Critical Thinking in Academic Research will introduce students to the techniques and principles of critical thinking. The purpose of slow thinking or critical thinking is to determine which claims are true.
BARRIERS TO CRITICAL THINKING
Chapter Outline
Preconceived ideas are ideas that decisively influence our thinking, but about which we have not reflected critically. Rather, they are assumptions based on preconceived notions about socioeconomic class and personal identity and values.
Straw man argument
An ad hominem argument attacks the character or circumstances of the person making a claim, rather than challenging the claim itself. Either you're going to be aggressive and show her who's boss, or you're going to let her walk all over you.
ANALYZING ARGUMENTS
Deductive arguments are arguments in which the premises (if true) ensure that the conclusion is true. In successful inductive reasoning, the truth of the premises makes the conclusion false, but unlikely.
MAKING AN ARGUMENT
So learning to argue is good job preparation even if you don't choose a scientific career. By keeping this in mind, you will know that the resources you will need are those that support the components of an argument to write for your audience.
A Blueprint for Argument
You must write your response to every objection, counterargument or alternative solution that is raised or that you have thought of. Your readers will probably know what you do because the components in an everyday oral.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This is because research questions are more than handy tools; they are essential to the research process. For example, if you're looking for information about a health problem to find out if you have anything to worry about, research questions will enable you to more effectively decide if you should seek medical attention – and how quickly. Or, if you're researching a potential employer, developing and using research questions will mean you can decide with more confidence whether to apply for an internship or work at that company.
The confidence you will have in making such decisions will come from knowing that the information you use has been gathered from conscious thought and not from whimsy and whim. These terms are sure to come in handy when you're looking for resources later, so bookmark them or otherwise remember them. For example, if you are researching the treatment of children with the coronavirus, this background reading would teach you what professionals and researchers commonly use.
If you didn't learn it, you'd miss out on the kinds of sources you'll eventually need for your assignment. After this preliminary work, you are ready to begin developing the research question(s) you will attempt to answer for your assignment.
Tip: Keeping Track of Your Information
Pick a topic (or consider the one assigned to you)
Write a narrower/smaller topic that is related to the first
List some potential questions that could logically be asked in relation to the narrow topic
Pick the question that you are most interested in
Change that question you’re interested in so that it is more focused
How to Focus Questions
Why have most electric car company start-ups failed?
How do crab apple trees develop buds?
How has NASA helped America?
SOURCES AND INFORMATION NEEDS
To describe the situation surrounding your research question to your audience and explain why it is important. That language will help you later, especially when searching for sources to answer your research question. Whether you can use quantitative or qualitative data depends on what your research question itself calls for.
Only primary and secondary sources can be used to answer your research question and they must be professional and/or scholarly sources for most disciplines (humanities, social sciences and natural sciences). Quantitative or qualitative data: Same as what you used to answer your research question if. Fact or Opinion: Those with the purpose(s) you used to answer your research question if your audience is like you and your professor.
The choices here about source types are simple: just use the same or similar sources you used to answer your research question that you also think will be most compelling to your audience. You will argue that your answer to your research question (your thesis) is correct, or at least reasonable.
TYPES OF SOURCES
You will usually have a lot of sources available to meet the information needs of your projects. The intent of the authors usually affects how useful their information can be to your research project. Another information category is publication mode and has to do with whether the information is.
Primary Sources – Since the information in primary sources is in its original form, it has come to us from its creators without going through any filter. Consider the sources below and the possible circumstances in which each could become a primary source for you to use in your research. Your research project is about 19th century Native American trade east of the Mississippi River.
In other courses, especially in the sciences, you may be expected to use only primary sources. If you are expected to use primary sources for your research project, check with your professor that he or she agrees with your choices before you get too deep into your project.
Movie: Information Cycle
It is their responsibility to help ensure that new material is presented in the context of what is already known, that the methods the researcher has used are appropriate, and that the article contributes to the field. News Feeds – You can get updates on specific topics or a list of top headlines delivered to you regularly so you don't have to visit sites or search for new content on a topic. For our purposes, a definition we like (Erway, 2013) is "units of information observed, collected, or generated during research."
But with this research question ("Why is there a difference between the number of people who qualify for food from food banks and the number of people who use food banks?"), we would also need to know from another source how many people qualify for food banks per based on their income and compare this number with the number of people who use food banks. Sometimes the numerical data you need may not be in the articles, books, and websites you've found. When you have conflicting results, you can't just ignore the differences—you'll have to work hard to explain why the differences occurred.
So getting some experience using people as sources is likely to help you not just with a current research assignment, but with your work in the future. An art conservator who uses the tools that you read about in the newspaper or some other source.
PRECISION SEARCHING
This section shows you how to take several steps to refine your search—you'll see more resources that are useful to you and resources that may be key to your research question. If you are more casual about searching (especially Googling), some of these steps may be new to you. Identify the main concepts in your research question by choosing nouns relevant to the meaning of your question.
Finding the main concepts in a research question is very similar to finding the main idea in an essay or story. The same is the case with research questions - the main concepts can be at the beginning, middle or end. For example, if you identify depression as the main idea, be aware that the search engine does not automatically know whether you mean depression as a psychological condition, as a condition of the economy, or as a weather characteristic.
AND – If the main idea contains two or more ideas, you want to use AND to combine those terms in your search phrase. NOT – If the main idea has a common use that you want to exclude, use NOT to exclude that word.
Tip: Full-Text Searches
Additional limits may include article dates, gender, age, journal titles, full text, and peer review. Library catalogs are searchable online and contain records for all items owned or licensed by the library. Students, faculty, staff, and the community can use the system to find books and other materials for availability and checkout.
Items in the catalog include print books, e-books, journals (but not individual journal articles), documents, maps, broadcast films and videos, and more. Use the library catalog to search for items you can use and check out in the library. To access the catalog, you must go to the library's homepage and search for the term catalog, books, OneSearch, or a similar term.
From there, you can search by resource type (books, video, course reservations, etc.) or other options. The catalog allows searching by author, title, subject, and keywords, as well as special numbers such as Library of Congress call number and ISBN (International Standard Book Number).
Additional tips
The interface may vary depending on access to your university/college library or if you are using the free WorldCat version which allows you to create a free account. To access WorldCat, look carefully at your library's website to see if there is an access point. As discussed in Precision Search, use a variety of search term combinations to find books and other materials.
Google Scholar is a tool for finding books and journal articles that you can usually get from a library. This usually works when you are on campus at your university/college or if there is a "free" version available. Extra note: If you look closely at the results of your searches, you may find that you are being asked to pay for an article.
Instead, you can go to your college or university library's website to see if your library has the journal you're looking for, or you can request the item through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Find Advanced Scholar Search by clicking the icon with three horizontal lines (top left corner of the page).
