• THINKING CRITICALLY AND CREATIVELY”

• Critical thinking skills are perhaps the most fundamental skills involved in making judgments and solving
problems. You use them every day, and you can continue improving them.
• The ability to think critically about a matter—to analyze a question, situation, or problem down to its most
basic parts—is what helps us evaluate the accuracy and truthfulness of statements, claims, and information
we read and hear. It is the sharp knife that, when honed, separates fact from fiction, honesty from lies, and
the accurate from the misleading. We all use this skill to one degree or another almost every day. For
example, we use critical thinking every day as we consider the latest consumer products and why one
particular product is the best among its peers. Is it a quality product because a celebrity endorses it?
Because a lot of other people may have used it? Because it is made by one company versus another? Or
perhaps because it is made in one country or another? These are questions representative of critical
thinking.
• The academic setting demands more of us in terms of critical thinking than everyday life. It demands that
we evaluate information and analyze myriad issues. It is the environment where our critical thinking skills
can be the difference between success and failure. In this environment we must consider information in an
analytical, critical manner. We must ask questions—What is the source of this information? Is this source an
expert one and what makes it so? Are there multiple perspectives to consider on an issue? Do multiple
sources agree or disagree on an issue? Does quality research substantiate information or opinion? Do I have
any personal biases that may affect my consideration of this information?
• It is only through purposeful, frequent, intentional questioning such as this that we can sharpen our critical
thinking skills and improve as students, learners and researchers.
• Defining Critical Thinking
• Thinking comes naturally. You don’t have to make it happen—it just does. But you
can make it happen in different ways. For example, you can think positively
or negatively. You can think with “heart” and you can think with rational judgment.
You can also think strategically and analytically, and mathematically and scientifically.
These are a few of multiple ways in which the mind can process thought.
• What are some forms of thinking you use? When do you use them, and why?
• As a college student, you are tasked with engaging and expanding your thinking
skills. One of the most important of these skills is critical thinking. Critical thinking is
important because it relates to nearly all tasks, situations, topics, careers,
environments, challenges, and opportunities. It’s not restricted to a particular
subject area.
• Critical thinking is clear, reasonable, reflective thinking focused on
deciding what to believe or do. It means asking probing questions like,
“How do we know?” or “Is this true in every case or just in this instance?”
It involves being skeptical and challenging assumptions, rather than
simply memorizing facts or blindly accepting what you hear or read.
• Imagine, for example, that you’re reading a history textbook. You wonder
who wrote it and why, because you detect certain assumptions in the
writing. You find that the author has a limited scope of research focused
only on a particular group within a population. In this case, your critical
thinking reveals that there are “other sides to the story.”
• Who are critical thinkers, and what characteristics do they have in common? Critical
thinkers are usually curious and reflective people. They like to explore and probe new
areas and seek knowledge, clarification, and new solutions. They ask pertinent questions,
evaluate statements and arguments, and they distinguish between facts and opinion. They
are also willing to examine their own beliefs, possessing a manner of humility that allows
them to admit lack of knowledge or understanding when needed. They are open to
changing their mind. Perhaps most of all, they actively enjoy learning, and seeking new
knowledge is a lifelong pursuit.
• This may well be you!
• No matter where you are on the road to being a critical thinker, you can always more fully
develop your skills. Doing so will help you develop more balanced arguments, express
yourself clearly, read critically, and absorb important information efficiently. Critical
thinking skills will help you in any profession or any circumstance of life, from science to
art to business to teaching.
Critical Thinking IS Critical Thinking is NOT
Skepticism Memorizing
Examining assumptions Group thinking
Challenging reasoning Blind acceptance of authority
Uncovering biases
• Critical Thinking and Logic
• Critical thinking is fundamentally a process of questioning information and data. You may question
the information you read in a textbook, or you may question what a politician or a professor or a
classmate says. You can also question a commonly-held belief or a new idea. With critical thinking,
anything and everything is subject to question and examination.
• Logic’s Relationship to Critical Thinking
• The word logic comes from the Ancient Greek logike, referring to the science or art of reasoning.
Using logic, a person evaluates arguments and strives to distinguish between good and bad
reasoning, or between truth and falsehood. Using logic, you can evaluate ideas or claims people
make, make good decisions, and form sound beliefs about the world.[1]
• Questions of Logic in Critical Thinking
• Let’s use a simple example of applying logic to a critical-thinking situation. In this hypothetical
scenario, a man has a PhD in political science, and he works as a professor at a local college. His wife
works at the college, too. They have three young children in the local school system, and their family
is well known in the community.
• The man is now running for political office. Are his credentials and experience sufficient for entering public
office? Will he be effective in the political office? Some voters might believe that his personal life and current
job, on the surface, suggest he will do well in the position, and they will vote for him.
