Philosophy
5: Critical Thinking and Composition
Pierce College
Department of History, Philosophy, & Sociology
Lecture Notes for Chapter Two
of Sequence for Academic Writing
"Chapter 2" "Critique" Behrens, Laurence and
Leonard J. Rosen. A Sequence for Academic Writing. 5th
Ed.
The
Questions
"(1) To what extent does the author succeed in
his or her purpose?"
"(2) To what extent do you agree with the
author?"
"(1)
To what extent does the author succeed in his or her purpose?"
Summarization
Being able to summarize what you are critically
engaging with is crucial.
Purpose
With a summarization in hand, you can better
understand the author's purpose.
"[I]f the finished piece is coherent, it will
have a primary reason for having been written, and it should be apparent that
the author is attempting to primarily inform, persuade, or entertain a
particular audience."
What You
Bring
"As a critical reader, you bring various
criteria, or standards of judgment, to bear ... ."
"Evaluating Informative Writing"
Is the information accurate?
Is the information significant?
Is the information interpreted fairly?
Persuasive
Writing
Persuasive writing requires a thesis.
Recall that a thesis is original, argumentative,
and interesting.
Theses are
"conclusions that authors have drawn as a result of researching and
thinking about an issue."
Support
Theses are not worth much without support.
Evidence and arguments are needed to support
theses.
"Evaluating Persuasive Writing"
"You can assess the validity of an argument
and its conclusion by determining whether the author has (1) clearly defined
key terms, (2) used information fairly, and (3) argued logically and not
fallaciously."
"Avoiding Logical Fallacies"
Loaded terms
Against the person
Causation correlation
False dichotomies
Hasty generalizations
False analogy
Begging the question
Non Sequitur
Oversimplification
Q2
"(2)
To what extent do you agree with the author?"
Agreeing, disagreeing, or both, to some extent or
another
Either Way Begin
with a summarization.
Express your position.
Explain why you have that position.
Argue for why having the position you have is the
correct way to go.
Support
"Any [position] that you express is effective
to the extent you support it by supplying evidence from your reading (which
should be properly cited), your observation, or your personal
experience."
W/Out
Support
Without that support, you merely have an
opinion.
Reasons
There are a number of reasons for agreeing or
disagreeing.
Assumptions
Good arguments that rest atop bad assumptions
aren't that good.
"How
do you determine the validity of assumptions once you have identified
them? In the absence of more
scientific criteria, you start by considering how well the author's assumptions
stack up against your own experience, observations, reading, and valuesÐwhile
remaining honestly aware of the limits of your own personal
knowledge."
Critique
Suppose you've found an underlying assumption that
you object to. How to critique and
argument with a questionable assumption?
A critique is "a systematic
evaluation."
"Is the information accurate?"
"Is the information significant?"
"Has the author defined terms clearly?"
"Has the author used and interpreted
information fairly?"
"Has the author argued logically?"