Critiques: Required Elements
Natural Science 4 —
Dr. Hall
A large part of your grade in this course
is based on your ability to apply the tools of critical thinking that we’ll be learning
over the next few weeks. As indicated in the calendar and group presentation
assignments handed out in the beginning weeks, we will cover roughly one topic
per week for the remainder of the semester.
Note that if you are part of the presentation, then you will not have to
turn in a critique for that week (that is you do not critique your own
presentation topic). What follows are guidelines on how to write the critique
and what I’ll be looking for when I grade them.
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Critique (example outline) ¶1 Summary
and Statement of Issue ¶2 Summary/Evaluation
of Evidence/Reasons ¶3 Summary/Evaluation
of Logic/Reasoning ¶4 Brief evaluation of presentation ¶5 Discuss
omitted info, alternative hypotheses ¶6 Your
conclusion with supporting argument |
Each critique must
include:
The identification
and clear statement of the issue.
Concise discussion of:
Evaluation of evidence
(on each side)
Identify
pitfalls of human perception, if any
Evaluate
strength and credibility of evidence
Evaluate
credibility of sources
Evaluation of logic (on
each side)
Identify
fallacies, if any
Evaluate
whether the evidence is relevant to
the argument
Omitted relevant
information? Alternative explanations? Occam’s Rasor?
Very brief evaluation of the
presentation
Level of research/
organization/ presentation
Your conclusion with
supporting argument based on above evaluations.
Additional
Requirements:
§
The
paper must be at least 400 words, typed.
§
Each
critique must include an appropriate quoted citation from the textbook Hines.
§
Each
critique must also include two appropriate quoted citations from two of the web
readings.
§
Good
grammar and sentence structure.
Inductive logic is
the primary method of science and critical thinking. Please avoid the words:
prove (or disprove), proven, “scientific proof”, and instead focus on the
credibility and reliability of the evidence and logic structure.
Don’t use |
Use instead |
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proves/ proven… |
shows/ demonstrates/ demonstrated… |
|
proof |
credible evidence/ confirmed repeated
observation/ unbiased experimental evidence… |
|
disproves |
evidence contradicts/ due to fallacious logic
used/ evidence to contrary indicates… |
|
no proof |
lack of credible evidence… |