Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies
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Book description
Turbocharge your reasoning with Critical Thinking
Just what are the ingredients of a great argument? What is the secret to communicating your ideas clearly and persuasively? And how do you see through sloppy thinking and flim-flam? If you've ever asked any of these questions, then this book is for you!
These days, strong critical thinking skills provide a vital foundation for academic success, and Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies offers a clear and unintimidating introduction to what can otherwise be a pretty complex topic. Inside, you'll get hands-on, lively, and fun exercises that you can put to work today to improve your arguments and pin down key issues.
With this accessible and friendly guide, you'll get plain-English instruction on how to identify other people's assumptions, methodology, and conclusions, evaluate evidence, and interpret texts effectively. You'll also find tips and guidance on reading between the lines, assessing validity - and even advice on when not to apply logic too rigidly!
Critical Thinking Skills for Dummies:
Provides tools and strategies from a range of disciplines great for developing your reflective thinking skills
Offers expert guidance on sound reasoning and textual analysis
Shows precisely how to use concept mapping and brainstorming to generate insights
Demonstrates how critical thinking skills is a proven path to success as a student
Whether you're undertaking reviews, planning research projects or just keen to give your brain a workout, Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies equips you with everything you need to succeed.
Table of contents
- About This Book
- Foolish Assumptions
- Icons Used in This Book
- Beyond the Book
- Where to Go from Here
- Opening the Doors to the Arguments Clinic
- Developing Critical Thinking Skills: Reading between the Lines
- Understanding What Critical Thinking Isn't
- Thinking Logically or Instinctively: Evolution and Consciousness
- Watching How the Brain Thinks
- Getting Inside Scientists’ Heads
- Answers to Chapter 2’s Exercises
- Asking Whether You're Thinking What You Think You're Thinking
- Thinking and Indoctrination: Propaganda
- Appreciating the Difficulties of Staying Impartial
- Appealing to Feelings: The Psychology of Argument
- Manipulating Minds and Persuading People
- Answers to Chapter 3’s Exercise
- Discovering Your Personal Thinking Habits
- Busting Myths about Thinking
- Exploring Different Types of Intelligence: Emotions and Creativity
- Answers to Chapter 4’s Exercises
- Investigating Inventiveness and Imagination
- Confused Comparisons and Muddled Metaphors
- Becoming a Thought Experimenter
- Answers To Chapter 5’s Exercise
- Thinking Like a Computer Programmer
- Combining the Thinking Spheres
- Sort, Select, Amplify, Generate: Using Design Skills to See New Solutions
- Ordering Yourself a Nice, Fresh Argument! (Exercise)
- Answers To Chapter 6’s Exercises
- Discovering Graphical Tools: Mind Mapping and Making Concept Charts
- Putting Graphical Tools To Use
- Considering Other Thinking Tools
- Answers to Chapter 7’s Exercises
- Building the Knowledge Pyramid with Data and Information Blocks
- Turning the Knowledge Hierarchy Upside Down
- Maintaining Motivation: Knowledge, Skills and Mindsets
- Answers to Chapter 8’s Exercises
- Appreciating Critical Reading as a Practical Skill
- Reading between the Lines
- Playing Detective: Examining the Evidence
- Filtering out Irrelevant Material
- Answers to Chapter 10’s Exercises
- Structuring Your Thoughts on the Page
- Choosing the Appropriate Style of Writing
- Getting Down to the Specifics of Critical Writing
- Answers to Chapter 10’s Exercise
- Getting the Most from Formal Talks
- Participating in Seminars and Small Groups
- Noting a Few Notes
- Democratising the Learning Environment
- Answers to This Chapter
- Introducing Real-Life Arguments
- Delving Deeper into Real Arguments
- Setting out Laws for Thinking Logically
- Seeing How People Use Logic
- Putting Steel in Your Arguments with Logic
- Answers to Chapter 13’s Exercises
- Introducing Rhetoric: When an Argument Isn't an Argument
- Winning When You're Right
- Debating Successfully When You're Wrong
- Discerning a Message
- Answers to Chapter 14’s Exercise
- Challenging Received Wisdom about the World
- Digging into Scientific Thinking
- Counting on the Fact that People Don't Understand Numbers: Statistical Thinking
- Answers to Chapter 15’s Exercise
- Claiming to Follow Logically: Non Sequiturs and Genetic Fallacies
- Making Assumptions: Begging the Question
- Restricting the Options to Two: ‘Black and White’ Thinking
- Being Unclear: Equivocation and Ambiguity
- Mistaking a Connection for a Cause: Correlation Confusion
- Resorting to Double Standards: Special Pleading
- Thinking Wishfully
- Detecting the Whiff of Red Herrings
- Attacking a Point that Doesn't Exist: Straw-Man Arguments
- Redefining Words: Playing at Humpty Dumpty
- Suggesting That Only a Small Elite Is Clever Enough To Be In Charge
- Crossing the Line: An Argument for Breaking the Law
- Staying on the Right Side of the Law: An Argument for Always Obeying the Law
- Arguing that Human Misery is Due to a Greedy Elite Exploiting Everyone Else
- Proving That, ‘Logically’, God Exists
- Proving That, ‘in Practice’, God Doesn't Exist
- Defending Human Rights
- Making Everything Relative
- Getting All Relative with Einstein
- Posing Paradoxes to Prove Your Point
- About the Author
- Cheat Sheet
- Advertisement Page
- Connect with Dummies
- End User License Agreement
Product information
- Title: Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies
- Author(s): Martin Cohen
- Release date: April 2015
- Publisher(s): For Dummies
- ISBN: 9781118924723
