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Thinking Critically
What’s the point of that flat, square hat people wear at graduations? Is the square meant to work like a helicopter rotor when everyone throws it?
Actually, the cap is called a mortarboard because the square looks like the board a bricklayer uses to spread mortar. The hat comes from academic tradition at Oxford and Cambridge in England. These universities started almost 1,000 years ago to train priests, and the mortarboard evolved from a priest cap. Some say that the flat part is supposed to represent a book.
You probably have never thought critically about a mortarboard before. Now you’ve read a definition, etymology, history, and analysis. That’s critical thinking. It helps you learn!
(Whatever else you take away from that discussion, mortarboards do fly really well when flung overhead!)
What’s Ahead
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Becoming a Critical Thinker
Becoming a critical thinker is not as difficult as it may seem. Thinking critically simply means being able to think clearly and logically about all the information you encounter. It means being able to judge and evaluate what you read, see, or hear.
A Critical State of Mind
When you have a problem to solve or an important question to answer, you’ll be at your best if you work in the following ways.
Be patient. ■ Never rush your thinking. Make sure you’ve taken the time to think everything through so you don’t make a bad decision or jump to a hasty conclusion.
Be thorough. ■ Ask key questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? What if?
Be flexible. ■ Consider all the possibilities and be open to new ideas. Remember, some issues have more than one answer or solution.
Be connected. ■ Keep up with the world around you. Follow the news, talk to people, read what others write, and listen objectively to what other people are saying.
Be critical. ■ Yes, to be a critical thinker, you have to be a critic. That means you need to evaluate and make judgments. You can’t accept at face value everything you hear or read. This is especially true of information that is meant to sell you a product or an idea.
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Basic Thinking Moves
Different assignments call for different kinds of thinking. These various “thinking moves” are shown in the chart below and explained in further detail on the next six pages.
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Remembering
The most basic type of thinking you use in school is remembering: recalling and repeating information you have learned. Multiple-choice, matching, fill-in-the-blanks, and short-answer questions ask you to remember information, as in the following test about the Mexican-American War.
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Understanding
The next level of thinking is understanding. To show understanding, you can explain a subject, tell how something works, or discuss what something means. You can also show understanding by writing a paragraph, as one student did below.
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Applying
Once you understand something, you can apply or use the knowledge in a real-world way. In the following paragraph, a student defines the word secession and applies it to his classroom.
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Analyzing
The next level of thinking is analyzing. Analyzing involves breaking a topic down into parts, comparing the parts, and showing how they fit together again. The paragraph below breaks the Mexican-American War into different campaigns.
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Evaluating
One of the highest levels of thinking is evaluating. When you evaluate, you determine the value of something—what is good about it and what is not so good. Below, one student evaluates the Mexican-American War.
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Creating
Creating is the most challenging form of thought because it requires a combination of many thinking moves. Creating means using information to make something new. Below, a student created a fictional journal entry by Antonio López de Santa Anna, president of Mexico, on the day that Mexico City fell.
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Avoiding Fuzzy Thinking
One of the keys to being a critical thinker is being clear and sensible. That means that no matter what kind of thinking you are engaged in, you need to avoid “thinking shortcuts” that lead to weak or misleading arguments. You should avoid the different types of fuzzy thinking that follow.
■ Avoid statements that jump to a conclusion.
Because wolves kill elk in Yellowstone Park, wolves must be eliminated.
This statement jumps to a conclusion. In fact, if wolves did not kill some elk, the elk could overpopulate the park and cause other species to die off.
■ Avoid statements that are supported with nothing more than the simple fact that most people agree with them.
It is okay to feed black bears because people aren’t afraid of them like they are of grizzlies.
This type of statement suggests that if a group of people believe something, it must be true. In reality, black bears are wild animals; it is not safe to feed them.
■ Avoid statements that contain a weak or misleading comparison.
A mountain lion, which weighs about 150 pounds, is no match for an elk, which weighs about 1,000 pounds.
This statement makes a misleading comparison. Although elk are much larger, mountain lions use their speed, strength, and stalking ability to overpower elk.
■ Avoid statements that exaggerate the facts or mislead the reader.
If you meet a bear in the wild, the best thing to do is play dead.
This statement is misleading. Sometimes playing dead may actually work. If, however, you play dead between a mother and her cubs, you may be in real trouble. Never use arguments to mislead your reader.
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■ Avoid statements that appeal only to the reader’s feelings and contain no factual information.
Baby bears are not dangerous because they are small and cute.
This statement appeals to our feelings about baby bears, rather than the actual facts. Even small bears can injure a person. Also, a mother bear who finds a human near her cubs may attack the person. The fact is, baby bears can be dangerous.
■ Avoid statements that contain parts of the truth, but not the whole truth. These statements are called half-truths.
At one time, people almost drove the coyote to extinction.
This statement is only partly true. In spite of people’s efforts to drive coyotes to extinction, the animals have actually multiplied. While coyotes used to live only in some western states, they now are found in all parts of the country.
■ Avoid statements that reduce a solution to two possible extremes: “America: Love it or leave it.” “Put up or shut up.” These statements eliminate every possibility in the middle.
Either grizzlies must be allowed to roam free in wilderness areas, or they will become extinct.
This statement doesn’t allow for a logical discussion of the issue. Surely protection plans other than free roaming could work.
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Checking Your Critical Thinking
How often do you use critical thinking? Use the checklist below to assess your critical-thinking skills. Answer each statement with always, usually, sometimes, or never. For statements that don’t fit the way you think or work, practice the skills suggested by them.
Critical-Thinking Checklist
