Critical Thinking, Reasoning, Writing and Watching               

Last amended by J. Ramsay: 24.9.09

This site is intended primarily for students enrolled on the Critical Reasoning module BSB10177-2. If you have any ideas for other material that you would like to see added to the site I welcome suggestions:  j.ramsay@staffs.ac.uk

Current issues:

Re-sit portfolios

NB the portfolio instructions are being revised for 2009-2010, so if you have to re-sit the portfolio this semester (Sept 2009) you must wait until you receive the new format portfolio instructions. After you have received and read the new instructions, you may find these comments helpful.

J. Ramsay 24.9.09

Administration

The 2008-9 student handbook  (J. Ramsay)

Assessment

Warning: The assignment linked to this paragraph is is NOT the current assignment. If you submit work this year using it, you may well fail the module. However this year's assignment  is likely to be similar in form to this sample: a sample assignment from a previous year, and it is offered to give guidance on the kind of task you will be asked to complete.

If you would like to get a better idea of what kind of writing is expected of you in this year's assignment please go to the sister site:

John Ramsay's Learning and Grade Improvement Techniques Web Site

where, amongst lots of other useful information about writing techniques and assessment processes, you will be able to find a fully marked assignment, complete with the marker's comments, by clicking on the link entitled: A real student assignment fully marked and heavily annotated with comments on style, content and so on.   under the heading of  ''Assessment Material".

Sample of student writing

The following links takes you to unmarked and marked copies of a genuine student assignment on a module in South East Asian Economic Development. The paragraph numbers have been added - they were not in the original. This has been done to make it easier to discuss the work in class. 

Sample assignment

Sample assignment - marked (NB this will only be made available after the unmarked version has been discussed by all relevant classes on all site.

 Critical Thinking

The words people use to express their ideas frequently have a persuasive effect that the unwary reader may fall prey to without realising that they have been subjected to persuasion. The following extract from an excellent text by D. McCloskey illustrates one example of this kind of effect:

....Wesley Clair Mitchell wrote, “it must never be forgotten that the development of the social sciences (including economics) is still a social process. Recognition of that view….leads one to study these sciences…[as] the product not merely of sober thinking but also subconscious wishing”…The passage contains at least these half-spoken hierarchies ready for liberating deconstruction (reading back to front, the terms in square brackets being those implied but not mentioned): sober/subconscious; thought/wishing; products/[mere ephemera]; sciences /[mere humanities]; study/[beach reading]; one/[you personally]; leads/[compels]; view/[grounded conviction]; sciences/[mere] processes; development/[mere chaotic change]; and must/[can]. The first term of each is the privileged one…Mitchell is …claiming the commanding heights of compelling and grounded conviction, not the soft valleys of merely gently leading ‘views’. Literary people speak of “deprivileging “ the superior term in such pairs....(p. 16)

McCloskey, D., (1998), The Rhetoric of Economics, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, USA

Moral: Be careful out there and keep your wits about you. Language is not simply a neutral medium of information transmission.

Constructing a sound argument (J. Ramsay)

Critical thinking skills - (Critical Thinking across the Curriculum Project, Longview Community College)

An overview on how to adopt a more critical approach in your reading, thinking and writing - (J. Ramsay)

Writing a critical literature review

The following link takes you to a document offering examples of different methods of criticising the published work of others:

Critical literature review techniques -  (J. Ramsay)

Warning: the links below take you to the views and procedures of other universities. These are not offered because we think you should follow their procedures slavishly, but because these sites also contain general information about how to read and write in a critical manner. So, ignore the detailed procedures and read critically (see the critical reading link!) looking for the general information:

Article critique guidelines I  - (Dr. Margaret Procte &Jerry Plotnick,, University of Toronto, University College Writing Workshop)

Article critique guidelines II - (New Jersey Institute of Technology, College of Computing Sciences)

Writing Critical Literature Reviews - (Junghyun An, College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
 

Reading critically - (Writing at the University of Toronto)

Critical Watching

Broadcast media are awash with rubbish. With CGI and simple dubbing and the like, unless you have some specialised knowledge, it is becoming harder and harder to tell real images from fake ones.

See for example the following clip of , what seems to be a speech by Alan Greenspan the ex-head of the Federal Reserve  in the US. In the comments below it there is a confirmation from the makers of the video that it is an April Fools Day joke, but is it possible that some people might believe it was real ?

iTulip Presents Alan Greenspan

The following link, in a similarly American style, takes you to some :

Warm-up exercises