Ben Franklin is noted as a critical thinker who, at the same time, was able to effectively express highly intellectual concepts to a popular audience, particularly through Poor Richard's Almanack. C-Span's American Writers series notes that Franklin trained himself to do this by "imitating the writing in Joseph Addison and Richard Steele's famous periodical The Spectator."
Critical thinking should result in writing that goes beyond stylistic appeal to convey a credible and significant message. Or, as the Canberra University Academic Skills website puts it, "really excellent writing is distinguished because it says something substantial."
In keeping with the computer age, the Penn State Symposium For Teaching and Learning With Technology encourages "student philosophers" to hone their writing skills in conjunction with critical thinking skills through a personal Internet blog.
The Campus Writing Program of Indiana University strongly stresses the importance of looking to examples of critical thinking articulated through writing proficiency. Their writing library boasts of a number of works, from a variety of fields, that focus on the relationship between critical thinking and writing skills.
In the tradition of Ben Franklin, many schools like the University of California Irvine School of Humanities are emphasizing the importance of critical thinking and writing skills in their journalism programs as a means of expressing academic concepts to a popular readership.