...Essays are an essential element of learning, particularly at an undergraduate level. With a well-written essay comes the power to change minds, to influence thinking and create new perspectives. When evaluating the claims presented by a source in an academic essay, a critical and reflective thinker does not simply accept arguments as ‘fact’. Nor do they create arguments based on innuendo and bias. This essay will contend that for students at university level to be taken seriously they must use critical and reflective thinking to write an effective academic essay. The following points will be addressed; what constitutes a credible essay, what is critical thinking and reflective practice, what is the importance of these skills in developing arguments, the benefits of thinking critically and reflectively, the use of critical reflective thinking in evaluating sources and the importance of recognizing those sources correctly for the work to be considered credible. So what constitutes a credible essay? The purpose of the essay is to forward knowledge, to tackle an already existing argument and build on it using sound evidence and research. “Essays are a document of your learning; they show proof of your understanding of the topic and your ability to communicate that understanding convincingly” (Germov 2011, 2). An essay must put forth an argument then break it down to prove or disprove the thesis. The statement needs to be dissected and the main points need to be analysed. What...
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...CRITICAL THINKING What do we mean by critical thinking? How does critical thinking differ between disciplines? How does critical thinking apply to academic reading? How does critical thinking apply to academic writing? How can I add quality to my writing? Critical thinking as a generic skill for life WHAT DO WE MEAN BY CRITICAL THINKING? When you are thinking critically, you are not just thinking passively and accepting everything you see and hear. You are thinking actively. You are asking questions about what you see and hear, evaluating, categorising, and finding relationships. Some critical thinking activities are listed below: SOME OF THE ACTIVITIES INVOLVED IN CRITICAL THINKING Interpreting according to a framework Relating theory to practice Making a claim and supporting it Using appropriate evidence Making links between ideas Asking questions Evaluating Predicting Describing Analysing Synthesising Categorising Establishing cause and effect Comparing and contrasting Identifying problems and solutions Critical thinking is the essence of tertiary learning. As a university student, you will be expected to apply mental actions such as these to all your academic reading, writing, listening and discussing. HOW DOES CRITICAL THINKING DIFFER BETWEEN DISCIPLINES? Different disciplines are characterised by particular approaches to critical thinking, and a lage part of studying those disciplines means learning to think...
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...Jackson Hum/114 October 2, 2012 Reine Dugas Critical Thinking Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of skillfully evaluating gathered information. It is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. When thinking critically you must think outside the box. Thinking “outside the box,” allows your mind to analyzing and evaluating with the goal of improving your thoughts. No single person’s thinking is universal; everyone is subject to their own individual train of undisciplined or irrational thoughts. When making a decision, there is a difference between weighing information to come to a logical conclusion and making snap judgments without understanding the information. Thus, that is the process of thinking critically. Many significant things stood out to me while learning about critical thinking. The three things that was more significant was that there is six stages to critical thinking, there is nine strategies to enhance critical thinking, and the concept of establishing a solid foundation. I never would have known anything about the stages of critical thinking, not mentioning the strategies to better it. The foundation is the purpose of thinking critically. It is put in place to help you not to make a fool of yourself. Without these new acquired lessons I would be lost if I was just put on the spot. I know now that I should think of every aspect of information or a situation...
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...rhvekrv;ev fv d dv your writing skills, the better your degree classification: The majority of marks which contribute to your degree classification will come from exam essays or other written work (assessed essays, third year project). • This education is costing you, so get your money’s worth. What students want help with Style conventions in scientific writing (1) 76.6% Lab report writing skills (2) 70.2% Thinking skills (2) 70.2% How to reference properly (3) 59.6% Presentation skills (4) 55.3% How to revise your written work effectively (5) 51.1% Learning / Research skills (6) 48.9% Essay writing skills (7) 44.7% Basic writing skills (8) 12.8% Unfortunately, you need to get to grips with (8) before you can truly master (1)…. Writing Skills for Psychologists Factors which contribute to your written work’s grade include (1) Your general writing skills. (How to write) (2) Your understanding of what is required of an undergraduate essay / lab report / presentation. (Why to write) (3) Your understanding of the topic. (What to write) This lecture will focus on 1 and 2. HOWEVER improving 1&2 will inevitably lead to improvements in 3! The following factors are equally important, and are down to you. 1. How interested you are in the topic. 2. The importance you attach to receiving a high grade for a particular piece of work. 3. The amount of effort you are prepared to make given other academic commitments. Writing Skills for Psychologists ...
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...Ethics is the study of the foundational values of a community, critical thinking and ethics are relatable to each other because, both involve the process of evaluation. When practicing good ethics, one must know which behaviors are best for themselves and others, this involves thinking critically. In a statement by Michael Scriven and Richard Paul, “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action” (Critical Thinking as Defined by the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, 1987). The steps within the critical thinking process are: Remembering - Can you recall the key terms facts or events? Understanding – Are you able to explain the idea in your own words? Applying – Can you use this idea to produce a desired result? Analyzing – Are you able to divide the idea into parts, groups or steps? Evaluating – Can you rate the truth, usefulness, or quality of this idea and give reasons for your rating? Creating – Can you invent something new based on this idea? (Becoming a Master Student Chpt. 1). When making ethical decisions in life, one must use the critical thinking process to evaluate which behaviors are acceptable for themselves as well as others. In my opinion, ethics are a set of rules that everyone must follow. I...
