be a critical thinker?

Critical thinking and critical academic writing follows an identifiable pattern and moves from description to analysis to evaluation, usually in that order. As shown in this diagram:

The following is based on work from Learning Development (2010):

Description

• Description is always necessary in academic writing
• Description allows the issue or problem under consideration to be contextualised, specific terms to be defined and important points to be developed
• More complex description moves on to become analysis
• By using systematic questions such as – what/ when/where/who/ why - allow the issues/topics/problems to be considered from every aspect
• Where things are examined and explanations given of how parts fit into the whole; where reasons are given, comparisons and contrasts are made and relationships understood
• You can look at alternative responses here as well
• The questions that help you to critically analyse issues/topics/problems here are – how? and what if?
• Where you make a judgement about something either in terms of its success or failure, or value, or the wider implications
• The questions that need to asked and answered here are – so what? and what if?
• Evaluation leads naturally into conclusions or recommendations and is therefore usually found at the end of academic writing.

Critical thinking whilst writing an assignment

Below are some suggested ways to approach reading around and writing a critical essay / assignment. Not all of the critical thinking and writing questions suggested below will be applicable to all assignment titles; you will need to decide what questions are appropriate to use in order to answer your specific assignment title. Similarly, you may wish to extend or develop some of the critical questions further for the purpose of your assignment title.

Starting the assignment

Starting assignments in good time allows you sufficient time to research the information you need and gives you time to critically read that information. Having done this you can then start thinking critically about the assignment and planning it. Here are some questions to consider when starting:

• Examine the title of the assignment carefully
• What is it asking you to do?
• If it is a statement or question that asks you to critically discuss/evaluate that statement or question do you agree with it? Why?
• Do you disagree with it? Why?

The point of contribution of the process of evaluation is making a detailed judgement about the value of something, which in simple terms known as assessment (Brown et al., 2015). The evaluation process helps in the determination of the quality or effectiveness of the thing (in this case the article).The following essay and its overall assessment will evaluate a journal article on “Customer perception towards the effectiveness of floor advertisement in the organised retail” (in Oman).  It will significantly highlight on the title of the article, its importance, and comprehensiveness of the abstract, the key objective of the research, the theories used, the methodology of research and the results that are drawn from the research. The study will evaluate the above mentioned characteristics of the article.

The title of the article is “Customer perception towards effectiveness of floor advertisements in organized retail”. The title makes it very clear and easy to analyse what the wants to signify or highlight. The title is very straight forward and after reading the article it seems that the title given to it entirely suits the body of the article. After reading the title one can understand that it wants to state the perception of the customers after they come in that with the floor advertisement in the retail sector. It also mentions that whether it is effective to make floor advertisements or not. however one thing that the title misses if that the case study is done on Oman, which one cannot understand after reading title as the title is broad and generalized(Ijbmi.org, 2018).

The Abstract is brief and comprehensive enough to make the reader understand what the results contains and concludes. It has significant details about the title of the research that includes the perception of the consumers in Oman regarding the floor advertisement in the retail sector of the country. The Abstract states that the research uses primary data analysis by interviewing hundred candidates for gaining information about the effectiveness of floor advertisement and how they help change the perception of the consumers to buy certain products. It also states the key outcomes which are derived by examining the results collected from data analysis. It states that the relationship that analyse with the help of structured model that is proposed in the research is about 95% confident. The abstract also states the limitations of the research. Thus, all the details provided in the abstract makes it comprehensive enough to makes the gain an outlook of the research. Therefore the abstract as a whole will be quite essential to clarify to the readers and help them understand the outcomes of the article that will be evaluated in the following section. The main contribution of the article lies in determining what the customer thinks and how they are reacting towards different advertisement measures adopted by different companies.

Introduction of the article is very brief and clear. It significantly highlights the importance of advertisement for selling the goods and services in the retail sector. The introduction also states why advertisements are so much important in the competitive market. It highlights that in the present times, one brand can easily replace another, does advertisements are important to change the perception of the customers regarding the respective brands and increase sales (SastryT and Rao, 2017). These details makes the introduction of the article quite interesting. The introduction also provides details about what is going to be done in the study which encourages the readers to read further.

Starting the assignment

The research however does not contain an articulated and a well-developed theoretical framework. It has a more of a detailed and general approach and does not apply any specific theory. However, if the research is red in details it can be related to various theories of consumer behaviour and perception for purchasing goods and services. It significantly inform the reader that the sales outlets makes use of several promotional tools such as TV Advertisements, posters, social media, floor advertisement  and few others to make promotion of their products and services and make the customers aware (Moriartyet al., 2014). The research draws information from several relevant and existing journal articles, which contains details about the consumers their perception behaviour and need for advertisements (Lee and Hong, 2016). The main objectives as mentioned in the research article are to find out the importance of floor advertisements in the region factors of Oman and to significantly identify the key factors, which help in influencing the effectiveness of fluids in the retail sector of Oman. These objects are very clear and related to the contact of the research article. The objectives and the hypothesis of tea research are quite distinct and support the logic of the research (Singh, 2016). As there is no theory clearly mentioned in the research article, so it is difficult to understand whether the hypothesis logically follows from one single theory? However, existent literature is significantly reflected in the research articles and large amount of details are provided, which helpsthe reader to gain a lot of information about the related field.

