Critical Thinking

Resources dealing with the thinking process

A Guide to Resource Books dealing with the thinking process.

• The Art of Creative Critical Thinking (1994), by John C.S. Kim. University Press of America.
• The Art of Creative Thinking (1991), By Wilfed A. Peterson. Hay House.
• The Art of Thinking (1996), by Allen F. Harrison and Robert M. Bramson. Berkeley Publishing Group.
• The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Creative and Critical Thinking (1995, 4th edition), by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero. Watson-Guptill Publications.
• Becoming a Critical Thinker: A User-Friendly Manual (1994), by Sherry Diestler. New York: Macmillan.
• College Study Strategies: Thinking and Learning (1996), by Paula W. Gibson and Marcia L. Laskey. New York: Allyn & Bacon.
• The Confident Student (1991), by Carol C. Kanar. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
• The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain's Untapped Potential (1994), by Tony Buzan. New York: Dutton.
• Mind Mapping: Your Personal Guide to Exploring Creativity and Problem-Solving (1991), by Joyce Wycoff. New York: Berkley Books.
• The Process of Writing: Composing Through Critical Thinking (1997), by Roberta Allen and Marcia Mascolini. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Writing the Natural Way: Using Right-Brain Techniques to Release Your Expressive Powers (1983), by Gabrielle L. Rico. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher.

A Guide to Resource Web-sites dealing with critical thinking.

• Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum, Longview Community College, Missouri
• Critical Thinking Community
• CriticalThinking.net The Thinking Resource - by Robert Ennis
  'This site will strive to serve as a resource for teachers and theorists trying to deal with practical problems associated with defining, teaching, and assessing critical thinking."
• Maryland Community College Consortium for Teaching Reasoning
  "The site contains much of interest to faculty teaching thinking in their courses: articles, workshop handouts, lists of books on teaching thinking (including publishers' URLs and telephone numbers), links to other web sites on teaching thinking, a list of URLs for students writing persuasive arguments, and more."
• ChristianLogic.com by Nathianel and Hans Bluedorn
  A website all about logic for Christians, with a home-schooling orientation.  In many ways this is a wonderful, delightful site, with lots of interesting material and useful resources.  Even as an atheist, I can't help admiring the authors for their efforts, though it seems to me that logic should be used not only to defend one's faith but to subject it to critical scrutiny and to question its fundamental tenets.

Guide to the process of critical thinking.

• Baloney Detection Part 1 and Part 2 - by Michael Shermer, in Scientific American
  A good, brief 10-step guide to critical thinking about any claim - especially unusual, surprising, controversial or momentous claims.
• Reasoning from The Reason Group
  This set of pages, taken from the Reason!Able software, is a guide to the basics of reasoning on any topic. Covers the structure of reasoning and evaluating reasoning, plus various other topics.
• A Field Guide to Critical Thinking by James Lett, in Skeptical Inquirer
  "I give [my students] six simple rules to follow when considering any claim, and then show them how to apply those six rules to the examination of any paranormal claim. The six rules of evidential reasoning are my own distillation and simplification of the scientific method. To make it easier for students to remember these half-dozen guidelines, I've coined an acronym for them: Ignoring the vowels, the letters in the word "FiLCHeRS" stand for the rules of Falsifiability, Logic, Comprehensiveness, Honesty, Replicability, and Sufficiency. Apply these six rules to the evidence offered for any claim, I tell my students, and no one will ever be able to sneak up on you and steal your belief. You'll be filch-proof."
• An Introduction to Science, Scientific Thinking and the Scientific Method
  Essay providing an overview of the scientific method and its connection with critical thinking. Intended for science undergraduates, but may be useful in other contexts.
• The Scientific Method Today by Norman W. Edmund.
  "These pages contain today’s most up-to-date, clear, concise and reliable information about the scientific method that has ever been offered." Find out about the "SM-14 Formula for the General Pattern of the Scientific Method." Pitched somewhere between philosophy of science and a 12-step self-help program. Definitely worth a look. Booklets available.
• Centroid Café Bunk Debunker
  "the Centroid Café proposes the FAIR Assessment Engine, a stratagem for debunking any bunk that you might encounter. You will find that using this "engine"—together with the development of a habit of quiet reflection—will very effectively assist you in separating sense from nonsense and in guiding your thinking and decisions toward more prudential actions."
• Study Guide for the U.S. Customs Service Critical Thinking Skills Test (Word document)
  You may well find this useful even if you're not applying for promotion in the US Customs Service.  Much of the document consists of a fairly technical introduction to basic logic.  Working through this study guide would probably be good preparation for a range of standard tests involving logical thinking, eg the LSAT.
• A Quick Introduction to Logic by Scott Lehmann
  A 29 page document (pdf file) covering the basics of logic.  Too succinct and technical to be much use the first time you try to learn about logic, but may be handy for someone wanting to refresh on core topics. 

