In the last presidential debate, Obama and Romney kept talking about how they want to support the "Middle Class".
What is the "Middle Class"?
Read this article by Economics Reporter John W. Schoen
Who or what is the "Middle Class"?
"Middle Class" means different things to different people.
Some people think, if you have a job, a home, a family and some money for a vacation, then you are in the "Middle Class".
If you make $50,000 a year, most people think you are in the "Middle Class".
But how about if you make $100,000 a year?
Many people who make $100,000 think of themselves in the "Middle Class".
How about $200,000 a year?
Some people who make $200,000 think of themselves in the "Middle Class".
I can`t believe it!
"Middle Class" is a very ambiguous term.
That`s why politicians want to keep saying it!
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Ambiguous Definitions
Some words are ambiguous.
For example, "Rich"
photo by TheTruthAbout
When you use these words, you should try to define them in concrete terms.
For example, "By rich, I mean people who earn more than $1,000,000 a year"
Once you have defined an ambiguous word in concrete terms, you must use the same definition from them on.
You should not change your definition.
Sometimes a writer uses 2 definitions at the same time in order to trick the reader.
Look at this link.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-krikorian-time-20120301,0,1310855.story?track=rss
The writer wants to have 30 "hours" in a day.
Thus each "hour" would be 48 minutes long.
That`s fine but then the writer mixes the old definition of "hour" with the new definition of "hour".
"But wait, there's more. How many times have we heard that eight hours of sleep is ideal. With my 48-minute hour, folks who now regularly get in only six hours of sleep would come close to that ideal, clocking 71/2 hours of slumber."
The intention of the writer in this case is just to amuse the reader.
But some writers use this trick in order to fool the readers.
Be careful of this trick!
For example, "Rich"
When you use these words, you should try to define them in concrete terms.
For example, "By rich, I mean people who earn more than $1,000,000 a year"
Once you have defined an ambiguous word in concrete terms, you must use the same definition from them on.
You should not change your definition.
Sometimes a writer uses 2 definitions at the same time in order to trick the reader.
Look at this link.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-krikorian-time-20120301,0,1310855.story?track=rss
The writer wants to have 30 "hours" in a day.
Thus each "hour" would be 48 minutes long.
That`s fine but then the writer mixes the old definition of "hour" with the new definition of "hour".
"But wait, there's more. How many times have we heard that eight hours of sleep is ideal. With my 48-minute hour, folks who now regularly get in only six hours of sleep would come close to that ideal, clocking 71/2 hours of slumber."
The intention of the writer in this case is just to amuse the reader.
But some writers use this trick in order to fool the readers.
Be careful of this trick!
Monday, October 15, 2012
Assignment for next week
Assignment for next week
1) Read chapter 4 of the textbook.
2) Choose an article that expresses an opinion. Find the Issue, Conclusion and Reasons.
This website has a lot of articles!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
1) Read chapter 4 of the textbook.
2) Choose an article that expresses an opinion. Find the Issue, Conclusion and Reasons.
This website has a lot of articles!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Issue, Conclusion and Reasons!
We must do a lot of work to find the Issues, Conclusions and Reasons from various essays.
I would like to make it clear why we spend so much time getting the Issues and the Conclusions correct and why we spend time to find out all of the Reasons for each Conclusion.
First, why do we have to find out all of the Reasons?
It takes a lot of work to identify all of the Reasons even from a short essay.
What`s the point?
This is an excellent question. (see ARQ page7 "Who Cares?")
Critical Thinking takes a lot of time and effort so we should save our time and only use our Critical Thinking skills on issues that we think are important to us, right?
However, in a Critical Thinking class, we want to use these examples to improve our Critical Thinking skills even if normally, we would not be interested in the issue in the essay.
With practice, we become better and faster at identifying Reasons.
Thus, when we are faced with an issue that we care about, we can quickly identify all of the Reasons in an argument. Without being able to identify all of the Reasons, we will not be able to determine the worth of a Conclusion. (ARQ page 29)
Next, let me explain why we spend so much time getting the Issues and the Conclusions correct.
What do I mean by "correct"?
In the class, I said that some of the Issues and Conclusions that you wrote were too general and some were too specific.
How can you know if you are being too general or too specific?
If you are being too specific, you are focusing on only part of the writers argument. After you think you have found the Issue and the Conclusion, look at the essay again. Are there large parts of the essay that are not covered by the Issue and Conclusion? If this is true then your Issue and Conclusion are probably too specific. Try to make it more general so that they include the entire essay.
If you are being too general, you are making the Issue and Conclusion wider in scope than the author intended. Try to make your Issue and Conclusion more specific until it just fits what the author has written.
