Pamela Wright's Handout

Critical Thinking Questions

As you are composing your papers for this course, keep these questions in mind when evaluating the amount and quality of critical thinking you have employed throughout the writing process.

1. What is the main question at issue for this paper?
   • Have I clearly identified all aspects of this issue?
   • Have I addressed their relationships to each other?
2. Have I appropriately identified my own position regarding this issue?
   • Have I drawn appropriate support for my position from experience and other sources?
   • Have I accurately and clearly presented my own position relative to these sources or to the established position on this issue?
3. Have I identified and considered other salient perspectives that are important to my analysis of the issue?

• ·     Does my work recognize and address previously noted opinions on my issue? 

•       Do I include diverse perspectives drawn from outside sources?

4. Have I identified and evaluated the key assumptions and ethical dimensions that underlie this issue?
5. Have I questioned/evaluated the accuracy, precision, relevance and completeness of my supporting evidence as well as the source of that evidence?
   • Have I accurately distinguished between cause and effect and addressed existing or potential consequences?
   • Does my work clearly distinguish between fact and opinion, acknowledging value judgments?
6. Does my paper analyze the issue with a clear sense of scope and context?
   • Have I considered other contexts that are pertinent to the issue such as cultural/social, educational, political, ethical, etc.?
7. Finally, considering context, assumptions, data and evidence, does my work identify and assess conclusions and consequences?
   • Does my work objectively reflect upon my own assertions?