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Back in January, I posted a piece on this blog asking if any readers wanted to develop their critical thinking as a kind of New Year’s Resolution. Following some rather positive feedback, I added a second set of exercises on "analysis."
The third set of exercises in this sequence, regarding "evaluation," can be found below. If you’re interested in enhancing your critical thinking skills, please start with the first set of exercises and then the second, before jumping into this next set. Remember, when we are given opportunities to think about our thinking, we are engaging our metacognitive processes; and that’s a foundational part of critical thinking!
Evaluate arguments on a topic from articles online regarding a current social problem.
Exercise 1:
Find two examples of each type of evidence from the articles you’ve read and evaluate the credibility of the proposition. That is, is the source reliable? Can it be trusted? If not, why? Remember, personal experience and "common belief" statements are among the worst sources for credible information, so be on the lookout for those!
Assess the evidence based on the following factors:
- Anecdotal Evidence/Personal Experience
- Common Belief/Sense Statements
- Expert Opinion
- Statistical Evidence
- Research Data
Exercise 2:
Of course, there is more to "evaluation" than an assessment of credibility. In critical thinking, we must also evaluate the relevance, logic, balance, and bias among the propositions of support and refutation. Think about the articles you read and try answering the following questions in light of your reading:
- Is there any information presented that is irrelevant to the central claim that the article is trying to make?
- Is the overall argument imbalanced in any way?
- Is the overall argument biased in any way?
- Does the argument exclude important arguments?
- Are there hidden assumptions that need to be made more explicit?
Exercise 3:
Finally, consider whether the reasoning presented within these articles is strong enough, in light of your evaluations, to support the conclusion(s) drawn. Are there other reasonable conclusions possible? Again, consider the credibility, relevance, bias, balance, and logic of the information presented in the articles in the context of your consideration.
These activities are a great way to start working on the critical thinking skill of evaluation, as they help you to assess the strength and weaknesses of an argument through each proposition. Depending on how thorough your evaluation was, considering the credibility, relevance, logical strength and both balance and bias of the network of proposition within an argument should give you confidence when inferring a conclusion. In Exercise 4, we will delve further into the skill of inference.
