Political Analysis

The advantage of drawing a map of a concept before creating an outline is that you easily add additional examples and you do not have to decide right away about the order in which they are listed. If you do have to write or speak about a particular subject or concept, you will have to decide on 1. What the main points will be 2. The order in which you will discuss them 3. The supporting points you will choose to include Mapping is one of the important tools we have for representing the relationships in the world. The modern research into how our brain functions has significant implications for human learning.

Much of our learning is structured for L hemisphere

Analytical Verbal Logical Sequential

Synthesizing Visual Experiential Pattern seeking

Left Hemisphere

Much of our understanding about the world is based on the activities of the R hemisphere

Right Hemisphere

If education is to become effective as it can be, it must introduce teaching methods that address the right hemisphere as well as the left hemisphere. |*| Thinking Activity: Write examples of left hemisphere functions. Do the same for the right hemisphere. Maps can help us to organize and interpret spoken information. Although we read and hear words one at a time, we normally try to make sense of the entire meaning that the words express. We try to interpret the over all meaning being expressed, including the relationships among the various ideas. The same is true when we speak. [*] Thinking Activity: Examine your thinking process as you attempt to explain an idea to someone. Are you thinking one word at a time or do you find there is a complex process of examining, sorting and relating the various words in order to express the meaning you are trying to communicate? Mapping is also an effective aid in preparing for oral presentations. By organizing the information we want to present in this way, we have all the key ideas and their relationships in a single whole. Along with reading, listening, and speaking, mapping is useful for writing. Traditional approaches to a writing assignment are usually in the form of a list or an outline of ideas. However, there are significant advantage to using a mapping approach as a way of generating ideas and organizing information. Mapping enables us to represent a wider range or relationships among the ideas we are exploring and encourages us to develop new ideas and form relationships among them. For this particular writing assignment, we are really dealing with two maps: 1. Our original ideas of what the experience was going to be like 2. Our revised ideas of what the experience was actually like. |*| Thinking Activity: Create two maps, explore your two different ideas of a particular experience (before and after), in working on your maps, try to relax your mind as much as possible, letting the ideas and associations flow freely. As you complete your maps, look for possible connections between different branches. This strategy often suggests relationships you might not have thought of before. Assignment: Write an essay on your experience.

Maps and the Composing Process In the above assignment, you made an active effort to develop ideas and organize them into patterns that made sense to you. As a result of this composing activity, you are able to understand these ideas in new ways. This is the heart of the thinking process. When we think, we make sense of our world by discussing and composing patterns we understand. We do so by identifying aspects of our experiences (with symbols) and relating these aspects to one another in various patterns. These relationships we compose and discover are reflected on our thinking and in our language. The following are composing activities:     

Generating Ideas (what ideas come to mind?) Defining a main idea (what is your point?) Supporting a main idea (prove it) Drawing a conclusion (so what?) Revising (can you explain your meaning more clearly?)

Comparative, Analogical and Causal Relationships 1. Chronological Relationships – relating things in time sequence (ex. Logs on diaries) 2. Process Relationships – relating aspects of the growth, development, or change of something (ex. Natural, mechanical, physical, mental, creative) 3. Causal Relationships – relating events in terms of the way some event/s are responsible for bringing about other event/s All of these basic thinking patterns play an active role in the way we perceive, shape, and organize (in other words, compose) our world in order to make it understandable to us. The particular patterns we use to organize our ideas in writing and speaking depend on 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The subject we are exploring The type of writing or speaking we are doing The main ideas we want to emphasize The audience who will be reading or listening to our work The ultimate purpose we are aiming for

Reporting, Inferring, Judging Some other thinking patterns that we use are: 1. Reporting – describing information that can be verified through investigation 2. Inferring – describing the world in ways that are based on factual information yet go beyond this information to make statements about what is not currently known. Much of our knowledge about the world rests on the ability to make complicated inferences in a systematic and logical way. 3. Judging – describing the world in ways that express our evaluation based on certain criteria. Many of our disagreements with other people focus on differences in judgments. The following guidelines will help:  

Make explicit the criteria or standards used as a basis for the judgment Try to establish the reasons that justify these criteria

