Critical Thinking                                                      

Overview - be critical and analytical

(Burns and Sinfield, 2016, Chapter 7)

What is critical thinking?  Burns and Sinfield describe the 5WH: who what why where when how.  Another way to approach critical thinking is to consider a sequence: description-analysis-explanation-critique.  First you describe what you observe

•    then you analyze it, maybe by unpacking, deconstructing, or linking to other ideas.  

•    Then you explain why it is the way it is – this gets into models of correlation and causation

•    Then you offer a critique, which may have a normative element – this is the way political parties work, but they would be better (for who? Or what?) if they worked this way instead.

See John Hilsdon’s cycle of questions for moving from description to analysis: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/uploads/production/document/path/1/1710/Critical_Thinking.pdf

Impediments to critical thinking

The way our brains work typically leaves lots of room for thinking that we know things when we don’t.  Gilovitch (1991) Describes how we know what isn’t so.  Main categories are:

•    Making stuff up, when we see patterns that aren’t there

•    Going too far, when we generalize excessively from thin evidence

•    Confirming our preconceptions, believing what we are told

We can arm ourselves for critical thinking by designing careful questions and being aware of how we collect evidence.

Five barriers to critical thinking (video, 2 minutes):

•    Thinking in black and white

•    Ego-centric thinking, no room for other people’s ideas

•    Social thinking, accepting the popular view

•    Authoritative thinking, accepting authorities

•    Judgemental thinking, moralistic dismissal, non-rational

David Last – Understanding what we don’t know

Arguments

We use the term argument to describe a set of reasons given in support of an idea, action or theory (OED 2nd definition).  But what should an argument look like?   You will have a number of different kinds of assignments mostly in history, psychology, and politics. The subject will help to determine what kinds of arguments are expected.

“Epistemology: every course has its own theory of knowledge – what counts as argument and evidence – its epistemology. Make sure you know the what, why and how of all your subjects. Read the journals to get a model of how to argue and write in your subject.” (Burns and Sinfield, 2016, 25)

In research assignments, you will typically be evaluated by your ability to answer a question by finding information. Having found that information, you will probably be expected to go further and analyze or explain, arriving at a well-argued and well-supported conclusion.

See this video (5 minutes) on how to structure an academic argument, from Lund University. The thesis statement, or main claim, is supported by a series of supporting claims based on logic, rhetoric, and evidence. You may also address counterclaims or arguments in opposition.

Chris Gatt (8-minute video) describes basic building blocks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmKGMOFON0g

1.    Hook – why is it relevant

2.    Contention – your thesis statement – question is your hypothesis, answer is your thesis

3.    Ethos – demonstrate your credibility

4.    Pathos – appeal to emotion

5.    Logos – appeal to logic, reason, empirical evidence

6.    Rebuttal – present the opposing view and dismiss it

7.    Conclusion

Logic, syllogisms, and fallacies

Logic is reasoning conducted according to strict principles of validity.

Inferences can be from general to specific (inductive logic) or from specific to general (deductive logic).

Inductive logic is generalization– e.g. I have found a lot of cases where this is true, I am going to argue inductively to infer that it is true in all cases which are similar to the ones where I have observed it.  “I have seen a lot of soldiers who are grumpy when they are wet” describes the observation.  “Wet soldiers are grumpy” is the inductive conclusion or inference. Induction goes from the specific to the general. Be careful about arguing from your own unstructured observations. No matter how broad your experience, it is a sample of one observer.

Deductive logic goes in the opposite direction, from the general to the specific. I watched the soldiers for two weeks on exercise. They were happy when they were dry and grumpy when it rained.  I deduce that amongst these soldiers on this exercise, rain and grumpiness are correlated. This is a circumspect deduction. A more ambitious argument might be that rain causes grumpy soldiers. You could treat this as a hypothesis.

A syllogism is a formal logical statement in which a conclusion is drawn from at least two given or assumed propositions, e.g. All humans are mortal. Socrates is human therefore Socrates is mortal.  To attack this syllogism, we might question the definitions of human, mortal, or Socrates.

This 8-minute video describes syllogisms, premises, and the link to set theory, which can be useful in comparative analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze7iKbKsC7Y

Logical fallacy website - https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/false-cause

Brainstorming and creativity

I’m providing you with Chapter 2, “Write Effectively” from Gregory Scott and Stephen Garrison (2017) The Political Science Student Writer’s Manual and Reader’s Guide, eighth edition. Rowman and Littlefield. We’ll come back to this in unit 7 when we look at research and writing.  For now, we’ll focus on the creative process that you have to go through when you are given an assignment.

Here are four examples of written assignments in senior courses, from which you will pick just one for an exercise. You can see the context of the assignment in the course outline.

POE324 International Organizations (Jane Boulden) requires a research proposal and paper worth 40 percent, “Students are required to write a 15-page research paper (double-spaced, 12 point font, 3,750 words). The topic should be related to the International Organization you chose from the list above, and take one of the themes below as a starting point for analysis. The exact topic is to be agreed in consultation with the instructor.” Assume you have chosen the topic “EU and NATO, in the context of Brexit”.

POE317 Introduction to Contemporary Strategic Studies (James McKay) requires a short paper worth 20 percent and a major paper worth 40 percent. The instructions for the major paper are: “Using a quantitative method (i.e. a data source subjected to a form of statistical analysis), answer the following question: What is the nature of a state actor’s power, how can we know this, and what are the implications? The paper should be between 12-15 pages long [about 3500 words] and must use at least one reputable data source.”

POE432 Civil Military Relations (Mike Fejes) requires a short paper for 20 percent and a research paper for 30 percent. The instructions for the short paper are, “you will write one 5-10 page paper (double space, 12pt.) [note, this is about 1500-3000 words].  You will take a reading and apply it to a current event (broadly defined to mean something happening within the past 2-5 years).”

PSE301 Organizational Behaviour and Leadership (multiple professors) requires a proposal and a term paper for a total of 35 percent, reflecting on your personal leadership style and ways to improve it.  This includes a very detailed marking rubric, see syllabus, PSE301(2017).pdf

On your own time, you are going to do a brainstorming and free-writing exercise for one of these four assignments, using three formats, on three sheets of paper.

First, you will do an unstructured brainstorming exercise in which you write down ideas about the assignment in whatever order and form they come to you. [link to brainstorming video]

Second, you will do a mind map or flow chart that brings some order to the ideas on your first sheet of paper.  [link to mind-map video]

Third, you will establish the QADOR (question, answer, definitions, outline, relevance) for your assignment.  [link to QADOR description]. In my assignments, I think of the QADOR as the essential material for the introduction and conclusion. When you know your QADOR, you are probably ready to start your first draft.

Here’s an example of a well-developed QADOR for a POE205 assignment, including outline and bibliography, and here’s another example of a more superficial first draft QADOR, for which you’ll need to go around the reasoning loop a few more times.

Evaluate your critical thinking (peer review)

How do professors evaluate critical thinking in students? [attach notes from Magna course]

Now you get to pretend to be a professor and look at each other’s mind-maps and QADOR

Next: How are you going to handle all the reading?