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
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Use instead
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proves/ proven… |
shows/ demonstrates/ demonstrated… |
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proof |
credible evidence/ confirmed repeated observation/ unbiased
experimental evidence… |
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disproves |
evidence contradicts/ due to fallacious logic used/ evidence to
contrary indicates… |
|
no
proof |
lack of credible evidence… |