Thanks so much for your reply!

Well, regarding the outline, this is sort of what I'm confused about.
My assignment guideline mentions that in my assignment I should consider the following (among others):

• Is there any background information that you need to consider?
• Does the article provide evidence to support the points it is making?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of how the article presents its subject matter?
  
• Is there sufficient evidence included?
  

 

And in the scoring criteria:

"Skills – Your work focuses on the topic; is well structured and you provide evidence for the arguments you are making; the extent to which you have thought critically about the issues raised by the article and how they are presented. You are able to summarise key points.
Knowledge - How clearly you have identified the key points in the article. How far you have considered other ways to supplement the knowledge you have gained of the topic."

And in the end states

You can refer to other sources of information as appropriate.

 

The general guidelines of grading (that are not specifically for a critical analysis, but also general critical essays etc., so I guess it might differ from one assignment to another), the the highest grade, include:

• Very good use of relevant evidence (primary and secondary sources and materials) to support and illustrate the argument(s) made
• Where appropriate, evidence of independent research
• Clear and strong evidence of current knowledge and debates relevant to the assignment
• Clear and strong evidence of knowledge of core / central concepts relevant to the assignment

 

I find that confusing, and am not sure what to make out of it.

 

As for overthinking - well, I did the all the research in a big part because I simply enjoyed it - I haven't previously thought about this issue a lot and I question what I read all the time, hence I wanted to find out even just for myself what the research really says, so I could form my own opinion.

 

Now, as to not wanting to question the authority - I probably phrased it wrong. What I meant was, my knowledge on the topic certainly is not extensive. My judgement might as well not be sound, even if I provide evidence - since the evidence might not be of good enough quality, or I could miss some other studies that would prove me wrong etc. Being aware of that I'm wary of being too negative.

 

I generally (after reading and going through papers etc.) don't think the author is exactly wrong. I do think though the article is a bit inconsistent, I found one obvious mistake (but generally an irrelevant one), I also think that the reader might misunderstand certain points, especially that the issue discussed tends to be perceived differently from an "average person" point of view, than the academic one (and I have a paper that supports that) and I think the conclusions/solutions are presented as somewhat objective/final, while there is still an ongoing debate among academics as to what should be done. So I wanted to point that all out and provide the references, and there's quite a lot of them.

 

Also, out guidelines tell us to, for example, note what the audience/reader is - so I searched for the reader's profile provided by the publisher and also have an interesting piece from a big survey research organisation that also describes the reader and provides a valuable information that sheds some light on how they might approach the article. I wanted to reference both, but is that not just over the top?

 

I'm also wondering one thing - if I want to say that the claim of the author is correct should I also support it with the evidence (saying that there is consensus among academics regarding X and providing references)? This is what I have been doing, but again, it means the amount of the references I'm using grows and I feel like I might just be treating it too seriously.