• In truth, the characteristics described don’t guarantee that the man will do a good job. The information
is somewhat irrelevant. What else might you want to know? How about whether the man had already held a
political office and done a good job? In this case, we want to ask, How much information is adequate in order
to make a decision based on logic instead of assumptions?
• The following questions, presented in Figure 1, below, are ones you may apply to formulating a logical,
reasoned perspective in the above scenario or any other situation:
• What’s happening? Gather the basic information and begin to think of questions.
• Why is it important? Ask yourself why it’s significant and whether or not you agree.
• What don’t I see? Is there anything important missing?
• How do I know? Ask yourself where the information came from and how it was constructed.
• Who is saying it? What’s the position of the speaker and what is influencing them?
• What else? What if? What other ideas exist and are there other possibilities?
• Logical Arguments
• Anything you read that includes an attempt to persuade you to think a certain
way is likely to include logical argument as part of that persuasion.
• The text below introduces the idea of premises and conclusions. As you view
this, think about the relationship of premises and conclusions as they align
with main ideas and supporting evidence in paragraphs that we explored earlier
in this module.
• Elements of an Argument
• ARGUMENTATION VOCABULARY
• Claim: a statement or opinion that is either true or false
• Argument: a claim supported by premises
• Conclusion: the main claim in an argument
• Premises: claims that support and argument’s conclusion
• A claim is an assertion about the truth, existence, or value of
something that is either true or false. Claims are also called
statements or propositions.
• When supported by premises, a claim becomes a conclusion. For
example:
• This class is easy.
• The Detroit Lions have the potential to make the NFL playoffs.
• This chemical structure is unstable.
• Democratic socialism is superior to a pure democracy.
• An argument is an assertion that contains both a conclusion and
premises. It is a statement of fact or opinion that is based on
evidence. Keep in mind that not all statements are arguments, and
some statements may contain multiple arguments.
• Which of the following statements is an argument?
• Vending machines stocked with soda or candy should be removed from
all public schools.
• Star Wars is the best movie ever.
• We’d better leave now. If we don’t, we might miss the last train and we’ll
be stuck here all night.
• Show Answer
• If you answered #3, then you are correct! The first and second statements
are not arguments because they offer no support. The third statement is
an argument because it offers support (premises) to support the claim.
• A conclusion is the main claim of an argument that is supported by a
premise. It is the logical result of the relationship between the
premises. Identifying the conclusion is the first step in understanding
the argument.
• But how do you identify the conclusion? Follow these steps:
• Ask, “Is the statement the main point, or is it a claim given to support
another statement in the argument?
• Identify the indicator word that often precedes the conclusion, such
as
Therefore Thus As a result That’s why Consequently So
This Means This shows It follows that This suggests Hence Accordingly
• What is the conclusion in each of the following arguments?
• Abortion is wrong because all human life is sacred.
• It’s flu season and you work with kids, so you should get a flu shot.
• We should believe that rocks exist because we are able to see them.
• John will probably receive the next promotion since he’s been here the longest.
• We must reduce the amount of money we spend on space exploration. Right now, the
enemy is launching massive military buildup, and we need additional money to purchase
military equipment to help match the anticipated increase in the enemy’s strength.
• It’s a beautiful day. We should go to the park. Besides, I need some exercise.
• That movie has had horrible reviews. My sister saw it and said it was boring and her
friend spotted three mistakes. Pick a different movie. I am sure we can find something
better.
• Show Answer
• Conclusion: Abortion is wrong.
• Conclusion: You should get a flu shot.
• Conclusion: Rocks exist.
• Conclusion: John will receive the next promotion.
• Conclusion: We must reduce amount of money we spend on space
exploration.
• Conclusion: We should go to the park.
• Conclusion: We should pick a different movie
A premise is a reason offered as support, or evidence, for another
claim. It is often indicated by these words :

Because For As
Since Inasmuch as As shown by
Given that As indicated by The reason is that
Consider the following statement: Today’s freshmen cannot write
very well. Joe is a freshman, so he must be a poor writer. The
premises and conclusion are identified as follows:

Because
Premise For Today’s freshmen
Ascannot write very well
Since
Premise Inasmuch as Joe is a freshman,
As shown by
Given that
Conclusion As indicated by so he must be a poor
The reason
writer. is that
• Evaluating Information With Critical Thinking
• Evaluating information can be one of the most complex tasks you will
be faced with in college. But if you utilize the following four strategies,
you will be well on your way to success:
• Read for understanding by using text coding
• Examine arguments
• Clarify thinking
• Cultivate “habits of mind”
• Examine Arguments
• When you examine arguments or claims that an author, speaker, or
other source is making, your goal is to identify and examine the hard
facts. You can use the spectrum of authority strategy for this
purpose. The spectrum of authority strategy assists you in identifying
the “hot” end of an argument—feelings, beliefs, cultural influences,
and societal influences—and the “cold” end of an argument—
scientific influences. The following video explains this strategy.
