Critical Thinking Skills
In honor of my wonderful students with
critical minds!
by Holly Cin

Critical Reading Skills
When reading a text, consider the following
questions:
 Who
 What
 When
 Where
 Why
 How

What?
 What kind of text is it?
 Is it from a textbook? Is it from a
newspaper? Is it from an advertisement?
Is it from a scientific journal? Is it
something I just found on the internet?
 Here you can also ask: What is its
purpose?

Why?
 What is the purpose of the article?
 General reasons we write:
 1. Inform
 2. Persuade
 3. Entertain
 4. Instruct
 Or some combination of the above

When?
 When was the article written?
 Is the information current or outdated?
 Even if material is outdated, it could be
useful for historical purposes; to know
what people thought at that time, or to
know how something has changed.

Where?
 Is the information affected by where it
comes from?
e.g. Information about America could be
different if presented by an American or a
Canadian or an Iranian. Where we are
from affects our perspective and
worldview!

Worldview and Perspective
 Economic position in society (wealthy, poor, middle
class, unemployed, etc.)
 Gender
 Where we come from: inner city, suburbs, rural area
 Ethnicity or religion
 Political beliefs
 Life experience
 Friends and families and their opinions
 The media we read, watch, or listen to

How?
 What is the TONE of the writing?
 Is it serious, humorous, alarmist,
cautious, doubtful, defiant, oppositional,
supportive, indifferent, authoritative,
positive, negative, optimistic, pessimistic,
ironic, sarcastic, thoughtful, formal,
casual, hopeful, etc…

How: Facts
 How are facts presented?
 Although facts can be verified, they may not
always tell the whole truth. In fact, the way
facts are presented can sometimes distort the
conclusions you might draw from them.
 For example, the way risk statistics are
presented can have a huge difference in the
impact they make and in how people react to
them.

Which is more powerful?
 .7 % of people worldwide will
contract AIDS in the next
decade.
 7 out of 1000 people will contract
AIDS in the next decade.

Which is more powerful?
Cell phone use causes 6% of all
car accidents in the U.S.
 There are 636,000 car accidents
each year due to cell phone use
in the U.S.
 There are 50 deaths per week
due to cell phone use in the U.S.

Case 1
 Vaccine 1 will definitely save 200 lives.
 Vaccine 2 is experimental and has an
uncertain outcome. There is a 33%
chance that all 600 people will be saved,
but a 67% chance that no one will be
saved.
Which vaccine would you choose?

Case 2
 With vaccine 1, 400 of the 600 people will
die.
 Vaccine 2 is experimental and has an
uncertain outcome. It provides a 33
percent chance that no one will die, and
a 67 percent chance that everyone will
die.
Which vaccine would you choose?

How: Facts
 Which facts are included?
 Which points of view are included?
 What’s not presented?
 Think about video editing: do we see the
full picture or just a selected part?
 Something can be factual without giving
the full picture (in court we swear to tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth)

Statistics could be true, yet misleading.
 When someone wants to use statistics to make a point, there are many
choices of just what numbers to use. Suppose we want to dramatize how
much the price of candy bars has gone up. We might have the following
data:
 January $ .76
February $ .54
March $ .51
April $ .63
May $ .80
June $ .91
July $ .76
 We could correctly say that the price jumped from 51 cents to 91 cents in
only three months (March to June), an increase of more than 78%! On the
other hand, we can see it didn't change at all from January to July, which
we might avoid mentioning if we wanted to impress people with the price
increase. Choosing the starting and ending points for data used is an
easy way to deliberately manipulate statistics.

Who?
 Who is the source of the information?
How much experience do they have in
their field? Are they reliable? Are they
trustworthy?
 Are they subjective or objective? Who do
they work for? Who sponsors their
research? (Think Marlboro for cigarette
research!)
 Do they have a bias? Can you identify it?
 What is their worldview?

