What markers actually mean when they write "more critical analysis"

Needs more critical analysis is written on more scripts than any other comment, and it is almost never explained. Students read it, agree that it sounds important, and have no idea what to change. The frustrating part is that the fix is usually mechanical rather than mysterious.

Description versus analysis

Description says what something is. Analysis says what it means, why it matters, and what follows. If a paragraph could be written by someone who had read the same sources but reached no view of their own, it is description, however accurate and well referenced it is.

• Description: Porter identifies five forces shaping industry competition
• Analysis: buyer power is the binding constraint here, because the three largest customers account for most of the revenue
• Description: two studies found a positive relationship, one found none
• Analysis: the null result used a smaller sample and a different measure, which is the likelier explanation for the divergence

Four moves that produce it

Critical analysis is not a tone. It is a set of specific things you do with evidence, and each of them can be added deliberately to a draft that currently lacks them.

• Weigh sources against each other rather than presenting them in sequence
• Ask why two credible sources disagree, and say what the disagreement turns on
• State the limits of the evidence you are relying on
• Say what follows: the implication, the consequence, or the decision it supports

If nobody could disagree with your paragraph, it is not analysis. It is a summary that took a long time.

A diagnostic you can run on a draft

Go through your draft and highlight every sentence that makes a judgement rather than reporting a fact. If a page has none, that page is descriptive. The fix is rarely to write more, it is to add the interpretive sentence after evidence you have already presented.