English 102 Analytic Thinking

A Miniature Guide
For Students and Faculty

To

The Foundations Of

Analytic
Thinking
How To Take Thinking Apart
And What To Look For When You Do

The Elements of Thinking
and
The Standards They Must Meet

By Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul

Based on Critical Thinking Concepts & Tools
The Foundation for Critical Thinking

Contents
Part I: Understanding the Basic Theory of Analysis
This section provides the foundational theory essential to analysis.
It delineates the eight basic structures present in all thinking.
Why a Guide on Analytic Thinking?.............................................2
Why the Analysis of Thinking is Important .................................3
All Thinking is Defined by the Eight Elements
That Make It Up..........................................................................3
All Humans Use Their Thinking To Make Sense
of the World ...............................................................................4
To Analyze Thinking We Must Learn to Identify
and Question Its Elemental Structures......................................5
To Evaluate Thinking, We Must Understand and Apply
Intellectual Standards .............................................................6–7
On the Basis of the Above We Can Develop
A Checklist for Evaluating Reasoning ...................................8–9

Part 2: Getting Started: Some First Steps
This section enumerates the most important foundational
moves in analysis.
Think About Purpose...................................................................10
State the Question.......................................................................11
Gather Information......................................................................12
Watch Your Inferences ................................................................13
Check Your Assumptions .............................................................14
Clarify Your Concepts ..................................................................15
Understand Your Point of View..................................................16
Think Through the Implications..................................................17

Second Edition © 2003 Foundation for Critical Thinking www.criticalthinking.org

Part 3: Using Analysis to Figure Out the Logic
of Anything
This section provides a range of sample analyses (as well as
templates for analysis).
The Spirit of Critical Thinking .....................................................18
Analyzing the Logic of Human Emotions.............................19–21
Analyzing Problems ...............................................................22–23
Analyzing the Logic of an Article, Essay, or Chapter ..........24–27
Analyzing the Logic of a Textbook.............................................28
Evaluating an Author’s Reasoning ............................................29
Analyzing the Logic of a Subject: ...............................................30
• Science..............................................................................31
• History ..............................................................................32
• Sociology..........................................................................33
• Economics...................................................................34–35
• Ecology.............................................................................36

Part 4: Taking Your Understanding to a Deeper Level
This section explains the elements more comprehensively,
differentiating skilled from unskilled reasoners.
Analyzing and Assessing:
• Goals, Purposes, or Objectives........................................37
• Questions, Problems, and Issues.....................................38
• Data, Evidence, Experience, Research............................39
• Inferences, Interpretations, and Conclusions ................40
• Assumptions and Beliefs .................................................41
• Concepts, Ideas, and Theories ........................................42
• Points of View and Perspectives.....................................43
• Implications and Consequences .....................................44
Distinguishing Between Inferences and Assumptions.........45–46
Conclusion ....................................................................................47

© 2003 Foundation for Critical Thinking www.criticalthinking.org

2 Miniature Guide to Analytic Thinking

Why a Guide on Analytic Thinking?
Analysis and evaluation are recognized as crucial skills for all students to
master. And for good reason. They are required in learning any signifi-
cant body of content in a non-trivial way. Students are commonly asked
to analyze poems, mathematical formulas, biological systems, chapters
in textbooks, concepts and ideas, essays, novels, and articles—just to
name a few. Yet what student can explain what analysis requires? What
students have a clear conception of how to think it through? Which of
our graduates could complete the sentence: “Whenever I am asked to
analyze something, I use the following model:…”
The painful fact is that few students have been taught how to analyze.
Hence, when they are asked to analyze something scientific, historical,
literary, or mathematical—let alone something ethical, political, or per-
sonal—they lack a model to empower them in the task. They muddle
through their assignment with only the vaguest sense of what analysis
requires. They have no idea how sound analysis can lead the way to
sound evaluation and assessment. Of course, students are not alone.
Many adults are similarly confused about analysis and assessment as
intellectual processes.
Yet what would we think of an auto mechanic who said, “I’ll do my best
to fix your car, but frankly I’ve never understood the parts of the
engine,” or of a grammarian who said, “Sorry, but I have always been
confused about how to identify the parts of speech.” Clearly, students
should not be asked to do analysis if they do not have a clear model,
and the requisite foundations, for the doing of it. Similarly, we should
not ask students to engage in assessment if they have no standards
upon which to base their assessment. Subjective reaction should not be
confused with objective evaluation.
To the extent that students internalize this model through practice, they
put themselves in a much better position to begin to think historically
(in their history classes), mathematically (in their math classes), scientifi-
cally (in their science classes), and therefore more skillfully (in all of their
classes). When this model is internalized, students become better stu-
dents because they acquired a powerful “system-analyzing-system.”
This miniature guide is a companion to The Miniature Guide to Critical
Thinking Concepts and Tools. It supports, and is supported by, all of the
other miniature guides in the series. It exemplifies why thinking is best
understood and improved when we are able to analyze and assess it
EXPLICITLY. The intellectual skills it emphasizes are the same skills needed
to reason through the decisions and problems inherent in any and every
dimension of human life.



