Week 4: Discussion One, Journal and Quiz

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Erin Morotti

MondayJun 25 at 11:57pm

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Explain at least five elements of critical thinking that you found in the reading material.

A critical thinker will ask good questions and identify good sources in an attempt to identify legitimate results. Critical thinking requires critical awareness, especially when using the internet. For example, internet users, “…need to understand what to search, how to search and how to evaluate what they have found critical awareness is crucial whenever a person uses the Internet” (Plencner, 2014). Awareness should also come from owning their biases, when in favor of one thing more than another, i.e. neutrality. Even in neutrality, one still has their own opinion. Therefore, critical thinkers will put their opinion aside or challenge it when necessary.

Search the Internet, media, or the Ashford University Library, and find an example in which good critical thinking skills are being demonstrated by the author or speaker. Summarize the content, and explain why you think it demonstrates good critical thinking skills.

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen explains in his article, Many Faces of Gender Inequality, that “…within every community, nationality, and class, the burden of hardship often falls disproportionately on women” (Sen, 2001). His statement is non-discriminatory and lacks bias to one country in particular. Instead, this professor uses facts and data such as the census to emphasize his point in areas such as mortality inequality and natality inequality. He is perceived to be critically aware of the issue and neutral aside from obvious evidence. His honesty is apparent when he states, “I must warn against smugness of thinking that the United States and Western Europe are free from gender bias simply because some of the empirical generalizations that can be made about other regions of the world would not hold in the West” (Sen, 2001) i.e. we are all to blame for this global issue.

Search the Internet, media, or the Ashford University Library, and find an example in which the author or speaker lacks good critical thinking skills. Summarize the content, and explain why you think it demonstrates the absence of good, critical thinking skills.

I never thought I would find a “bad” article from Stanford, but low and behold, read 20 Facts about U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know. Is this scholarly? It provides its sources. Is this factual? It has charts and data. Is there bias? Actually, they state many different types of inequality that raise good questions for the reader to ponder such as “… sheltered homeless include disproportionate numbers of males…” (Stanford, 2011). However, this article is missing two important things. First, the author and the author’s contact and credentials. Second, any kind of dialogue, curiosity, any out loud critical thought, it is strictly the facts. Possibly the mystery author intended this article to be as dry as it is perceived, or possibly it is just an article lacking critical thinking skills.

References:

Plencner, A. (2014). Critical thinking and the challenges of Internet. Communication Today, 5(2), 4-18. Retrieved from http://www.communicationtoday.sk/critical-thinking-and-the-challenges-of-internet/

Sen, A. (2001). Introduction: The Many Faces of Gender and Organization. Frontline,18(22), 1-19. doi:10.4135/9781446280133.n1

Stanford Center of Poverty & Inequality. (2011). 20 Facts About U.S. Inequality that Everyone Should Know. Retrieved June 25, 2018, from https://inequality.stanford.edu/publications/20-facts-about-us-inequality-everyone-should-know