CRITICAL THINKING, Study notes of Reasoning

Download CRITICAL THINKING and more Study notes Reasoning in PDF only on Docsity! 1 2012/13 CRITICAL THINKING IMPROVING ANALYSIS, ARGUMENT AND STRUCTURE IN YOUR ASSIGNMENTS What is critical thinking? This guide to critical thinking stresses the importance of asking and answering questions. In everyday life the term ‘critical’ is often seen as negative or destructive. Being critical in academic life, however, does not mean questioning things randomly, or for the sake of ‘nit-picking’. Instead, academic work aims to get as near as possible to the truth. Critical thinking in any subject or discipline is the way in which this is done, along with the more specialised applications of theory, the methods and techniques, which have been developed for the subject. Critical thinking then, is the attempt to ask and answer questions systematically. This means asking the most useful questions in the most productive sequence in order to yield a coherent and credible ‘story’ So thinking critically means asking questions. Instead of accepting ‘at face value’ what you read or hear, critical thinkers look for evidence and for good reasons before believing something to be true. This is at the heart of what it means to be a scientist, researcher, scholar or professional in any field. Whatever you are studying, critical thinking is the key to learning and to making progress. The common question words: what, who, where, when, how, and why will help you to get started; along with the phrases: what if, what next, and so what. Attempting to answer these questions systematically helps fulfil three vital functions for any serious study – description, analysis and evaluation. These are the things you need to do: Describe ... e.g. to define clearly what you are talking about, say exactly what is involved, where it takes place, or under what circumstances. Fulfilling this function helps you to introduce a topic. More complex description will become analysis. Analyse ... e.g. examine and explain how parts fit into a whole; give reasons; compare and contrast different elements; show your understanding of relationships. In this way analysis forms the main part of any in-depth study. Evaluate e.g. judge the success or failure of something, its implications and/ or value. Evaluations lead us to conclusions or recommendations and are usually found at the end of a piece of academic work, a paper, chapter or other text. Structure: organising your thoughts and material To summarise what we have said so far: the diagram below shows how asking and answering questions helps to fulfil the three key connected functions of description, analysis and evaluation. This is a reliable basis for introducing, discussing and drawing conclusions about your topic. Beginning with ‘what’, this systematic questioning will encourage you to consider every aspect of your topic or question. 2 2012/13 Figure 1: Starting to think critically You should aim to address most, but not necessarily all, of these questions for your topic and subtopics. The crucial questions for almost any topic are: ‘what’, which identifies the issue; ‘why’, which explores it in depth, addressing causes and using theory; ‘how’, which helps you look at the processes at work; and ‘so what’, which helps you make judgements or conclusions, showing that you have reflected on implications. The model can be used in a number of ways at different stages of tackling an assignment. Use it before and during your reading; for planning the structure of a whole assignment; and also to structure each point within it. Generating critical thinking – follow these steps: 1. Identify a topic. This can be your essay title, a subtopic, or a point you might want to explore in a particular section or paragraph. Write key words in the middle of a sheet of paper, or a blank document screen. This is the ‘Topic or Issue’ in the diagram above. Or you could do it in a linear way and put these keywords in the place of a title, with the questions that follow spaced out in the margin, or as subheadings. 2. Try to answer the questions on the diagram starting with ‘what’ questions. Your answers may become part of an introduction, defining your terms or identifying issues. 3. Using the ‘who’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ questions, generate descriptive background information. This will provide context or scene-setting material which is also useful for an introductory section. 4. ‘How’ requires consideration of the ways that something operates or works – e.g. processes or procedures. Attempting to answer questions using ‘how’ takes you from descriptive to more analytical work. 5. ‘Why’ also moves you deeper into analytical territory. It gets you to find reasons, explanations or causes. Think about all the possible questions to do with ‘why’ (see the model below for some suggestions). Answers to such questions are likely to emerge over time from your reading and use of specific theories and findings reported in academic journals; published books and research reports; or from other authoritative sources such as policy documents. 5 2012/13 In building her argument, the student might use her own reasoning prompted by the model, in combination with material she has read. She might find the following extract useful: “Romano-British Pottery: AD43 410. Most (but not all) pottery was wheelmade and very standardised. Locally made coarseware jars and bowls were used for cooking, food preparation and storage. Finewares, mainly used for dining, included bowls, dishes, cups and beakers. During the late Roman period numerous British industries produced finewares. Decoration was varied and included burnished zones, wavy lines or lattice patterns. Reference: Harris, J. (2008) Pottery Identification Sheet ONLINE: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3888712/Pottery-identification-sheet accessed 30.05.2010 Using her notes from a variety of sources, she might then produce a text like this: 6 2012/13 Try going through the example above and deciding what the function of each sentence is. Ask yourself: is it description, analysis or evaluation – or is it a combination of one or more function? If you go through, sentence by sentence, you will probably find it easy to see that most of the description happens in the first paragraph; the analysis in the second; and the evaluation in the third. There will always be instances where it is hard to say whether part of a text fulfils one or another function – and often two or more functions are being undertaken together. This is because using language and writing is not an exact or purely mathematical activity. People use words in different combinations and attempt to do things in various ways and for various reasons. In order to be considered sufficiently ‘critical’, (academic) university level writing must go beyond being merely descriptive. Use the following table to compare the functions of writing in terms of being descriptive on the one hand, or analytical and evaluative on the other. (Adapted from Cottrell, 2005) The way academic writing follows this pattern, from description, to analysis, to evaluation’, tells us something important about academic work – whether it is in the sciences, arts or humanities. All subjects, when studied at advanced levels, require these three things (description, analysis and evaluation) to be done, and in largely that order, to tell a coherent story which is supported by critical reasoning and evidence. Academic work is intended to be ‘scholarly’. This means it should be of a high standard and appropriate to the particular level of study it represents. It is usually assessed by a lecturer – who will be a critical reader. So far we have used the critical questions model to think about generating material; but it can equally be used to ask 7 2012/13 questions about, and assess other people’s writing. You could try asking questions about a text to see how scholarly or scientific it is. What does it claim to be true? Can you believe its claims? Does it provide you with good reasons, evidence, or both to support its claims? And how ‘good’ are the reasons, or is it ‘good’ evidence? An important way to demonstrate the quality of your arguments, or evidence in your academic writing is by referring to work by others. The status of this work depends on how authoritative it is. If you are a critical reader, you look for ‘authority’ in the form of references to relevant supporting work which has been published in academic journals, or text books. In these kinds of publications the content has been ‘peer-reviewed’. This means that it should have been independently evaluated by another qualified academic who will have read it critically to ensure that the material it contains is factually accurate and that the reasoning behind it is sound. This is unlike the material which may often be found in newspapers, magazines or from many online sources, where the content may not have been checked by anyone else, or where the work simply puts forward one person’s opinion. If you would like to find out more about critical thinking, the books listed as references below are a good place to start. References Cottrell, S. (2005) Critical thinking skills. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Cottrell, S. (2008) The study skills handbook. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Van den Brink-Budgen, R. (2000) Critical Thinking for Students. Oxford: How To Books