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...up with ideas on how you can solve them critically; it is also the ability to use reasoning and logic to unfamiliar ideas and situations. Critical thinking is a form of behavior we can enforce in every moment we need to analyze a certain perspective, situation, problems, and issues. The three most significant things that I have learned about critical thinking during this course are how to identify if it is a problem or an issue, the steps to critically analyze a situation, and finally I learned how to listen, read, and view critically. Learning to identify if a situation is a problem or an issue is imperative. The reason is because they have different approaches to each one. If a situation is a problem, people can all agree that is a problem but may have different ways of mindset when it comes to finding the solution. There may be ideas for solutions that not everybody agrees with, but everybody will agree there is a problem. If the situation is an issue, people will not all agree there may be an issue. Everyone will have their own opinion on the situation to where some may think there is an issue, others may think there is no issue and also others may not agree on how to solve the issue. When you are able to identify if it is an issue or a problem, you can start thinking critically on how to come up with ideas and solutions to solve this problem and any issues that may rise. There are several steps you need to take to critically analyze a situation, problem or idea. Always...
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...Christians to study philosophy? We begin, in true philosophic fashion, by examining the question itself: what do mean by philosophy being important and we introduce the idea of the philosophic mindset. We then examine 5 reasons why it is important for all persons to adopt the philosophic mindset. We will end by providing an overview of the different branches of philosophy. Tasks Read and take notes from chapter 2 of Philosophy: Critically Thinking about Foundational Beliefs, “Why is Philosophy Important?” As you read, make sure you understand the following points and questions: * What is meant by the philosophical mindset? A philosophical mindset is an attitude or approach to life that involves regularly examining beliefs to ascertain what they mean, if they are true and what value they have. A philosophical mindset approaches new information critically. It involves questioning, reflecting and considering the meaning, value and truthfulness of what one sees, reads or hears. (Mark W. Foreman. Prelude to Philosophy: Thinking Critically About Foundational Beliefs. 2012) * How does the job/vocation analogy apply to adopting the philosophical mindset? A job is a task performed in order to receive compensation. It is not something individuals are tied to in any personal way and it usually does not affect persons in any deep manner. In contrast a vocation is a way of life to which one is called. While one may be compensated for performing his vocation, she is...
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...Robert Wenger July 26, 2010 Critical Thinking Application Paper Making decisions is a skill that people use daily in their personal and professional lives. Although people make decisions often, knowing how to think critically is a learned skill that not everyone does effectively. Thinking critically allows a decision-maker to analyze a problem or situation in a structured fashion to come to a sound conclusion. In this paper I will explain critical thinking and provide an example from my own personal experience applying critical thinking in the workplace. I will also look at the importance and benefits of critical thinking in the decision-making process. “Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, empathically” (The Critical Thinking Community [CTC], 2009, para 8). Effective critical thinkers are non-discriminatory, which enables them to consider all relevant viewpoints equally without letting assumptions or bias interfere. These strong-sense critical thinkers place value in the fair and just and make ethical decisions (Paul & Elder, 2006). To think critically, a person must have the ability to view a situation or problem objectively and collect and analyze relevant information to come to a reasonable and valid decision. This kind of thinking focuses on the thought process with the...
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...by evidence”. You think critically every day, whether it is trying to understand the lyrics to a song, or writing a ten page paper. When you think critically, you have to be able to put your bias aside, and try to understand what the writer is trying to get across. The critical thinking process has six different steps, all of which are very beneficial to people that want to become good writers. Benjamin Bloom, a known Psychologist, named these six steps, what we refer to now, as the Bloom’s Taxonomy. The first level of Blooms Taxonomy is remembering what you have previously read or learned. Second, is understanding, making sure that you can remember what you read and making sure you are able to explain it in your own words and give examples. Level three of Blooms Taxonomy is applying the ideas that you understand to construct an outcome. Examples of this would include solving a problem, making a huge decision, or finally completing something that you have been trying to finish for a while. Analyzing your ideas is the fourth level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. This level helps you analyze your ideas and break them up into steps or groups that are similar to each other, for example, reading a book and outlining what the book was about. The fifth step of Bloom’s taxonomy is evaluating ideas and making an honest opinion about the quality of the idea, making sure that you give good reasons as to why you supported your ideas and opinions. Examples of evaluating, is commenting on someone...
