Critical Thinking: Learn the Tools the Best Thinkers Use

by Linda Elder The Foundation for Critical Thinking, Richard Paul

Overview

This introduction to critical thinking focuses on an integrated, universal concept of critical thinking that is both substantive and practical. It provides students with the basic intellectual skills they need to think through content in any class, subject, or discipline, and through any problems or issues they face.

Now available from Rowman & Littlefield, Richard Paul and Linda Elder's Critical Thinking: Learn the Tools the Best Thinkers Use focuses on the most basic critical thinking concepts. It includes activities that allow readers to apply these concepts within disciplines and to life. An added feature to this brief book is a focus on close reading and substantive writing.

Content highlights include:

• Think for Yourself activities
• Discovering the parts of thinking and the standards for thinking
• Learning to formulate clear and substantive questions
• Making the design of a course work for you
• Close reading and substantive writing
• Becoming a fairminded thinker

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538139509
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/23/2013
Edition description:	Concise Edition
Pages:	370
Product dimensions:	7.71(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.54(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dr. Linda Elder is an educational psychologist who has taught both psychology and critical thinking at the college level. She has been President of the Foundation for Critical Thinking and the Executive Director of the Center for Critical Thinking for almost 25 years. She has a special interest in the relation of thought and emotion, as well as the cognitive and affective. She has developed an original theory of the stages of critical thinking development. Elder has coauthored four books on critical thinking, as well as all 23 titles found in the Thinker's Guide Library.

Dr. Richard Paul was a leading proponent of critical thinking and through his work and legacy remains an international authority in the field. He founded the Center for Critical Thinking at Sonoma State University in 1980, followed by the Foundation for Critical Thinking. He developed concepts, principles, and theory essentials to a robust and fairminded conception of critical thinking and authored more than 200 articles and seven books on the topic. He presented workshops to hundreds of thousands of educators over his 35-year career as a leader in the critical thinking movement.

Read an Excerpt

PREFACE:

PREFACE

You are what you think. That's right. Whatever you are doing right now, whatever you feel, whatever you want—all are determined by the quality of your thinking. If your thinking is unrealistic, it will lead you to many disappointments. If your thinking is overly pessimistic, it will deny you due recognition of the many things in which you should properly rejoice.

Test this idea for yourself. Identify some examples of your strongest feelings or emotions. Then identify the thinking that is correlated with those examples. For example, if you feel excited about college, it is because you think that good things will happen to you in college. If you dread going to class, it is probably because you think it will be boring or too difficult.

In a similar way, if the quality of your life is not what you would wish it to be, it is most likely because it is tied to the way you think about your life. If you think about it positively, you will feel positive about it. If you think about it negatively, you will feel negative about it.

For example, suppose you came to college with the view that college was going to be a lot of fun and you were going to form good friendships with fellow students who would respect and like you and, what is more, that your romantic relationships would become interesting and exciting. And let's suppose that hasn't happened. If this were the thrust of your thinking, you now would feel disappointed and maybe even frustrated (depending on how negative your experience has been interpreted by your thinking).

For most people, thinking is subconscious, neverexplicitly put into words. For example, most people who think negatively would not say of themselves, "I have chosen to think about myself and my experience in largely negative terms. I prefer to be as unhappy as I can be."

The problem is that when you are not aware of your thinking, you have no chance of correcting poor thinking. When thinking is subconscious, you are in no position to see any problems in it. And, if you don't see any problems in it, you won't be motivated to change it.

The truth is that since few people realize the powerful role that thinking plays in our lives, few gain significant command of it. Therefore, most people are in many ways victims of their own thinking, that is, harmed rather than helped by it. Most people are their own worst enemy. Their thinking is a continual source of problems, preventing them from recognizing opportunities, keeping them from exerting energy where it will do the most good, poisoning relationships, and leading them down blind alleys.

In this book we are concerned with helping you take charge of what you do, what you learn, and how you feel by taking command of how and what you think. We hope that you will discover the power of your thinking and will choose to develop it in ways that serve your interests, as well as the well-being of others.

The single most significant variable in determining the quality of what you learn in college is your thinking. Certainly your, teachers will play a role in your learning. Some of them will do a better job than others of helping you learn. But even the best teachers can help you very little if you lack the intellectual skills necessary for thinking well through course content.

This book introduces you to the tools of mind you need to reason well through the problems and issues you face, whether in the classroom, in your personal life, or in your professional life. If you take these ideas seriously, you can do something for yourself of lifelong value.

If all goes as we plan it, you gradually will become more and more aware of the thinking that causes you problems. And you will be able to change that thinking so you can experience a more satisfying life. You will find that learning, both inside and outside of class, will become more and more rewarding. You will increasingly be able to take the ideas you are learning in class and apply them to your life in a useful way.