All Humans Use Their Thinking To
Make Sense of the World
The words thinking and reasoning are used in everyday life as virtual syn-
onyms. Reasoning, however, has a more formal flavor. This is because it
highlights the inference-drawing capacity of the mind.
Reasoning occurs whenever the mind draws conclusions on the basis of
reasons. We draw conclusions whenever we make sense of things. The
result is that whenever we think, we reason. Usually we are not aware of
the full scope of reasoning implicit in our minds.
We begin to reason from the moment we wake up in the morning. We rea-
son when we figure out what to eat for breakfast, what to wear, whether
to make certain purchases, whether to go with this or that friend
to lunch. We reason as we interpret the oncoming flow of traffic, when we
react to the decisions of other drivers, when we speed up or slow down.
One can draw conclusions, then, about everyday events or, really, about
anything at all: about poems, microbes, people, numbers, historical
events, social settings, psychological states, character traits, the past, the
present, the future.
By reasoning, then, we mean making sense of something by giving it
some meaning in our mind. Virtually all thinking is part of our sense-mak-
ing activities. We hear scratching at the door and think, “It’s the dog.” We
see dark clouds in the sky and think, “It looks like rain.” Some of this
activity operates at a subconscious level. For example, all of the sights and
sounds about us have meaning for us without our explicitly noticing that
they do. Most of our reasoning is unspectacular. Our reasoning tends to
become explicit only when someone challenges it and we have to defend
it (“Why do you say that Jack is obnoxious? I think he is quite funny”).
Throughout life, we form goals or purposes and then figure out how to
pursue them. Reasoning is what enables us to come to these decisions
using ideas and meanings.
On the surface, reasoning often looks simple, as if it had no component
structures. Looked at more closely, however, it implies the ability to
engage in a set of interrelated intellectual processes. This miniature guide
is largely focused on making these intellectual processes explicit. It will
enable you to better understand what is going on beneath the surface of
your thought.

Essential Idea: Reasoning occurs when we draw conclusions based on
reasons. We can upgrade the quality of our reasoning when we under-
stand the intellectual processes that underlie reasoning.


Miniature Guide to Analytic Thinking 5

To Analyze Thinking We Must Learn to
Identify and Question its Elemental Structures
8 1

to answer a WHENEVER
question or WE THINK
solve a we think 2
problem for a pur-
based on pose
concepts and
within a
theories
Universal point of view
7
Structures
3
to make of Thought
inferences and based on
judgements assumptions
leading
We use to
6 data, facts, implications
and experiences and
consequences.
5 4

8 1

What is the What is my
key question I fundamental
am trying to purpose? 2
answer?
What is
the most What is my
basic concept point of view
in the with respect to
question? Universal the issue?
7
Structures
of Thought What 3
What are my assumptions
most fundamental am I using
inferences or in my
conclusions? What What reasoning?
information are the
6 do I need to implications
answer my of my reasoning
question? (if I am correct)?

5 4

Be aware: When we understand the structures of thought, we ask
important questions implied by these structures.



Analyzing Problems
Identify some problem you need to reason through.
Then complete the following:
What exactly is the problem? (Study the problem to make clear the
kind of problem you are dealing with. Figure out, for example, what sorts
of things you are going to have to do to solve it. Distinguish problems over
which you have some control from problems over which you have no con-
trol. Pay special attention to controversial issues in which it is essential to
consider multiple points of view.)
The key question that emerges from the problem is… (State
the question as clearly and precisely as you can. Details are very important.)
My purpose in addressing the problem is… (Know exactly what
you are after. Make sure you are not operating with a hidden agenda and
that your announced and real purposes are the same.)
Actively seek the information most relevant to the question.
(Include in that information options for action, both short-term and long-
term. Recognize limitations in terms of money, time, and power.)
Some important assumptions I am using in my thinking are…
(Figure out what you are taking for granted. Watch out for self-serving or
unjustified assumptions.)
If we solve this problem, some important implications are… If
we fail to solve this problem, some important implications
are… (Evaluate options, taking into account the advantages and disadvan-
tages of possible decisions before acting. What consequences are likely to
follow from this or that decision?)
The most important concepts, theories, or ideas I need to use
in my thinking are… (Figure out all significant ideas needed to under-
stand and solve the problem. You may need to analyze these concepts. Use
a good dictionary.)
The point(s) of view is/are as follows: (Know the point of view
from which your thinking begins. Be especially careful to determine
whether multiple points of view are relevant.)
After reasoning through the parts of thinking above, the best
solution (conclusion) to the problem is… (If the problem involves
multiple conflicting points of view, you will have to assess which solution
is the best. If the problem is one-dimensional, there may be just one
“correct” solution.)



Analyzing the Logic of a Subject
When we understand the elements of reasoning, we realize that all
subjects, all disciplines, have a fundamental logic defined by the struc-
tures of thought embedded in them.
Therefore, to lay bare a subject’s most fundamental logic, we should
begin with these questions:
• What is the main purpose or goal of studying this subject? What
are people in this field trying to accomplish?
• What kinds of questions do they ask? What kinds of problems do
they try to solve?
• What sorts of information or data do they gather?
• What types of inferences or judgments do they typically make?
(Judgments about…)
• How do they go about gathering information in ways that are
distinctive to this field?
• What are the most basic ideas, concepts or theories in this field?
• What do professionals in this field take for granted or assume?
• How should studying this field affect my view of the world?
• What viewpoint is fostered in this field?
• What implications follow from studying this discipline? How are
the products of this field used in everyday life?
These questions can be contextualized for any given class day, chapter
in the textbook and dimension of study. For example, on any given day
you might ask one or more of the following questions:
• What is our main purpose or goal today? What are we trying to
accomplish?
• What kinds of questions are we asking? What kinds of problems are
we trying to solve? How does this problem relate to everyday life?
• What sort of information or data do we need? How can we get
that information?
• What is the most basic idea, concept or theory we need to under-
stand to solve the problem we are most immediately posing?
• From what point of view should we look at this problem?
• What can we safely assume as we reason through this problem?
• Should we call into question any of the inferences that have
been made?
• What are the implications of what we are studying?



The Logic of History

Be aware: Much human thinking is “historical.” We use
our beliefs (formed in the past) to make thousands of
decisions in the present and plans for the future. Much of
this historical thinking is deeply flawed.


English 102 Analytic Thinking

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