Critical Thinking and Universal Intellectual Standards

Questions we should be asking our students each day to apply critical thinking standards:

Clarity

• Could you elaborate further?
• Could you give me an example?
• Could you illustrate what you mean?

Accuracy

• How could we check on that?
• How could we find out if that is true?
• How could we verify or test that?

Precision

• Could you be more specific?
• Could you give me more details?
• Could you be more exact?

Relevance

• How does that relate to the problem?
• How does that bear on the questions?
• How does that help us with the issue?

Depth

• What factors make this a difficult problem?
• What are some of the complexities of this question?
• What are some of the difficulties we need to deal with?

Breadth

• Do we need to look at his from another perspective?
• Do we need to consider another point of view?
• Do we need to look at this in other ways?

Logic

• Does all this make sense together?
• Does your first paragraph fit in with your last?
• Does what you say follow from the evidence?

Significance

• Is this the most important problem to consider?
• Is this the central idea to focus on?
• Which of these facts are most important?

Fairness

• Do I have any vested interest in this issue?
• Am I sympathetically representing the viewpoints of others?