Writing Argumentative Essays

• Essays and Arguments: A Handbook on Writing Argumentative and Interpretative Essays by Ian Johnston Malaspina University College
  High-quality guide to writing argumentative essays
• Writing Argumentative Essays.
  "Welcome to Writing Argumentative Essays, a unit of curriculum which aims to teach students how to write short argumentative essays of approximately 1000 words."
• Paradigm Online Writing Assistant 
  A good overall writing guide, with a useful section on writing argumentative essays
• Identifying the Argument of an Essay. Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, Nebraska

Critically Evaluating Web Pages

• Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators
  "With the advent of the World Wide Web and the huge amount of information that is contained there, students need to be able to critically evaluate a Web page for authenticity, applicability, authorship, bias, and usabilty. The ability to critically evaluate information is an important skill in this information age."
• Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources by Esther Grassian, UCLA College Library.
  "The World Wide Web has a lot to offer, but not all sources are equally valuable or reliable. Here are some points to consider..." This page is a pretty useful list of points to consider. It can be found at various places around the WWW.
• Critical Thinking and the World Wide Web. A guide by Guide for Evaluating a Web Page, by Kris Brancolini and Emily Okada, Indiana University
• Using critical thinking to conduct effective searches of online resources by Sarah K. Brem & Andrea J. Boyes.
  "This document complements guidelines addressing the mechanics of online searching by considering how treating searching as exercises in critical thinking can improve our use of online resources. We address the use of metacognition, hypothesis-testing, and argumentation, providing illustrative examples, and links to tools that can facilitate the process."

Critical Reading and Writing

• Dan Kurland's www.criticalreading.com
  Everyone complains that students cannot read well and yet most high schools and colleges offer no course in critical reading. This is the website for just such a course. Criticalreading.com shows you how to recognize what a text says, what a text does, and what a text means by analyzing choices of content, language, and structure. It shows you what to look for, and how to think about what you find."
• Teaching Critical Thinking Through Writing, Dartmouth College Composition Centre
  Nice short piece on improving critical thinking through writing exercises in the context of an undergraduate subject.  Perhaps the best part is the description of an example, "Professor Jernstedt's Psych 22".  See also their Teaching Argument