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Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies
Cohen, Martin
1. Edition April 2015 376 Pages, Softcover Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISBN: 978-1-118-92472-3 John Wiley & Sons
Sample Chapter
Short Description
These days, strong critical thinking skills provide a vital foundation for academic success, and Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies offers a clear and unintimidating introduction to what can otherwise be a pretty complex topic. Inside, you'll get hands-on, lively, and fun exercises that you can put to work today to improve your arguments and pin down key issues. With this accessible and friendly guide, you'll get plain-English instruction on how to identify other people's assumptions, methodology, and conclusions, evaluate evidence, and interpret texts effectively. You'll also find tips and guidance on reading between the lines, assessing validity - and even advice on when not to apply logic too rigidly! Critical Thinking Skills for Dummies: * Provides tools and strategies from a range of disciples great for developing your reflective thinking skills * Offers expert guidance on sound reasoning and textual analysis * Shows precisely how to use concept mapping and brainstorming to generate insights * Demonstrates how critical thinking skills is a proven path to success as a student
Further versions
- Description
- Author information
Turbocharge your reasoning with Critical Thinking Just what are the ingredients of a great argument? What is the secret to communicating your ideas clearly and persuasively? And how do you see through sloppy thinking and flim-flam? If you've ever asked any of these questions, then this book is for you! These days, strong critical thinking skills provide a vital foundation for academic success, and Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies offers a clear and unintimidating introduction to what can otherwise be a pretty complex topic. Inside, you'll get hands-on, lively, and fun exercises that you can put to work today to improve your arguments and pin down key issues. With this accessible and friendly guide, you'll get plain-English instruction on how to identify other people's assumptions, methodology, and conclusions, evaluate evidence, and interpret texts effectively. You'll also find tips and guidance on reading between the lines, assessing validity - and even advice on when not to apply logic too rigidly! Critical Thinking Skills for Dummies: * Provides tools and strategies from a range of disciplines great for developing your reflective thinking skills * Offers expert guidance on sound reasoning and textual analysis * Shows precisely how to use concept mapping and brainstorming to generate insights * Demonstrates how critical thinking skills is a proven path to success as a student Whether you're undertaking reviews, planning research projects or just keen to give your brain a workout, Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies equips you with everything you need to succeed.
M. Cohen, The Philosopher
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Critical thinking definition
Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.
Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process, which is why it's often used in education and academics.
Some even may view it as a backbone of modern thought.
However, it's a skill, and skills must be trained and encouraged to be used at its full potential.
People turn up to various approaches in improving their critical thinking, like:
- Developing technical and problem-solving skills
- Engaging in more active listening
- Actively questioning their assumptions and beliefs
- Seeking out more diversity of thought
- Opening up their curiosity in an intellectual way etc.
Is critical thinking useful in writing?
Critical thinking can help in planning your paper and making it more concise, but it's not obvious at first. We carefully pinpointed some the questions you should ask yourself when boosting critical thinking in writing:
- What information should be included?
- Which information resources should the author look to?
- What degree of technical knowledge should the report assume its audience has?
- What is the most effective way to show information?
- How should the report be organized?
- How should it be designed?
- What tone and level of language difficulty should the document have?
Usage of critical thinking comes down not only to the outline of your paper, it also begs the question: How can we use critical thinking solving problems in our writing's topic?
Let's say, you have a Powerpoint on how critical thinking can reduce poverty in the United States. You'll primarily have to define critical thinking for the viewers, as well as use a lot of critical thinking questions and synonyms to get them to be familiar with your methods and start the thinking process behind it.
Are there any services that can help me use more critical thinking?
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Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies® Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, www.wiley.com This edition first published 2015
Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies helps you hone your thinking abilities and become a better communicator. Youll find hands-on, active instruction and exercises that you can put to work today as you navigate social media and news websites, chat with AI, fact-check your own and others views, and more. Become a thinking machine, with this ...
Ideas work together according to four basic patterns of cooperation. Basic Patterns: i. Premise / Ultimate Conclusion. Idea. %. Premise - an idea that the argument assumes to be true without support. Inference - the connection that holds between the idea(s) at the top of the arrow and the idea at the bottom of the % arrow when the truth of the ...
