You can see that if you are going to use evidence in the professional practice and corporate writing you need to seek out the best available information for your studies and practice. You also need to focus on the general aspect of the topic you are interested in so that you do not get sidetracked with more common information and therefore fail to identify what you really need to know. You also need to be selective about what you read, see and hear and be able to recognize good quality evidence when you come across it.

Some research from one source may contradict with those of another. There is such a vast amount of information out there that, without these skills, it is hard to know what to include in your academic assignments or how to incorporate new information into to the practice. It is easy to feel overwhelmed and you may discover that you make decisions in the particular professional practice or write such assignments based on inappropriate evidence.

It is important to make sense of what you read, see and hear so that you can work out what information is good quality and should guide your practice, and should not. There is a large amount and many types of information available, and this is of variable quality. You need to be able to make sense of the information that you use in practice and in your corporate writing.

Furthermore, your ability to be critical will be assessed and this is a substantial component in almost all marking criteria for those studying for a professional eligibility in health and social care. In fact, being critical is probably the key element of all higher education courses. It is important to note that this is crucial in relation to both your academic studies and your professional practice.

Sometimes you can access academic journal articles on the internet from a simple search using a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. Discussion between professionals about information or research that has been critically appraised is likely to be helpful. However, it is not always the case that information will be critically appraised by practitioners.

There is a need to be critical of what you read, see and hear, and you therefore need to question what you are told in practice rather than accepting what your mentor tells or shows you. If you stop to think about this, the implications are enormous. If information or advice is not critically appraised or is based on unfounded rumor, and is then passed unchallenged from one professional to another, we will not be demonstrating evidence-based practice.

However, newspapers may provide useful background information. They might lead you to a controversial quotation to start your assignment or to get people thinking in a discussion. Potential clients might refer you to a research study, giving a snippet of information but not the full reference for the study, making it harder but possible to track it down.

Link to relevant research, theory and policy, demonstrating your skills of decisive analysis and appraisal as you do so. Be prepared to invite questions from the audience, using them as an opportunity to demonstrate your skills of critical appraisal further. Link corporate writing to relevant theory and research, and link the questions back to your focus.