This is not always easy. You will find that you might have to discard many tentative Issues and Conclusions until you find the ones that fit the best with what the author has written.
Let me give you an example where I had trouble finding the Issue and Conclusion in an editorial from a newspaper.
Go to this editorial about welfare programs
When I first read this editorial I identified the Issue as "Who receives the most government aid?" and the Conclusion as "The middle class receives the most government aid"
I identified three Reasons.
1) The poorest are receiving less aid now (36%) than in 1979 (54%) (from The Times study)
2) The middle 60% received a higher percentage of their income from the government than the poorest. (CBPP study)
3) More aid goes to rural areas (where middle class people live) than to urban areas(where the poorest people live). (from the Times study)
My reasoning map for this argument looked like this:
Here is where I found The Issue, Conclusion and the Reasons:
At first, I thought I had done a really good job.
But then I looked at the article again.
How about the first 3 paragraphs?
They had no connection to my Issue or Conclusion.
Perhaps I made my Issue and Conclusion too specific?
How did I change my Issue and Conclusion?
I decided to make them more general so that the entire article fits into the reasoning map.
Once again, I had to find the Conclusion.
Let`s use the clues from ARQ pages 22-24.
Clue No. 1: Ask what the issue is.
I don`t know the Issue. Go to the next clue.
Clue No 2: Look for indicator words.
I can`t find any.
Clue No. 3: Look in likely locations.
I looked at the beginning but did not find it.
At the end, I saw something that looked like a Conclusion but it was not really clear.
"The disparity is stark. The very people rising in anger against government aid are, in many cases, the ones who benefit most from it. If public policy is to be based on facts, not fantasy, that's a place to start."
Maybe the Conclusion is "The middle class should be angry at themselves. The middle class should not be angry at the poor."
But this is far too general.
My next try was "The middle class should be angry at themselves for receiving so much government aid. The middle class should not be angry at the poor."
This is better but I`m not so happy with it.
Why is receiving government aid bad?
This is not explained in the article.
In this case we have to look at the context in which it is written. (Clue No. 5: Check the context of the communication)
In America, currently, there is a big debate about the rising cost of welfare programs.
The USA owes a lot of money and it has to borrow more and more.
Most people agree that welfare programs cost too much.
So let me change the Conclusion to "The middle class should be angry at themselves the rising cost of government aid. The middle class should not be angry at the poor."
This is a lot better. However, it seems too emotional.
Does the writer really want the middle class to be "angry"?
Finally, I changed the Conclusion to "The middle class are to blame for the rising cost of government aid"
Thus the Issue is "Who should we blame for the rising cost of government aid?"
Now I can change the reasoning map.
This looks a lot more like a correct reasoning map!
However, we are still missing some parts.
I can add the information from the first three paragraphs to the reasoning map.
In the second paragraph, I found an objection to the Conclusion.
It is "The poorest people are drug addicts"
In the third paragraph, I found a rebuttal to that objection.
It is "A Florida case study showed that the poorest use drugs less than the general population"
Here is my completed reasoning map for the argument in this article!
The objection is in red and the rebuttal is in orange.
Now, I`m happy with this reasoning map.
All of the points made in the article fit easily into the reasoning map because I defined the Issue and the Conclusion without being too general or too specific!
I would like to make it clear why we spend so much time getting the Issues and the Conclusions correct and why we spend time to find out all of the Reasons for each Conclusion.
First, why do we have to find out all of the Reasons?
It takes a lot of work to identify all of the Reasons even from a short essay.
What`s the point?
This is an excellent question. (see ARQ page7 "Who Cares?")
Critical Thinking takes a lot of time and effort so we should save our time and only use our Critical Thinking skills on issues that we think are important to us, right?
However, in a Critical Thinking class, we want to use these examples to improve our Critical Thinking skills even if normally, we would not be interested in the issue in the essay.
With practice, we become better and faster at identifying Reasons.
Thus, when we are faced with an issue that we care about, we can quickly identify all of the Reasons in an argument. Without being able to identify all of the Reasons, we will not be able to determine the worth of a Conclusion. (ARQ page 29)
Next, let me explain why we spend so much time getting the Issues and the Conclusions correct.
What do I mean by "correct"?
In the class, I said that some of the Issues and Conclusions that you wrote were too general and some were too specific.
How can you know if you are being too general or too specific?
If you are being too specific, you are focusing on only part of the writers argument. After you think you have found the Issue and the Conclusion, look at the essay again. Are there large parts of the essay that are not covered by the Issue and Conclusion? If this is true then your Issue and Conclusion are probably too specific. Try to make it more general so that they include the entire essay.