Provides grading rubrics and outlines five levels of close reading and substantive writing. #563m. "Aspiring Thinker's Guide to Critical Thinking" Mini-Guide Price List: (+ shipping and handling) Item #554m. 1-24 copies $6.00 each 25-199 copies $5.00 each 200-499 copies $4.00 each 500+ copies $3.50 each.
Critical Thinking Skills for Dummies: Provides tools and strategies from a range of disciplines great for developing your reflective thinking skills. Offers expert guidance on sound reasoning and textual analysis. Shows precisely how to use concept mapping and brainstorming to generate insights. Demonstrates how critical thinking skills is a ...
In order to display critical thinking, students need to develop skills in. ♦ interpreting: understanding the significance of data and to clarify its meaning. ♦ analysing: breaking information down and recombining it in different ways. ♦ reasoning: creating an argument through logical steps.
Critical Thinking Skills for Dummies: Provides tools and strategies from a range of disciplines great for developing your reflective thinking skills. Offers expert guidance on sound reasoning and textual analysis. Shows precisely how to use concept mapping and brainstorming to generate insights. Demonstrates how critical thinking skills is a ...
Contents Figure 3-1 3 Question 2: Word Pictures 4 Figure 5-1 5 Figure 6-1 6 Figure 6-2 7 Figure 7-1 8 Figure 7-2 9 Figure 7-3 10 Figure 7-4 11
Part I: Getting Started with Critical Thinking Skills 7. Chapter 1: Entering the Exciting World of Critical Thinking 9. Chapter 2: Peering into the Mind: How People Think 21. Chapter 3: Planting Ideas in Your Head: The Sociology of Thinking 41. Chapter 4: Assessing Your Thinking Skills 65. Part II: Developing Your Critical Thinking Skills 91.
It's thinking on purpose! Critical thinking involves mindful communication, problem-solving, and a freedom from bias or. About This Workbook. egocentric tendency. You can apply critical thinking to any kind of subject, problem, or situation you choose. The activity pages in the Critical Thinking Workbook are meant to be shared and explored.
Critical thinkers check the methodology. A key critical thinking skill is to be able to understand, and criticize, a writer's methodology. When authors write books, conduct studies, or investigate a topic, they operate within a research paradigm (a theoretical framework) that affects how they view and investigate the subject. In formal academic studies, authors discuss the research paradigm ...
Critical Thinking Skills for Dummies: Provides tools and strategies from a range of disciplines great for developing your reflective thinking skills Offers expert guidance on sound reasoning and textual analysis Shows precisely how to use concept mapping and brainstorming to generate insights Demonstrates how critical thinking skills is a ...
Here are three definitions of critical thinking by leading researchers. First, Robert Ennis's classic definition:1. Critical thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on decid-ing what to believe or do. 1. Even before you start reading this text, begin by examining your own con-cept of critical thinking.
The essence of critical thinking concepts and tools distilled into a 20-page pocket-size guide. It is a critical thinking supplement to any textbook or course. It is best used in conjunction with the Analytic Thinking Guide. Keywords: critical thinking concepts; critical thinking tools; analytic thinking; thinker's guide Created Date
Where to Go from Here. Part I: Getting Started with Critical Thinking Skills. Chapter 1: Entering the Exciting World of Critical Thinking. Opening the Doors to the Arguments Clinic. Developing Critical Thinking Skills: Reading between the Lines. Understanding What Critical Thinking Isn't. Chapter 2: Peering into the Mind: How People Think.
The aim of critical thinking is to try to maintain an 'objective' position. When you think critically, you weigh up all sides of an argument and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. So, critical thinking skills entail: actively seeking all sides of an argument. testing the soundness of the claims made.
Critical thinking is an important and vital topic in modern education. All educators are interested in teaching critical thinking to their students. Many academic departments hope that its professors and instructors will become informed about the strategy of teaching critical thinking skills, identify areas in
Critical Thinking Skills for Dummies: * Provides tools and strategies from a range of disciples great for developing your reflective thinking skills. * Offers expert guidance on sound reasoning and textual analysis. * Shows precisely how to use concept mapping and brainstorming to generate insights. * Demonstrates how critical thinking skills ...
It makes you a well-rounded individual, one who has looked at all of their options and possible solutions before making a choice. According to the University of the People in California, having critical thinking skills is important because they are [ 1 ]: Universal. Crucial for the economy. Essential for improving language and presentation skills.
component skills of critical thinking - higher order executive processes used to plan, monitor, and evaluate - Kuhn (1999, pp. 17-18) proposes that the most relevant cognitive competencies to critical thinking are all metacognitive (meta-knowing skills) rather than cognitive skills, and can be broken down into three broad categories:
Share via: Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement. Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to ...