THE TEACHING OF CRITICAL REVIEW IN THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COURSE AT UFRN

Abstract

Academic production requires students to develop critical and argumentative competencies, and genres play a central role in this process. Among them, the critical review stands out for fostering analysis and the articulation of a stance toward scientific knowledge. For this reason, investigating the teaching of this genre within Science and Technology education becomes essential. From this perspective, this article aims to discuss the uses of the discourse genre critical review as an instrument for mediating scientific knowledge, guiding the construction, circulation, and legitimization of ideas produced throughout the Science and Technology undergraduate program. The article is grounded in content analysis of a qualitative and interpretive nature, as well as in approaches to conducting research in Applied Linguistics (Moita Lopes, 2006). It draws on the Bakhtinian conception of language (Volóchinov, 2021; Bakhtin, 2003, 2016) and on genre theory from the North American school known as the New Rhetoric (Bazerman, 2005, 2011; Miller, 2012). The data consist of samples of critical reviews produced by students in Science and Technology and Engineering programs, based on the genres studied with two undergraduate cohorts in the course Reading and Writing Practices I, during the second semester of 2025 at UFRN. The results indicate the need to expand research on academic writing in the Science and Technology undergraduate program. We also understand that there is a certain urgency to broaden investigations capable of supporting, mapping, and providing reliability to the emergence of genres that arise within the university context.

Keywords: Genres; Critical review; Science and Technology; UFRN.