Bias
 Some bias is overt.
 Usually bias is presented in more subtle forms
and it takes a critical thinker to uncover it.

How do we identify bias?
1. Pay attention to the tone
If the author has no bias in favor or against
the topic, the tone will be neutral and
objective.
If the author shows a bias in favor or
against the topic, the tone will be
subjective—either positive or negative. It
will be opinionated. It will not be neutral.

How do we identify bias?
Pay attention to the words
Does the author use mostly positive
language?
Does the author use mostly negative
language?

How do we identify bias?
Pay attention to the information
given
Does the author present both positive and
negative aspects of the topic?
Does the author present facts or opinions?
If the information is one-sided, then it is
biased.
If the information is balanced, then it is
unbiased.

How to identify bias
 1. Identify the topic and the main idea.
 2. Identify the author’s attitude—either positive or
negative.
 3. Ask whether the author has taken a subjective,
one-sided approach or whether the author
presents more than one side.
 4. Identify opinions expressed in biased writing.
 5. If you are unable to find either a positive or
negative attitude toward the subject, then you can
safely conclude that the writing is unbiased.

Biased or unbiased?
 When Starbucks opens new stores in small
towns, it threatens locally owned cafes and
contributes to the loss of the local flavor of
Main Streets across America. Big chains like
Starbucks homogenize our lives and leave us
wondering what makes my town look any
different from other towns. The time is now to
support our local businesses and to protest big
chain takeovers of our communities.

Biased or unbiased?
 What is the topic?
 Big chain stores in small towns.
 What is the main idea?
 Big chain stores are threatening the existence of locally owned
businesses.
 What is the author’s attitude toward the topic?
 The author expresses a negative attitude toward chains like
Starbucks.
 Biased or unbiased?
 Biased against the big chains.

Biased or unbiased?
 More and more, credit card companies are taking
advantage of their clients by adding additional
small fees to monthly credit card bills. For
example, many clients unknowingly sign on for
such services as “credit protector” or “travel
advantages” programs, and then see these fees
add up over time. When clients realize that they
are paying for these unwanted services and try to
cancel them, the companies make the cancellation
process multi-stepped and tedious to discourage
clients from discontinuing these high profit add-
ons.

Biased or unbiased?
 What is the topic?
 The practice of credit card companies.
 What is the main idea?
 Credit card companies act dishonorably in pushing their clients to
sign up for additional small-fee services.
 What is the author’s attitude toward the topic?
 The author’s attitude is negative toward the credit card companies.
 Biased or unbiased?
 Biased against the companies.

Biased or unbiased?
 Outsourcing does not threaten American jobs
whatsoever. On the contrary, outsourcing leads to
the creation of more high-quality jobs in the United
States. This is because the great majority of jobs
that are outsourced have been relatively low-skill in
nature. Athletic shoes are produced in factories in
Southeast Asia, while the shoe companies’
corporate jobs remain in the United States. With
higher production abroad, more corporate
managers and supervisors are needed at home.

Biased or unbiased?
 What is the topic?
 Outsourcing jobs.
 What is the main idea?
 Outsourcing is a benefit, not a threat, to American labor.
 What is the author’s attitude toward the topic?
 The author’s attitude is positive toward the topic.
 Biased or unbiased?
 Biased in favor of outsourcing.

Biased or unbiased?
 With the coming of the Industrial Revolution in the
middle of the eighteenth century, manufacturing
was changed dramatically by advances in
technology and by the development of the factory
system. Replacing hundreds of cottage workers
who had turned out one item at a time, the factory
system brought together in one place the materials
and workers required to produce items in large
quantities and the new machines needed for mass
production.

Biased or unbiased?
 What is the topic?
 Changes in manufacturing during the Industrial Revolution
 What is the main idea?
 Manufacturing changed dramatically during the Industrial
Revolution.
 What is the author’s attitude toward the topic?
 The author’s attitude is objective and neutral.
 Biased or unbiased?
 Unbiased.