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Articles, advertising, and mass media (i.e. Hannity and Colmes on Fox News channel and Anderson Cooper 360 on CCN) use numerous rhetorical devices and fallacies when reporting their information. Applying critical thinking techniques to the media’s biased information is a must. Critical thinking provides many benefits for those who are able to acquire it. Massimiliano Di Battista’s personal experience as regional property supervisor for a real estate company will offer a valuable example of how critical thinking allowed him to dismantle a complex problem, understand the inputs and outputs of his decision-making process, draw a logical conclusion, and take a rational decision.
Hannity and Colmes on Fox News channel and Anderson Cooper 360 on CCN are two popular television news programs. A couple of years ago, Hannity and Colmes, opened their news program with the border patrol agents and their use of deadly force on the border. Then, they covered the story of Rev. Al Sharpton being under fire because of his comments about Romney’s religion and conspiracy theories about the attacks on 9/11. On the same day, just a few minutes after Hannity and Colmes’ program ended, Anderson Cooper 360 opened his news program with the extreme weather that is hitting some areas of the United States (i.e. the flood in the Midwest). After that, he covered the story of Sharpton versus Romney. More than half of the program was dedicated to this and the rest was on the 9/11 attacks.
Hannity and Colmes on Fox News tended to follow with their personal opinions about the news and it seemed to represent a particular political force. Conversely, Anderson Cooper took a more neutral position or rather kept a professional distance on the news he covered. Further, he provided more information for his audience on the major issue he was covering in order to allow them to draw their own conclusion. As is seen in these two shows, mass media use numerous rhetorical devices and fallacies when reporting their information. Critical thinking is an essential skill that all individuals should have as it allows them to determine the strengths and bias of any sources and draw logical conclusions. The purpose of this paper is to describe critical thinking, its importance, and its benefits in the decision-making processes. Further, this research paper will provide an example from Massimiliano Di Battista’s personal life and how he applied critical thinking to a work related decision.
Kirby and Goodpaster (2007) defined critical thinking as an activity of the brain, performed at a high level of clarity, that can be communicated to others. T. Gokaydin (personal communication, March 11, 2009) stated that critical thinking requires reasoning skills that can be grouped in critical thinking inputs and outputs. Critical thinking inputs start the critical thinking process and lead people to the reasoning process. Inputs include: initializing concern, supporting evidence, and predispositions. Initializing concern refers to the problem that needs to be solved. Supporting evidence refers to the information used as a base for the reasoning process; the information must be accurate and unbiased. Predispositions refer to assumptions and people’s bias that should be identified in order to determine how they may impact the reasoning process.
T. Gokaydin also stated that critical thinking outputs refer to the outcome of the reasoning process. Outputs include: framing concepts, inferences, and implications. Framing concepts are the main ideas people consider when addressing a concern. For instance, the framing concepts for the issue of being over budget in a real estate company would be salary expenses, maintenance and repair expenses, administrative expenses, and rent revenues. Inferences are logical pieces that can be used when drawing conclusions. Finally, direct and indirect consequences of people’ inferences are known as implications.
Critical thinking is a vital skill that helps people draw logical conclusion and take rational decisions. Applying critical thinking techniques may benefit people’s personal lives and work environments in many ways. For instance, they can determine the credibility of sources, especially if they plan to use them as the basis for research or use the sources to support their positions on particular issues. Another benefit of acquiring critical thinking skills in people’s personal lives and work environments is that they will be able to better understand an argument, its analysis from different perspectives, and they will have the ability to take a stand on that particular issue. Critical thinking should make people more decided, secure, and capable to come to a conclusion even though they are missing a piece of a puzzle. Just by looking at the rest of the puzzle they should be able to understand the whole picture.
Massimiliano Di Battista is a regional property supervisor for California Commercial Investments. The nature of job requires the use of critical thinking when he has to tackle decision-solving-problems. He always applies critical thinking in each of the eight steps decision-making model he follows. The steps are: be alert to indicators and symptoms of problems, tentatively define the problem, collect facts and redefine the problem, if necessary, identify possible alternatives, gather and organize facts, evaluate possible alternatives, choose and implement the best alternative, and follow up (Rue & Byars, 2004).
An example from his personal experience in applying critical thinking to one of his work-related decisions occurred when a property manager informed him that there was a broken pipe that flooded several apartments. In this scenario, he had to go quickly through step the first three steps of his reasoning process; he also had to determine possible alternatives (i.e. fix the pipe in-house or use a plumbing company). He did not have enough time to gather and organize facts (i.e. collecting estimates from different plumbers) as circumstances such as plumbing leaks require quick decisions. He then, skipped steps #4 and 5 and went directly to step #6. After he evaluated the alternatives, the final step was to choose and instruct the staff on what to do.
Critical Thinking is an essential skill that all individuals should have as it allows determination of the strength and bias of any sources as well as drawing logical conclusions. For instance, mass media (i.e. Hannity and Colmes on Fox News channel and Anderson Cooper 360 on CCN) includes rhetorical devices and fallacies within their information. Critical thinking provides several benefits, such as understanding rhetorical devices and fallacies, to those who acquire the skill. More specifically, people would be able to better understand any argument, analyze them from different perspectives, and take a stand on specific issues. Effective decision makers are those rare individuals who can continually crystal clear and able consistently to identify and choose the best solution among numerous alternatives. Applying critical thinking technique allowed regional property supervisor Massimiliano Di Battista to dismantle a work-related problem, to understand the inputs and outputs of his reasoning process, draw a logical conclusion, and make a rational decision.
Kirby, G.R. and Goodpaster, J.R. (2007). Thinking (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education
Rue, L.W. and Byars, L.L. (2004). Supervision: key link to productivity(8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
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