This guide to critical reading and self-critical writing is a 'must-have' resource for postgraduate students and early-career academics. Packed with tools for analysing texts and structuring critical reviews, and incorporating exercises and worked examples drawn from the social sciences, the book offers step-by-step advice on how to:

• read any text critically and analyse it in the depth appropriate to one's project

• develop a self-critical approach to one's own academic writing

• ask questions in order to evaluate authors' arguments

• keep a review manageable by using focused review questions

• structure a comparative review of multiple texts

• build up a convincing argument

• integrate critical literature reviews into a dissertation or thesis

• make the transition from postgraduate to professional academic writer

Essential reading for novice researchers, the book will also be invaluable for supervisors, methods course tutors, and academic mentors who teach and support the development of critical reading and self-critical writing skills.