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Standards of Thinking
Clarity:
Related Terms: Understandable, plain
Clarity refers to how clear ones thinking is. Clarity refers to points being understandable, the
meaning can be grasped. Two ways to look at clearness is: 1. Being clear in your own mind about
what you mean; 2. Expressing yourself clearly so that other people know what you mean. If you
think about a clear glass, you can see through the glass; when you are thinking and expressing
yourself, whether it be verbally or in written format, someone should be able to see through your
words.
In the evaluation process, the thinker would ask questions like the following to address
clarity:
Could you elaborate on that point?
Could you express your point in another way?
Could you give me an example?
Let me state in my own words what I think you just said. Tell me if I am clear about your
meaning.
When analyzing someone elses thinking ponder the following questions:
How easily do you believe you could summarize the ideas presented?
What ideas, concepts, or points are the most unclear?
Are there examples given to help explain the issues?

Accuracy:
Related Terms: True, Well-established, Confirmed, Corroborated, Well-Authenticated,
Plausible.
Is it really true?
How could we check that?
How could we find out if that is true?
A statement can be clear but not accurate, as in:
"Most dogs are over 300 pounds in weight."
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Most Australians are over 180cm in height.

Relevance:
Related Terms: Relevant, Main, Central, Essential, Crucial, Critical
How is that connected with the question?
How does that bear o the question?
A statement can be clear, accurate, and precise, but not relevant to the question at issue. For
example, students often think that the amount of effort they put into a course should be used in
raising their grade in a course. Often, however, the "effort" does not measure the quality of student
learning; and when this is so, effort is irrelevant to their appropriate grade.
An item or thought has relevance when it is directly connected with and bears upon the issue at
hand; when it is pertinent or applicable to a problem trying to be solved. In critical thinking,
relevant means relevant to a question at issue, with a purpose in mind and a set in a particular
context. It doesnt mean relevant in general. Everything is relevant to something, but that does not
mean its relevant to the problem at hand.
Examples of potential questions to evaluate relevance follow:
How is this idea connected to the question?
How does that bear on the issue?
How does this idea relate to this other idea?
How does your question relate to the issue we are dealing with?

Precision:
Related Terms: Exact, Specific, Detailed, Focused
Precision refers to giving the details needed for someone to understand exactly what is meant. Your
thinking is precise when you have been as specific and detailed as needed to reason through an
issue. It is also important to know how the information that is being described is used. Precision
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does depend on circumstance and context. You will need to be exact to the necessary level of detail;
too much can be harmful. The other components of the intellectual standards are important as well
(accuracy, clarity, significance, relevance).

Questions to help with precision follow:

Could you give me more details?
Is the reasoning detailed enough?
Could you be more specific?
When analyzing someone elses thinking ponder the following questions:
Do you believe you had all of the necessary details to follow the argument or idea?
What details do you believe are missing?

Focus:
Meaning:
-The concentration of attention or energy on something.
-Maximum clarity or distinctness of an idea
- special emphasis attached to something.
Explanation: A statement can be clear and accurate, but not precise, as in Many Australian
teenagers are overweight. The reader needs to know what, precisely, you mean by overweight
and what proportion of the teenage population is overweight.

Empirical:
Relying or based on experiment, observation, or experience rather than on theory or meaning. It is
important to continually distinguish those considerations based on experiment, observation, or
experience from those based on the meaning of a word or concept or the implications of a theory.
One common form of uncritical or selfish critical thinking involves distorting facts or experience in
order to preserve a preconceived meaning or theory. For example, a conservative may distort the
facts that support a liberal perspective to prevent empirical evidence from counting against a theory
of the world that he or she holds rigidly. Indeed, within all perspectives and belief systems many
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will distort the facts before they will admit to a weakness in their favorite theory or belief. See data,
fact, evidence.

Consistency:
To think, act, or speak in agreement with what has already been thought, done, or expressed; to
have intellectual or moral integrity. Human life and thought is filled with inconsistency, hypocrisy,
and contradiction. We often say one thing and do another, judge ourselves and our friends by one
standard and our antagonists by another, lean over backwards to justify what we want or negate
what does not serve our interests. Similarly, we often confuse desires with needs, treating our
desires as equivalent to needs, putting what we want above the basic needs of others. Logical and
moral consistency are fundamental values of fair-minded critical thinking. Social conditioning and
native egocentrism often obscure social contradictions, inconsistency, and hypocrisy. See personal
contradiction, social contradiction, intellectual integrity, human nature.
Logical Correctness:
Does this really make sense?
Does that follow from what you said?
How does that follow?
But before you implies this, and now you are saying that; how can both be true?
When we think, we bring a variety of thoughts together into some order. When the combination of
thoughts are mutually supporting and make sense in combination, the thinking is "logical." When
the combination is not mutually supporting, is contradictory in some sense or does not "make
sense," the combination is not logical.

Pragmatic:
Definition:
1. guided by practical experience and observation rather than theory or ideology;
2. relating to matters of fact and practicality.
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Explanation:
In order to be successful in business or law, you have to be pragmatic (guided by practical
experience) in your decisions. Pragmatic often refers to people who are hardheaded but, for the
most part, is a positive term for sensible and practical people and ideas. To say that somebody is
pragmatic is generally a compliment. Pragmatism is the related noun that denotes dealing with a
problem in a realistic and logical way.

Completeness:
In general, an object is complete if nothing needs to be added to it. This notion is made more
specific in various fields.
the state of being complete and entire; having everything that is needed
Meaning:
Completeness means that we engage in deep and thorough thinking and evaluation, avoiding
shallow and superficial thought and criticism.

Fairness:
Do I have a vested interest in this issue? Am I sympathetically representing the viewpoints of
others? Human think is often biased in the direction of the thinker in what are the perceived
interests of the thinker. Humans do not naturally consider the rights and needs of others on the
same plane with their own rights and needs. We therefore must actively work to make sure we are
applying the intellectual standard of fairness to our thinking. Since we naturally see ourselves as
fair even when we are unfair, this can be very difficult. A commitment to fair-mindedness is a
starting place.

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