If you are being too general, you are making the Issue and Conclusion wider in scope than the author intended. Try to make your Issue and Conclusion more specific until it just fits what the author has written.
This is not always easy. You will find that you might have to discard many tentative Issues and Conclusions until you find the ones that fit the best with what the author has written.
Let me give you an example where I had trouble finding the Issue and Conclusion in an editorial from a newspaper.
Go to this editorial about welfare programs
When I first read this editorial I identified the Issue as "Who receives the most government aid?" and the Conclusion as "The middle class receives the most government aid"
I identified three Reasons.
1) The poorest are receiving less aid now (36%) than in 1979 (54%) (from The Times study)
2) The middle 60% received a higher percentage of their income from the government than the poorest. (CBPP study)
3) More aid goes to rural areas (where middle class people live) than to urban areas(where the poorest people live). (from the Times study)
My reasoning map for this argument looked like this:
Here is where I found The Issue, Conclusion and the Reasons:
At first, I thought I had done a really good job.
But then I looked at the article again.
How about the first 3 paragraphs?
They had no connection to my Issue or Conclusion.
Perhaps I made my Issue and Conclusion too specific?
How did I change my Issue and Conclusion?
I decided to make them more general so that the entire article fits into the reasoning map.
Once again, I had to find the Conclusion.
Let`s use the clues from ARQ pages 22-24.
Clue No. 1: Ask what the issue is.
I don`t know the Issue. Go to the next clue.
Clue No 2: Look for indicator words.
I can`t find any.
Clue No. 3: Look in likely locations.
I looked at the beginning but did not find it.
At the end, I saw something that looked like a Conclusion but it was not really clear.
"The disparity is stark. The very people rising in anger against government aid are, in many cases, the ones who benefit most from it. If public policy is to be based on facts, not fantasy, that's a place to start."
Maybe the Conclusion is "The middle class should be angry at themselves. The middle class should not be angry at the poor."
But this is far too general.
My next try was "The middle class should be angry at themselves for receiving so much government aid. The middle class should not be angry at the poor."
This is better but I`m not so happy with it.
Why is receiving government aid bad?
This is not explained in the article.
In this case we have to look at the context in which it is written. (Clue No. 5: Check the context of the communication)
In America, currently, there is a big debate about the rising cost of welfare programs.
The USA owes a lot of money and it has to borrow more and more.
Most people agree that welfare programs cost too much.
So let me change the Conclusion to "The middle class should be angry at themselves the rising cost of government aid. The middle class should not be angry at the poor."
This is a lot better. However, it seems too emotional.
Does the writer really want the middle class to be "angry"?
Finally, I changed the Conclusion to "The middle class are to blame for the rising cost of government aid"
Thus the Issue is "Who should we blame for the rising cost of government aid?"
Now I can change the reasoning map.
This looks a lot more like a correct reasoning map!
However, we are still missing some parts.
I can add the information from the first three paragraphs to the reasoning map.
In the second paragraph, I found an objection to the Conclusion.
It is "The poorest people are drug addicts"
In the third paragraph, I found a rebuttal to that objection.
It is "A Florida case study showed that the poorest use drugs less than the general population"
Here is my completed reasoning map for the argument in this article!
The objection is in red and the rebuttal is in orange.
Now, I`m happy with this reasoning map.
All of the points made in the article fit easily into the reasoning map because I defined the Issue and the Conclusion without being too general or too specific!
Barriers to Critical Thinking: Too Many Choices!
Read this article about internet dating from the Economist.
http://www.economist.com/node/21547217?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/themodernmatchmakers
"The crucial assumption here, of course, is that what people think they want is what they actually need. That, it is true, is an assumption behind all consumer decisions......... And here, too, the data suggest people are not good at knowing what they want. One of Dr Finkel’s own studies, for example, showed that when they are engaged in internet dating’s cousin, speed dating, people’s stated preferences at the beginning of the process do not well match the characters of the individuals they actually like."
"Indeed, even the very volume of alternatives may be a problem. Studies on consumer choice, from boxes of chocolates to restaurant wine lists, have shown that less is more. Half a dozen bonbons, or a dozen bottles, are easier to pick between than 30 or 40. And an internet dating site may come up with not just a few dozen, but thousands of allegedly suitable matches."
from www.economist.com
Some interesting thoughts from this are:
Sometimes, people don`t know what they really want.
Do you always know what you really want?
Too many choices is a barrier to Critical Thinking.
Can you think of a time when you had too many choices?
How did you deal with that situation?