Many of the judgments with which we are involved are moral or ethical judgments or judgments that concern we should and should not behave toward other people. These judgments are often based on criteria we have absorbed from our parents or relative. However, if we have critically examined the ethical beliefs we were raised with, we may found that some of our views diverge from those of our parents and relatives. Of course,

critical evaluation may also strengthen our endorsement of our parent’s belief by deepening our understanding of the reasons of which they are based. Although the activities of reporting, inferring and judging tend to be woven together in our experience, it is important for us to be able to distinguish them. For example, although people may appear to be reporting factual information, they may actually be expressing personal evaluations, which are not factual. “Manila is a dangerous city” is an example of a reporting that the speaker wants the listener to think is a factual information. What the speaker is really expressing is his/her personal judgment. Of course, speakers can identify their judgment with such phrase as “in my opinion,”; “my evaluation is”; “this is what I think” etc. In some cases they do not do so because the context within which they are speaking or writing (such as a newspaper editorial) makes clear that the information is judgment rather than fact. In other cases, however, they want us to treat their judgments as factual information. Confusing the activities of reporting, inferring and judging can be misleading and even dangerous. Confusing factual information with judgments can be personally damaging as well. For ex. I failed my exam today – (fact) / I am a failure – (judgment) Fallacies of False Generalization Although generalizing, interpreting are useful in forming concepts, they can also give rise to fallacious ways of thinking, including the following: 

Hasty Generalization

Consider the following examples of reasoning. Do you think that the arguments are sound? Why or why not? 1. My boyfriend has never shown any real concern for my feelings. My conclusion is that men are insensitive, selfish and emotionally superficial. 2. My mother always gets upset over insignificant things. This bade me to believe that women are very emotional. Unfortunately, many general conclusions we reach about the world are not legitimate because they a re based on samples that are too small or not representative. In these cases, the generalization is a distortion because it creates a false impression of groups being represented. These generalizations are sometimes called stereotypes. 

Sweeping Generalization

The fallacy of S.G focuses on difficulties is the process of interpreting. Vigorous exercise contributes to over-all good health. Therefore, vigorous exercise should be practiced by recent heart attack victims, people who are out of shape and women who are about to give birth. Of course, the use of SG should stimulate us to clarify the generalization. Sweeping generalization becomes dangerous only when they are accepted without critical analysis and reformulation. 

False Dilemma

The fallacy of FD as the either/or fallacy or the black or white fallacy occurs when we are asked to choose between two extreme alternatives without being able to consider additional options. For example, we may say, “Either you are for me or against me” Viewing situations in such extreme terms maybe a

serious oversimplification – for it means we are viewing a complicated situation in terms that are too simple. Causal Reasoning A second major type of inductive reasoning is that of CR – a form of reasoning in which it is claimed that an event (or events) is the result of the occurrence of another event (or events). The Scientific Method The SM works on the assumption that the world is constructed in a complex web of causal relationships that can discovered through systematic investigation. The organized approach for discovering CR and testing the accuracy of conclusions is through the following sequence of steps:

1. Identify an event or relationships between events to be investigated 2. Gather the information about the event/s 3. Develop a theory or hypothesis to explain what is happening. Hypothesis is a possible explanation that is introduced to account for a set of facts and can be used as a basis for further investigation. When we devise a plausible hypothesis to be tested, we should keep three general guidelines in mind:   

Explanatory Power – the hypothesis should effectively explain the event we are investigating Economy – the hypothesis should not be unnecessarily complex Predictive power – the hypothesis should allow us to make serious predictions in order to test its accuracy.

4. Test the theory or hypothesis through experimentation. 5. Evaluate the theory or hypothesis – describe the results of your experiment and explain.* We might diagram this operation of the scientific process as follows: Predictive

Theory / Hypothesis

Experimental Testing

Information

*acceptance, rejection or revision of the theory/hypothesis Controlled Experiments Although our analysis of causal reasoning has focused on causal relationships between specific events, much of scientific research concerns causal factors influencing population composed of many individuals. In these cases the CR tend to be more complex than the simple formulation A causes B. The reasoning strategy scientists use to reach conclusions in these more complex cases is the controlled experiment. There are three types or kinds of CE designs:

1. Cause-to-effect experiments (with intervention). The diagram below illustrate this: Population Random Selection Control Group

Results

Experimental Group

Suspected Cause

Results

2. Cause-to-effect experiments (without intervention). The diagram below illustrates this: Control Group (matched to experimental group except for subjected cause)

Results

Experimental Group (Incidence of effect measured)

Results

3. Effect-to-cause experiments – in this case, the experimenter works backward from an existing effect to a suspected cause. The diagram below illustrates this:

Causal Fallacies

Control Group (Incidence of effect measured)

Experimental Group (Incidence of effect measured)

NO Previous exposure to suspected cause

Previous exposure to suspected cause