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...tool. Critical thinking is a concept in which a person thinks on a higher level and evaluates options to help make a more informed and wise decision. It is reflecting on the issue at hand and requires a little effort in the thought process. Ethics are concepts that identify what is right and wrong. Using ethics when critically thinking can help you make an unbiased or unprejudiced decision. There are several steps involved in critical thinking. They are remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating (Krathwohl, 2001). When remembering, ask yourself “Can I recall the key terms, facts, or events?” When making sure you understand, ask yourself “Can I explain this idea in my own words?” When applying, ask yourself “Can I use this idea to produce a desired result?” When analyzing, ask yourself “Can I divide this idea into parts, groups, or steps?” When evaluating, ask yourself “Can I rate the truth, usefulness, or quality of this idea—and give reasons for my rating?” And finally, when creating, you ask yourself “Can I invent something new based on this idea?” If you follow all of these steps, you will be successful while thinking critically. Another thing to remember about critical thinking, is that no two people are going to have the same outcome when using the above-mentioned steps. When completing my Ethical Lens Inventory, I learned that my expectations of others may be too much. My blind spot was unrealistic role expectations. I rely strongly on virtues...
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...reading this paper and you will have all the answers. Critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do. Under this view, critical thinking is relevant not only to the formation and checking of beliefs, but also to deciding upon and evaluating actions. It involves creative activities such as: • formulating hypotheses’, plans, and counter examples • planning experiments; • seeing alternatives Ennis, R. H. (12/31/2010) Critical thinking is very important. Critical thinking gives people the way to react to matters by figuring out what is true or false and a persons feeling or opinions, to draw warranted conclusion and generalizations. Critical thinking also adds the skill to think of questions, build, and make out the structure of arguments, and effectively back up arguments. A person must be able to define, analyze, and develop solutions for problems and different types of issues. When someone evaluate information, data, and materials by coming up with inferences, making a logical and educated conclusions, applying one’s perception and facts for different and latest problems, making a sane and logical interpretations, and while staying open to new data or other information, values and beliefs, cultural systems, methods, and by understanding information; are all parts of critical thinking. There are so many ways why critical thinking is important. People critical think without even know they are. There are tons of benefits...
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...against everyone and how to think critically to avoid “fake news” around us. In 2016 the Oxfords Dictionary’s Word of the year was post-truth, which means “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. But it doesn’t means that idea of truth doesn’t exist anymore. One accident example was the lie of Washington, DC, pizza shop Comet Ping Pong was running a sex slave operation led by Hillary Clinton led Edgar M....
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...ASIA PACIFIC INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN COLLABORATION WITH STAFFORDSHIRE UNIVERSITY UK BA (Hons) in Business Management [pic] [pic] Individual Assignment “Critically evaluating the effectiveness of women leadership in business organizations” (BSB10177-2 CR - CRITICAL REASONING) Prepared By: Charya De Alwis [CB004491] [IF1371BM] Date of Submission 26th May Instructor Mr. Anthony Marius Submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Business Management Word count for Essay: [Word Count] Word count for PDP: [Word Count] INCOURSE ASSESSMENT SHEET [pic] BSB10177-2 Critical Reasoning Individual Essay | | Assessment Criteria |Allotted Marks % |Earned Marks % | |C1 |Contents : (Currency, relevance and attention to details) |20 | | |C2 |Validity : (Consistency, strength of the arguments and validity of the reasoning) |25 | | |C3 |Suitable Conclusions drawn |10 | | |C4 |Formatting (language, report format) |5 ...
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...The UK public sector has been transformed over the past few decades. In an increasingly global economy, the main lever by which central governments can influence the success of the domestic economy is by ensuring its public sector operates efficiently. The central governments of the developed economies have adopted similar change agendas to transform their public sectors. These change agendas entail the introduction of new structures, new kinds of organizations and a ‘reinvention’ of many parts of the public sector. The intention of successive governments has been the creation of a ‘New Public Sector’, which is more strategic and corporate in its thinking. This ‘New Public Sector’ is intended to replace a public sector characterized by bureaucracy, professionalism and departmentalism. In this paper we take a specific look at the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) from an accounting perspective to shed light on the influence and changes involved of defining something as an accounting entity. We will look closer at and critically evaluate the issues involved in the representation of NOMS as an accounting entity. Furthermore, we will analyze the implications of the representation of NOMS as an accounting entity on definitions of organizational accountability. Therefore, we look in a next step which aspects of NOMS’ accountability are highlighted in the Accounts and what aspects are left out? Finally we examine what issues, items and risks are kept “off-balance sheet”? And...
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...Local Authority after almost 40 years, what has changed? New duties give soft governance but no hard powers DoH estimates that long term conditions account for 69% of health and social care spend, but what impacts most on the health status of the population and how successful are local strategies? Darlington has an ageing population with service demand rising Local government is facing unprecedented budget cuts, is the Public Health Budget an easy target Does Darlington have effective leadership and influence to ensure partnership delivery? Aims and Objectives Aim: To establish how Darlington Borough Council can work as part of a partnership in order to effectively achieve health outcomes within the current economic climate Objectives: To evaluate the changing role of local authorities with regards to public health over the last 40 years To analyse the effectiveness of local authority partnerships and strategies in achieving health outcomes within local communities To critically review the impacts of the current economic climate upon local authorities achieving health outcomes within local communities To establish future partnership strategies for the successful achievement of health outcomes within Darlington Academic Sources Full Academic Reference Coster, C., Mays, N., Scott, C. and Cummings J. (2009) The Impact of Health Needs Assessments and Prioritisation on District Health Board Planning in New Zealand. The International Journal of Health Planning and...
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