"Not surprisingly, the difficulty of choosing from abundance seems to apply to choice of people, too. Dr Finkel could find no study which addressed the question directly, in the context of internet dating. But speed-dating once again provided an answer. Here, he found studies which showed that when faced with abundant choice, people pay less attention to characteristics that require thinking and conversation to evaluate (occupational status and level of education, for example) and more to matters physical. Choice, in other words, dulls the critical faculties."
from www.economist.com
Let`s analyze this paragraph using the method explained in our textbook (ARQ)
First, we must find the conclusion. (ARQ pages 22-24)
Clue No. 1: Ask what the issue is.
The issue is, "How does choice affect critical thinking?"
Clue No 2: Look for indicator words.
I can`t find any.
Clue No. 3: Look in likely locations.
I looked at the beginning, but did not find the conclusion.
I found the conclusion at the end. It is "Choice dulls the critical faculties."
Now, I have the conclusion. Next, I must find the reason.
We will use the method on pages 30-32 of ARQ.
A reason must answer the question "Why does the writer or speaker believe that?"
Also we can look for indicator words (ARQ page 32)
I found the indicator words.
"he found studies which showed that"
Thus the reason is "Here, he found studies which showed that when faced with abundant choice, people pay less attention to characteristics that require thinking and conversation to evaluate (occupational status and level of education, for example) and more to matters physical."
This is an example of a reason that uses research findings.
http://www.economist.com/node/21547217?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/themodernmatchmakers
"The crucial assumption here, of course, is that what people think they want is what they actually need. That, it is true, is an assumption behind all consumer decisions......... And here, too, the data suggest people are not good at knowing what they want. One of Dr Finkel’s own studies, for example, showed that when they are engaged in internet dating’s cousin, speed dating, people’s stated preferences at the beginning of the process do not well match the characters of the individuals they actually like."
"Indeed, even the very volume of alternatives may be a problem. Studies on consumer choice, from boxes of chocolates to restaurant wine lists, have shown that less is more. Half a dozen bonbons, or a dozen bottles, are easier to pick between than 30 or 40. And an internet dating site may come up with not just a few dozen, but thousands of allegedly suitable matches."
from www.economist.com
Some interesting thoughts from this are:
Sometimes, people don`t know what they really want.
Do you always know what you really want?
Too many choices is a barrier to Critical Thinking.
Can you think of a time when you had too many choices?
How did you deal with that situation?
"Not surprisingly, the difficulty of choosing from abundance seems to apply to choice of people, too. Dr Finkel could find no study which addressed the question directly, in the context of internet dating. But speed-dating once again provided an answer. Here, he found studies which showed that when faced with abundant choice, people pay less attention to characteristics that require thinking and conversation to evaluate (occupational status and level of education, for example) and more to matters physical. Choice, in other words, dulls the critical faculties."
from www.economist.com
Let`s analyze this paragraph using the method explained in our textbook (ARQ)
First, we must find the conclusion. (ARQ pages 22-24)
Clue No. 1: Ask what the issue is.
The issue is, "How does choice affect critical thinking?"
Clue No 2: Look for indicator words.
I can`t find any.
Clue No. 3: Look in likely locations.
I looked at the beginning, but did not find the conclusion.
I found the conclusion at the end. It is "Choice dulls the critical faculties."
Now, I have the conclusion. Next, I must find the reason.
We will use the method on pages 30-32 of ARQ.
A reason must answer the question "Why does the writer or speaker believe that?"
Also we can look for indicator words (ARQ page 32)
I found the indicator words.
"he found studies which showed that"
Thus the reason is "Here, he found studies which showed that when faced with abundant choice, people pay less attention to characteristics that require thinking and conversation to evaluate (occupational status and level of education, for example) and more to matters physical."
This is an example of a reason that uses research findings.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Assingnment for next week
1) Read chapter 3 of the textbook.
2) Read the post Barriers to critical thinking in this blog.
Answer the four questions.
Good luck!
2) Read the post Barriers to critical thinking in this blog.
Answer the four questions.
Good luck!
Barriers to Critical Thinking
We would always like to be able to think critically all of the time. But, this is very difficult. One situation where I have trouble thinking critically is in a bookstore.
I have so many books in my closet that I have not read. But, I still want more books.
I should think more critically when I`m in a bookstore.
1) Give an example of a situation where you have trouble thinking critically.
2) Why do you have trouble thinking critically in that situation?
3) Give an example of a situation where you can think critically.
4) What is the difference between these situations?
I have so many books in my closet that I have not read. But, I still want more books.
I should think more critically when I`m in a bookstore.
1) Give an example of a situation where you have trouble thinking critically.
2) Why do you have trouble thinking critically in that situation?
3) Give an example of a situation where you can think critically.
4) What is the difference between these situations?
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