• 3. Clarify Thinking
• When you use critical thinking to evaluate information, you need to clarify your thinking to yourself and likely
to others. Doing this well is mainly a process of asking and answering probing questions, such as the logic
questions discussed earlier. Design your questions to fit your needs, but be sure to cover adequate ground.
What is the purpose? What question are we trying to answer? What point of view is being expressed? What
assumptions are we or others making? What are the facts and data we know, and how do we know them?
What are the concepts we’re working with? What are the conclusions, and do they make sense? What are
the implications?
• 4. Cultivate “Habits of Mind”
• “Habits of mind” are the personal commitments, values, and standards you have about the principle of good
thinking. Consider your intellectual commitments, values, and standards. Do you approach problems with an
open mind, a respect for truth, and an inquiring attitude? Some good habits to have when thinking critically
are being receptive to having your opinions changed, having respect for others, being independent and not
accepting something is true until you’ve had the time to examine the available evidence, being fair-minded,
having respect for a reason, having an inquiring mind, not making assumptions, and always, especially,
questioning your own conclusions—in other words, developing an intellectual work ethic. Try to work these
qualities into your daily life.
 Argument: The Basics
What is Argument?
Arguments are claims backed by reasons that are supported by evidence. There are five highly relevant
characteristics of argument:
Argumentation is a social process. Having an argument involves two or more individuals responding to
one another's claim and support for such a claim. Argument is not simply restating the same claims and
reasons, rather it is supporting, modifying or defending positions accordingly. As a process, arguments
unfold based on the contributions of the dialogue participants.
Argumentation aims to gain adherence from an audience. People argue to gain assent for their positions.
The world is filled with ambiguous situations that argument attempts to render more certain.
Argumentation is a listener and audience-oriented activity—even if the audience is just one person.
Ulrimately, one wishes to persuade to audience the act on the advanced claim, whether it is to
encourage action or gain support.
Argument is an art. As an art, argument has techniques and general principles, therefore is a learned
craft. Although there are suggested guidelines and argumentative tools, there is no science of argument.
Argument involves contested issues. As a mode of influence, argument has persuasion as a central goal.
Argument does not occur where there is consensus.
Argument fills much of our lives. Whether we recognize so or not, argument dominates our lives. We
spend time arguing about what to eat, who to invite, when to do things, and where to go.
• Why Argue?
• That people argue seems obvious. People argue for four main reasons:
• To clarify thinking as individuals or groups. Oftentimes, individuals and groups do not know
what they believe but are still faced with information that requires interpretation. Argument
can help individuals and groups learn about issues.
• To explain or defend actions or beliefs. People have reasons for doing what they do, though
oftentimes the reasons are not made clear. Argument seeks to shed light on those reasons and
make them explicit and open to scrutiny.
• To solve problems or make judgments. The world is filled with controversies about how best to
act, all with competing interests and evidence that prescribe a particular direction. Argument
helps facilitate decision-making about what actors should and should not do.
• To have fun. Participating in the clash of ideas can be an intellectually stimulating process that
is primarily pleasurable. Argument is not always serious and deliberative; in fact, most
arguments that people have are over relatively unimportant issues.
• What's the difference between argument and logic?
• Argument is fundamentatlly a communicative exercise, whereas logic is a more philosophical endeavor that
does not champion persuasion as a primary goal. Therefore, argument, unlike logic, is an audience oriented
process. For an actor to be persuaded of a belief or action, they must find the arguer’s arguments
compelling. This requires audience adaptation and development of credibility in addition to developing
good, reasonable claims and supporting reasons.
• Argument requires audience adaptation. Arguers must keep in mind that not all arguments are persuasive to
all audiences. Additionally, some techniques might be more successful than others for specific audiences:
professionals are more likely to want polished, analytical, logical presentations, whereas protestors are
more likely to want highly charged, emotive argument that rallies moral indignation for their cause.
• Argument requires establishing credibility. Credibility, as classical rhetoricians recognize, involves
intelligence, character, and goodwill. Intelligence means having knowledge of your subject and arguing in a
clear, logical fashion. Character means displaying traits your audience admires—like honesty, sincerity,
integrity, and moral commitment. Goodwill means treating your audience with respect, putting your case in
terms they can understand, and acknowledging their points of view. Aristotle notes that credibility is often
the controlling factor in persuasion; if the audience does not perceive the speaker as credibile, then the
audience will not be as attentive to the message itself
• What are Basic Components of an Argument?
• Argument, while based in logic, is ultimately an exercise in language. Thus, argument is not exclusively the study of deductive or inductive
reasoning—these are tasks reserved for philosophical inquiry. Instead, argument investigates the communicative aspects of reasoning.