The choice is yours, and the quality of your choice can only be as good as the thinking you use to come to that choice. If you think that taking command of your thinking is not important (perhaps you assume that you already have that command), this book won't help you learn to think any better than you do now. If, however, you sense that you have not yet achieved the personal control over your thinking we are speaking of, and you recognize its potential value, you will read on, and progressively take the steps to create personal control and power.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Start-up Definition of Critical Thinking.
1. How the Mind Can Discover Itself
2. Discover The Parts of Thinking
3. Discover Universal Standards for Thinking
4. Redefining Grades as Levels of Thinking and Learning
5. Learn to Ask the Questions the Best Thinkers Ask
6. Discover How the Best Thinkers Learn
7. Learn How to Read Closely and Write Substantively
Part I: Discover Close Reading
Part II: Discover Substantive Writing
Part III: Practice Close Reading and Substantive Writing
8. Become a Fairminded Thinker
9. Deal with Your Irrational Mind
Part I: The Best Thinkers Take Charge of Their Egocentric Nature
Part II: The Best Thinkers Take Charge of Their Sociocentric Thinking
10. The Stages of Critical Thinking Development: At What Stage Are You?
Appendix A: Further Exercises in Close Reading and Substantive Writing
Appendix B: Sample Analyses of “The Logic of. . .”
Appendix C: What We Mean By “The Best Thinkers?”
Glossary

Preface

PREFACE:

PREFACE

You are what you think. That's right. Whatever you are doing right now, whatever you feel, whatever you want—all are determined by the quality of your thinking. If your thinking is unrealistic, it will lead you to many disappointments. If your thinking is overly pessimistic, it will deny you due recognition of the many things in which you should properly rejoice.

Test this idea for yourself. Identify some examples of your strongest feelings or emotions. Then identify the thinking that is correlated with those examples. For example, if you feel excited about college, it is because you think that good things will happen to you in college. If you dread going to class, it is probably because you think it will be boring or too difficult.

In a similar way, if the quality of your life is not what you would wish it to be, it is most likely because it is tied to the way you think about your life. If you think about it positively, you will feel positive about it. If you think about it negatively, you will feel negative about it.

For example, suppose you came to college with the view that college was going to be a lot of fun and you were going to form good friendships with fellow students who would respect and like you and, what is more, that your romantic relationships would become interesting and exciting. And let's suppose that hasn't happened. If this were the thrust of your thinking, you now would feel disappointed and maybe even frustrated (depending on how negative your experience has been interpreted by your thinking).

For most people, thinking is subconscious,neverexplicitly put into words. For example, most people who think negatively would not say of themselves, "I have chosen to think about myself and my experience in largely negative terms. I prefer to be as unhappy as I can be."

The problem is that when you are not aware of your thinking, you have no chance of correcting poor thinking. When thinking is subconscious, you are in no position to see any problems in it. And, if you don't see any problems in it, you won't be motivated to change it.

The truth is that since few people realize the powerful role that thinking plays in our lives, few gain significant command of it. Therefore, most people are in many ways victims of their own thinking, that is, harmed rather than helped by it. Most people are their own worst enemy. Their thinking is a continual source of problems, preventing them from recognizing opportunities, keeping them from exerting energy where it will do the most good, poisoning relationships, and leading them down blind alleys.

In this book we are concerned with helping you take charge of what you do, what you learn, and how you feel by taking command of how and what you think. We hope that you will discover the power of your thinking and will choose to develop it in ways that serve your interests, as well as the well-being of others.

The single most significant variable in determining the quality of what you learn in college is your thinking. Certainly your, teachers will play a role in your learning. Some of them will do a better job than others of helping you learn. But even the best teachers can help you very little if you lack the intellectual skills necessary for thinking well through course content.

This book introduces you to the tools of mind you need to reason well through the problems and issues you face, whether in the classroom, in your personal life, or in your professional life. If you take these ideas seriously, you can do something for yourself of lifelong value.

If all goes as we plan it, you gradually will become more and more aware of the thinking that causes you problems. And you will be able to change that thinking so you can experience a more satisfying life. You will find that learning, both inside and outside of class, will become more and more rewarding. You will increasingly be able to take the ideas you are learning in class and apply them to your life in a useful way.

The choice is yours, and the quality of your choice can only be as good as the thinking you use to come to that choice. If you think that taking command of your thinking is not important (perhaps you assume that you already have that command), this book won't help you learn to think any better than you do now. If, however, you sense that you have not yet achieved the personal control over your thinking we are speaking of, and you recognize its potential value, you will read on, and progressively take the steps to create personal control and power.

Editorial Reviews

This concise version is a comprehensive and robust textbook Many Critical Thinking books cover thinking from a narrow angle, but Paul and Elder offer a model of critical thinking that can be applied not only to academic disciplines but also to life in general.

Connie Wolfe

This book is well-written, lucid and contains abundant examples and applications that not only enliven the subject matter but present relevant contexts for building understanding and advanced critical thinking. In addition, it is faithful to the complexity and work required to improve one's thinking. It does not soft-pedal the challenge but actually throws down the gauntlet to the worthy reader to pick it up.

Stephen J. Knopp

This book is well-written, lucid and contains abundant examples and applications that not only enliven the subject matter but present relevant contexts for building understanding and advanced critical thinking. In addition, it is faithful to the complexity and work required to improve one's thinking. It does not soft-pedal the challenge but actually throws down the gauntlet to the worthy reader to pick it up.--Stephen J. Knopp, Ohio University

This concise version is a comprehensive and robust textbook Many Critical Thinking books cover thinking from a narrow angle, but Paul and Elder offer a model of critical thinking that can be applied not only to academic disciplines but also to life in general.--Connie Wolfe, Surry Community College

From the Publisher