Critical Thinking

With critical thinking, you take an argument and evaluate its quality and merit. It requires you to support your evaluation with specific, well-informed reasoning. It is important to understand you are not necessarily criticizing. Your evaluation can be positive or negative based on the specific, well-informed reasons you uncovered while thinking critically.

It is the job of a critical thinker to:

1. Uncover bias (an understanding, opinion, stance, and/or feeling about a topic that is founded in emotion or experience, and not in fact or
reasoning)

2. Uncover prejudice (an unreasonable or preconceived negative feeling or opinion about a topic that lacks knowledge, logic, or reason)

3. Look for thinking that is inaccurate, sloppy, half-formed, and misleading and challenge it

4. Question what they see, hear, and read

5. Sort out conflicting claims

6. Weigh the evidence for and against an argument

7. Let go of personal bias to arrive at a conclusion. We all have bias. It is very important in critical thinking to not let the notions, understandings, and opinions we already have influence our conclusions

8. To differentiate opinion from fact

9. Be open to changing their view or opinion when considering new information

Inferential Reasoning

• This is what’s happening in our brains when we form arguments and/or conclusions
• We begin with a premise (a statement or observation) and use it to infer (arrive at by reasoning) a conclusion
• The process of inferring is done through logical reasoning and/or citing observable evidence

Logical Reasoning

• Logical reasoning is used to arrive at a conclusion by demonstrating the conclusion is logically connected to the premise
  
  Example:
  Statement A: The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of members of the House of Commons… (premise)
  
  It logically follows that…
  Statement B: Women are citizens of Canada and therefore have the right to vote (conclusion)
  
  Logic is used to make assertions (or arguments) that are clear, coherent, and consistent
  
  
• Sometimes though, you can find errors in logic
• Arguments might contradict one another or lack evidence
• See Common Mistakes in Higher Level Thinking for a list of logical errors Empirical (Observable) Evidence
• These are the sources listed in the footnotes, endnotes, bibliography, etc.
  
  Example:
  Statement A: There exists statistical evidence that people who smoke experience cancer and heart disease at a much higher rate than peoplewho do not smoke (premise)
  
  It logically follows that…
  Statement B: Based on this statistical evidence, smoking is a major health risk (conclusion)
  
  How the evidence is used is important
  o Is the evidence presented accurately or in a misleading way?
  o Is enough evidence provided to support the main argument?
  o Is the evidence consistent with the other evidence provided?
  o Is it relevant?
  o Is the creator of the evidence an expert in their field?
  
  How you answer the above questions will affect the quality and merit of
  the piece you are thinking critically on

Questions to Ask:

• What is the main point? (Thesis)
• How does the author support their argument?
• What examples do they provide?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of their argument?
• How well do they argue their thesis?
• What kinds of evidence do they use?
• If __________ is true, does it follow that __________ is also true?
• Is this emotion or fact?

Cuseo, Joseph B, Aaron Thompson, Michele Campagna, Viki Sox Fecas. Thriving in College and Beyond: Research-Based Strategies for Academic Success and personal Development. Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, 2016.

Ellis, Dave. Becoming a Master Student. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.