Arguments can be divided into four general components: claim, reason, support, and warrant.
• Claims are statements about what is true or good or about what should be done or believed. Claims are potentially arguable. "A liberal arts
education prepares students better than other forms of education" is a claim, while "I didn't like the book" is not. No one can really dispute
whether I liked the book or not, but one can argue about the benefits of liberal arts. "I thought the movie was cool" is not an arguable
statement, however,"that movie was an actor’s best" does present possibilities for argumentation, for people can disagree and offer support
for why such an acting job was the actor's best based on criteria of what constitutes an outstanding performance.
• Reasons are statements that support a given claim, making a claim more than a mere assertion. Reasons are statements in an argument that
pass two tests. First, reasons are answers to the hypothetical challenge: “Why do you say that?” or “What justifications can you give me to
believe that?” If a claim about liberal arts education is challenged, a reasoned response could be: “It teaches students to think
independently.” Reasons can be linked—most often, not explicitly—to claims with the word "because."
• Support substantiates the reasons offered and helps compel audiences to accept an advanced claim. This usually comes in the form of
evidence. Evidence comes in different sorts, and tends to vary from one academic field or argument topic to another. Scientific arguments
about global warming require different kinds of evidence than mealtime arguments about the latest movie. Evidence offers challenges and
support to the reasons given. Evidence comes in various forms, including specific examples, statistics, data, testimonies and narratives, to
name only a few.
• Warrants are the inferences or assumptions that connect the support to the claim. Warrants often answer the question “what do you have to
believe in order to believe that the support justifies the claim or reason being made?” If a reason given to justify a liberal education is the
improvement of critical thinking, then the implicit assumption, or warrant, is that critical thinking is good. Warrants are often just assumed
and rarely articulated, which can make them difficult to detect.
• For Example:
• Claim: Recent tax cuts should be abandoned.
• Reason: …because they only benefit the rich.
• Support: Statistics show that the majority of the tax cuts are targeted at upper middle class and upper class
families, not poor families and individuals.
• Warrant: Tax cuts that only benefit the rich are unfair.
• Or,
• Claim: The Civil War was caused by slavery.
• Reason: …because the Northern states rejected the Southern states reliance on slavery.
• Support: The recorded debates in newspapers and state legislatures in the North focused on the South’s reliance on
slavery, not economics.
• Warrant: The record of debates in newspapers and legislatures is an accurate guide to determining the cause of
conflict.
• Most argumentative controversies, as can be seen in the examples, center on the truth or validity of the support
and warrants. Thus, the interpretation of data and inferences provides the richest source for students of argument
to learn.
• Logic is the science that evaluates arguments.
• An argument is a group of statements including one or more premises and one and only one conclusion.
• A statement is a sentence that is either true or false, such as "The cat is on the mat." Many sentences are not statements, such
as "Close the door, please" , "How old are you?"
• A premise is a statement in an argument that provides reason or support for the conclusion. There can be one or many premises
in a single argument.
• A conclusion is a statement in an argument that indicates of what the arguer is trying to convince the reader/listener. What is
the argument trying to prove? There can be only one conclusion in a single argument.
•
• In this lesson you will need to be able to distinguish premises and conclusions:
• The foolproof way to do this is to ask yourself what the author of the argument is trying to get you to believe. The answer to
this question is the conclusion.
• There must also be at least one reason and possibly many. These are your premises.
• Your common sense will be of great help here.
• You should also study very carefully the lists of premise and conclusion indicator words on page 3 in the text. There will not
always be indicator words, though more often than not there are. You should note as well that the conclusion can often be
identified as the statement directly before a premise indicator. Remember that these are general rules only. Think of indicator
words as "red flags." They are positioned in the argument to signal the author's intent, but always check yourself by asking
what's being proven, and what the proof is.
• When you feel confident that you have mastered these concepts, do the True/False exercise on p. 13 in the textbook. (section
IV) You can check your answers in the appendix of this study guide.
• Then do exercises 1.1 I 1-22 on your Logic Coach Software. If you need more practice, feel free to do more. If you use up all the
exercises in section I, you may do problems from II and send the answers to me to get checked (this section of the text isn't on
Logic Coach)
• Rewrite the following arguments listing the premise(s) first and the
conclusion last. Each line should be a single statement written as a
complete sentence. Feel free to modify the sentences as you deem
necessary, without changing their basic meaning. (after all you want
to be restating this argument, not writing a new one!) Label the
premise(s) P¹, P², P³, etc. and the conclusion C. Leave out any indicator
words and any fluff (i.e., sentences which are neither the conclusion
nor a premise). 10 points each.
Cats with long hair shed all over the house so you should not get
a long-haired cat.
I have heard that they also have lots of fleas

Long-haired cats shed all over