Critical Thinking

Höfundur: Tom Chatfield (Útgáfa: 2)
Critical Thinking

Kaup valmöguleikar

What is critical thinking? How do you apply it in your assessments? How do you build a good argument or find evidence?  Critical thinking is a set of techniques. You just need to learn them. This is your personal toolkit for demystifying critical thinking. Clear and focused, it shows you how to sharpen your ability to think critically by developing and honing your skills. You’ll learn how to: Build a solid argument and express your ideas clearly Evaluate evidence and identify errors Understand and account for biased or flawed thinking Become a savvy user of technology Sift through the deluge of digital information Develop confident critical writing.

Designed to work with a power pack of digital resources and exercises, you′ll find practical and effective tools to think and write critically in an information-saturated age. Whether you′re starting your first degree or arriving as an international or mature student, this book equips you with the skills, insights and confidence to succeed. This second edition has been redesigned and fine-tuned with a focus on accessibility: with a new and improved layout to improve the eBook experience, and updated language, examples and further reading recommendations throughout.

Nánar um bókina

Útgefandi
SAGE Publications, Ltd. (UK)
ISBN
9781529786927
Print ISBN
9781529718539
Format
ePub
Útgáfa
2
Höfundar
Tom Chatfield
Tungumál
English
Útgefið
2022-04-12
Prent takmörkun á líftíma
100
Prent takmörkun
30
Afritunar takmörkun
30

Kaflar

  • Thanks and acknowledgements
  • Preface to the second edition
  • Welcome to the book!
  • What this book will help you to do
  • Thinking critically for yourself
  • Thinking critically online
  • What is critical thinking (and why does it matter)?
  • The opposite of uncritical thinking
  • Scepticism and objectivity
  • The battle against bias
  • Fast and slow thinking
  • Allocating your attention
  • Your toolkit for critical thinking
  • What is critical thinking for?
  • Summary
  • PART I THE ART AND SCIENCE OF BEING REASONABLE
  • 1 Understanding the reasons behind things
  • What is an argument? Persuasion through reasoning
  • Spotting arguments by searching for a conclusion
  • What isn’t an argument? Information without reasoning
  • Explanations: the business of reasoning backwards
  • What isn’t an argument? Persuasion without reasoning
  • Summary
  • 2 Spelling out arguments and assumptions
  • Premises and conclusions: the standard form
  • Reconstructing extended arguments
  • A step-by-step guide to reconstructing arguments
  • A few further words about assumptions
  • Putting it all together
  • Summary
  • 3 Reasoning with logic and certainty
  • Introducing deductive reasoning
  • Valid and invalid arguments
  • Necessary and sufficient conditions
  • Two types of valid and invalid reasoning
  • Sound and unsound arguments
  • Summary
  • 4 Reasoning with observation and uncertainty
  • Argument by induction
  • Introducing inductive force
  • Induction and everyday language
  • Addressing uncertainty through probability
  • Making use of samples
  • The problem of induction
  • Induction and falsification
  • Summary
  • 5 Developing explanations and theories
  • Introducing abduction
  • Explanations, theories and hypotheses
  • Moving towards better explanations
  • Moving from evidence to proof
  • Correlation and causation
  • Conducting meaningful research
  • Summary
  • 6 Assessing evidence and planning your reading strategy
  • Engaging critically with primary and secondary sources
  • Creating a strategy for critical reading
  • Note-taking and critical engagement
  • Summary
  • PART II BEING REASONABLE IN AN UNREASONABLE WORLD
  • 7 Getting to grips with rhetoric
  • The power of language and rhetoric
  • Putting persuasion in context
  • Analysing a message in detail: emotion and human stories
  • Aiming for impartiality
  • Rhetorical devices
  • Summary
  • 8 Seeing through faulty reasoning
  • Fallacious arguments and faulty reasoning
  • Formal and informal fallacies
  • Informal fallacies of relevance (red herrings)
  • Informal fallacies of ambiguity (linguistic fallacies)
  • Informal fallacies of presumption (material fallacies)
  • Two formal fallacies: affirming the consequent and denying the antecedent
  • The undistributed middle: a formal fallacy
  • Base rate neglect: another formal fallacy
  • From base rate neglect to Bayes’s theorem
  • Summary
  • 9 Understanding cognitive bias
  • Four types of heuristic
  • When to trust heuristics and when to distrust them
  • Biases based on how things are presented
  • Biases born from over-simplification
  • Biases born from a lack of insight
  • Behavioural economics and the research context
  • Summary
  • 10 Overcoming bias in yourself and others
  • Attaching excessive significance to random events
  • Failing to consider things that didn’t happen
  • Over-estimating regularity and predictability
  • Humans: good at social situations, bad with numbers
  • Summary
  • 11 Thinking critically about technology
  • From data to knowledge via fake news
  • Social proof and system bias
  • Time, attention and other people
  • Search, discovery and categories of knowledge
  • Practical tips for search, discovery and beyond
  • Summary
  • 12 Putting it all together: critical thinking in study, work and life
  • Good writing in general
  • Good academic writing in particular
  • Writing and rewriting in practice
  • Getting the work done: what is holding you back?
  • Critical thinking and you
  • Ten commandments for critical thinking
  • Summary
  • And finally…
  • Reading guide
  • Glossary
  • Appendix: A synopsis of five valid forms of argument
  • Endnotes
  • Index