Pedants - plaese give me ammunition! Use of "critique" as a verb? I think it sounds ugly and clunky - but is it actually wrong?

[SixSpotBurnet]

Just been sent some training materials to comment on - generally they are pretty good but one section is headed "Critique others' research" which I think is just plain ugly! I would much prefer "Analyse others' research" or even just "Comment on other's research".

Back me up, pedants!

I agree it sounds horrid but this website seems to think it okay
click here

I'm afraid my quite elderly Oxford Concise Dictionary has it as a verb - 'to discuss critically'. But I don't like it - would prefer 'analyse' I think.

Darn it, sounds like I'm stuck with it then!

if i might add (as someone who gets asked to critique and often asks others to) that the meaning is quite different to commenting, and perhaps that is why this word has been chosen to show that you would need to go beyond commenting or analysing. When critique is used it demands that the person actually go beyond merely outlining the research ... (I guess thats obvious but thought i'd put it in the mix!)

I agree kruger but doesn't "outline a detailed critique" sounds better?

"appraise" others' research?

(Where I work, it would say something less brief, like "show capacity for critical thinking (eg others' research, reviewing of drafts, etc.)")

Funnily, enough, critical thinking vis a vis others' work is exactly one of the things I emphasise with my trainees: it is not enough to come back and say "SixSpotBurnet says it comes into force on 1 October 2008" - they have to show me that they have decided, for themselves, whether they agree with SSB.

Preferably, the trainee first of all works out whether it comes into force on 1 October 2008 and then checks whether SSB agrees...

Oh indeed, I forgot that bit! - yes, the trainee does not turn up in SSB's office saying "um, X asked me to ask you about, er, directors' conflicts ..." Random PS: apparently I am one of the few supervisors who actually asks the PSLs their view of a particular trainee. I think it's a vastly important part of the picture - is that in your training materials?

It's not...but it will be soon... .

At my old shop trainees would generally start their explanations/supplications long before they actually reached the door of our room: "DearPSLspleasemayIcomeandaskyouauquestionIhavelookedonLibrahonestIhaveandonPLCandIthinkIknowwhatthe answerishonestbutitisreallyurgentand[Partner]toldmetocomeandspeaktoyouIhopeyoudon'tmindgibbergibber" .

I am a little bit more accommodating here...

Hate critique with a passion.

Don't know why. Just ugly. So ugly it must be wrong.

can't give any evidence to back it up though. Sorry.