The research makes use of quantitative data to find out and analyse the results of the survey. In the research a set of relevant questionnaire has been set up and hundred respondents have been surveyed or chosen to answer the questions. The respondents consists of women, men, students and housewives as the customers who frequently visit the Hypermarket to buy goods and services. The Chosen sample of hundred people is a good amount to find out about the perception of the respondents as customers (Walliman, 2017). This will essentially help the researcher and the readers to figure out what are the needs of the customers and what effectively encourages them to buy the goods and services and to analyse whether they notice the floor ads and get encouraged by it to buy the advertised products. Primary research analysis is a good method to find out the details from live examples. However, it is very time consuming. If the researcher used secondary data analysis technique then he or she could easily collect data which were already stated in some relevant journals all articles and it would have made the process less time consuming (Silverman, 2016). The study has validity as it helps the retailers to gain knowledge about the perception of the consumers related to floor ads which will help them to understand whether their customers are encourage through floor advertisement. The analytical techniques are quite appropriate for the Research question however no such theory is applied.Thus, the study has both internal and external validity as it gathers results or information from live customers, who possibly have the best idea possible about the market as they are the real customers, which comprise of an essential part of the market. Thus, the results that will be accumulated will be valid enough.

Introduction of the article

Data is collected by surveying hundred candidates, who are customers in Oman. Results are formulated by analysing the data that is collected from the candidates. The research makes use of descriptive statistics and Cronbach Alpha model, which helps to measure the access of internal consistency of scales that are utilised in the questionnaire (Heoet al., 2015). The results for the PLS mode are represented in the form of a table, which makes it easy for the reader to gain knowledge about the perception of the consumers. Thus, the results flow directly from the data analysis. The tabulated form of Representation of the data make it clear and easy to understand. The findings of the research are derived from the answers given by the respondents and are not supported by any other existing studies. The results are obtained from live feedback from the customers, thus it may not be same if any other form of data analysis method is used. In this case, however, there is no alternative explanation for the result that are formulated. It helps to analyse that floor advertisements are effective and encourages the customers to buy products (Grewal et al., 2017).

The article significantly helps in the understanding of the concept that floor advertisement draw the attention of the customers and are effective to attract them for buying the advertised products and services. it take that there are three main factors that contribute to the effectiveness of the floor advertisements, which include, persuasiveness of the floor ads, attractiveness of the floor ads and  attitude towards the advertisement (Byun and Jang, 2015). These factors significantly help in floor at recall. the article is quite similar to the other articles that are consulted, which state that fluid advertisements significantly contribute to the intention of purchase of the customers and can be applied in reality in the Omani retail market. The article is clear about the aspects which it has majorly focused. In this regard, the points such as effectiveness of appealing the customers can be taken into consideration. This is a well-justified data, which is making the article more clear towards the contribution of it. The stats given in this part are highly valuable and can be considered as the best option for practical implication. Thus, the retailers in the Omani market can make use of floor advertisements (Shrivastavaet al., 2014).

The findings of the research are very detailed and helps in easy understanding about the consumer perception of effectiveness of floor advertisement.  This makes the findings very convincing to the reader of the article. The data is collected from real life feedback or live feedback from the customers itself so they are very relevant and useful. The gap in literature is that it has a generalized coverage. There is no mention of the different types of products and how they attract the customers in the competitive market. There is various inconsistencies in the behaviour and perception of the consumers which are not discussed in detail in the research. The research needs to be more specific by focusing on various categories of products and some more data needs to be collected from existing works.Suggestions can be taken from the customers about the formulation of the floor advertisements so that they become more attractive.

References

Brown, S., Getz, D., Pettersson, R. and Wallstam, M., 2015. Event evaluation: definitions, concepts and a state of the art review. International Journal of Event and Festival Management, 6(2), pp.135-157.

Byun, J. and Jang, S.S., 2015. Effective destination advertising: Matching effect between advertising language and destination type. Tourism management, 50, pp.31-40.

Grewal, D., Roggeveen, A.L., Sisodia, R. and Nordfält, J., 2017. Enhancing customer engagement through consciousness. Journal of Retailing, 93(1), pp.55-64.

Heo, M., Kim, N. and Faith, M.S., 2015. Statistical power as a function of Cronbach alpha of instrument questionnaire items. BMC medical research methodology, 15(1), p.86.

Ijbmi.org (2018). [online] Ijbmi.org. Available at: https://www.ijbmi.org/papers/Vol(3)1/Version-3/B0313011019.pdf [Accessed 3 Oct. 2018].

Lee, J. and Hong, I.B., 2016. Predicting positive user responses to social media advertising: The roles of emotional appeal, informativeness, and creativity. International Journal of Information Management, 36(3), pp.360-373.

Moriarty, S., Mitchell, N.D., Wells, W.D., Crawford, R., Brennan, L. and Spence-Stone, R., 2014. Advertising: Principles and practice. Pearson Australia.

SastryT, D. and Rao, B.M., 2017. Consumer perception about the influence of online retail service quality on e-satisfaction, moderated by purchase volume and perceived value. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research, 12(1).

Shrivastava, M., Saini, N. and Pinto, A., 2014. Customer perception towards effectiveness of floor advertisements in organized retail. International Journal of Business and Management Invention, 3(1), pp.11-19.

Silverman, D. ed., 2016. Qualitative research. Sage.

Singh, S., 2016. Role of social media marketing strategies on customer perception. ANVESHAK, p.27.

Walliman, N., 2017. Research methods: The basics. Routledge.