Argument Mapping

• Argument mapping is producing "boxes and arrows" diagrams of reasoning, especially complex arguments and debates. Argument mapping improves our ability to articulate, comprehend and communicate reasoning, thereby promoting critical thinking.
• Argument Mapping Tutorials from Austhink
  Argument mapping is using graphical methods to display the structure of reasoning and argumentation.  The technique is essential for advanced critical thinking.  Without mapping, it is very hard to be clear about the structure of evidence; and without such clarity, critical responses usually misfire.  These six extensive tutorials cover the fundamentals of argument mapping, from elementary inferences through to the most complex arguments.  Each tutorial contains concepts, principles, and vocabulary; a quiz; and exercises with model answers.
• Can Computers Think? 
  Website for the classic series of maps on whether computers can think. 
• Robert Horn  
  Website of one of the pioneers of argument mapping. Contains links to many maps. 
• Austhink Argument Mapping
  Argument mapping page at the website of the Australian Thinking Skills Institute, leaders in the application of argument mapping in education and in professional contexts.
• Visualizing Argumentation: Software Tools for Collaborative and Educational Sense-Making by Paul A. Kirschner,
  Simon J. Buckingham Shum and Chad S. Carr (Eds)
  Important new volume on argument mapping, from Springer-Verlag.  Probably the first book on the topic; contains contributions from many leading players in the field.  This website contains many resources and links beyond what is found in the book.
• Dialog Mapping page of CogNexus Institute
  Dialog is a close cousin of argument mapping.
• Using Maps to Compose Research Papers
  A simple online powerpoint presentation discussing producing argument maps for use in preparing to write research papers. Worth a quick look. 

Essays

• Beyond Words - Bob Holmes, New Scientist  
  Good overview of visual language and argument mapping, focusing mostly on Bob Horn's work. 
• Mapping the Future of Argument by Paul Monk, which appeared in the Australian Financial Review
  Broad historical/philosophical overview of argument mapping and its place in human intellectual development. 
• Discussions of the use of argument maps in teaching philosophy in the online journal Psyche and The Philosopher's Magazine
• Argument Maps Improve Critical Thinking, by Charles Twardy.
  "Computer-based argument mapping greatly enhances student critical thinking, more than tripling absolute gains made by other methods. I describe the method and my experience as an outsider. Argument mapping often showed precisely how students were erring (for example: confusing helping premises for separate reasons), making it much easier for them to fix their errors."
• The IBIS Manual: A Short Course in IBIS Methodology by Jeff Conklin?
  Short guide to IBIS, a method for helping groups think their way through "wicked" problems (e.g., should the US invade Iraq?). "IBIS (pronounced "eye-bis") stands for Issue-Based Information System, and was developed by Horst Rittel and colleagues during the early 1970's. IBIS was developed to provide a simple yet formal structure for the discussion and exploration of "wicked" problems. The purpose of this manual is to explain the rules of the IBIS method, to convey a sense of the power, simplicity, and ease of use of the method and, most importantly, to give the reader confidence that he or she can use the IBIS method to sharpen and organize the exploration of virtually any topic."

Software

• Reason!Able
  The best software for rapid assembly and modification of argument maps. Reason!Able guides and scaffolds users in reasoning about any topic. 
• Araucaria
  "Araucaria is a software tool for analysing arguments. It aids a user in reconstructing and diagramming an argument using a simple point-and-click interface..."
• Athena
  Argument mapping software. "The Athena software is designed to support analysis and production of reasoning and argumentation by students in higher education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels."
• Compendium
  Compendium is a software package supporting IBIS-based dialog mapping.  Not really argument mapping, but closely related, and this is the best tool of its kind.

Email Lists

• Argumap
  Email discussion forum for people interested in the theory and practice of argument mapping.
• TheismArgumaps
  "What is not new: The purpose of the group is to explore arguments for and against the existence of God. What IS New: To then use this information to construct formalised argument maps (or diagrams) showing how all the different arguments fit together."
• VIMS - QuestMap-Dialog Mapping Discussion Forum
  "This discussion space is for questions, ideas, stories, experiences, concerns, and insights about the collaborative tools of IBIS, QuestMap, and Dialog Mapping. It is intended primarily for graduates of the Dialog Mapping workshop, although anyone is welcome to participate. I hope that this group will encourage public experimentation and learning with these tools."

Miscellaneous

• Teach Yourself To Think. By Benjamin Franklin.
  "I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one; but as prose writing had been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what little ability I have in that way."
• The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools by Richard Paul and Linda Elder
  Not really an "on the web" resource - the page is an advertisement but you might want to check it out.

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