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Thinking Critically--Easier Said Than Done

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Thinking critically is one of the toughest challenges in this new century. How can we temporarily suspend judgment until we look at an issue logically when our emotions rush in as soon as the an incident erupts? The current brouhaha over the presidential election is a case in point. Few people seem to have engaged in critical thinking on this issue, but everyone has an opinion--even my eight year old grandson who spells "election" well, but voting experience is limited to a mock election in his third grade class. Thanks to election irregularities in Palm Beach, Florida and possibly other counties around the USA, there will be enough fodder to feed discussions, television retrospectives and treatises for political analysts for years to come. Although critical thinking classes often focus on evaluating academic essays and speeches, the steps a critical thinker should take can be applied to a broad range of communications beyond the classroom. Here are four things to consider to help you think critically.

1. What the speaker is saying? Persuasive writing is intended to get you to behave a certain way, change your mind, buy something or believe something. Words such as should and must are a few of the signals. Although you may agree to let someone persuade you, you should be clear of their purpose.

2. Is the information fact or opinion? A fact can be checked by anyone, whereas an opinion is what someone thinks of the facts.

Fact: This doctor practices euthanasia with his terminally ill patients. Opinion: Euthanasia is wrong. 3. What is the author's point of view or bias? A person who himself was recently mugged would not likely be chosen to serve on a jury in mugging case. It would be very difficult for this person to be objective in judging the case. Likewise, our personal backgrounds create a bias that's very difficult to overcome. A member of a wealthy royal family who has never even been in the kitchen of his castle may have difficulty sympathizing with the homeless.

4. What is the source of the information? In our email today we received a Presidential Election ballot from Palm Beach, Florida that had no hole across from Gore's name where you could punch him as your choice. There was an arrow pointing to the center, but no hole there. Since I had seen an enlarged version of a similar ballot on the news, I question whether this is a revised version or not. The fact that it came from email and not directly from an official source makes me skeptical.

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