Historical Interpretations

Question 1

CAH - Critical Thinking - Fact

Answer 1

A fact is a statement that can be ‘proven’.

Question 2

CAH - Critical Thinking - Opinion

Answer 2

An opinion is something that cannot be proven. In other words, a person’s belief.

Question 3

CAH - Critical Thinking - Persuasion

Answer 3

The act of encouraging a person to believe something by appealing to reason or understanding. Essentially, persuasion involves convincing. If someone is ever trying to convince you to believe something or do something, then they are persuading you.

Question 4

CAH - Critical Thinking - Persuasion - Big Names and/or Appeal to Authority

Answer 4

In ‘big names’ and/or ‘appeal to authority’, both use experts or famous people to support an argument. If you have ever seen a celebrity endorse a product on a commercial, then you have seen this kind of persuasion. If someone/something claims that because an authority believes something it must therefore be true, they are committing an ‘appeal to authority’. However, this should not be used to disregard the claims of experts, nor the scientific community, unless one is also educated enough on the matter to engage the evidence.

Question 5

CAH - Critical Thinking - Persuasion - Logos

Answer 5

Logos uses facts to support claims. Either logic, numbers, or data can all be used as supporting facts. An example for logos would be a commercial stating that a toothpaste reduces cavities by 99%. This company is using this percentage to try to persuade you to buy their product.

Question 6

CAH - Critical Thinking - Persuasion - Pathos/Appeal to Emotion

Answer 6

Pathos involves appealing to the audience’s emotions to try to persuade them. In other words, they are manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or compelling argument.

Question 7

CAH - Critical Thinking - Persuasion - Kairos

Answer 7

In Kairos, the person is building a sense of urgency. This involves creating a short time frame in order to get the person to panic about missing a certain opportunity. You see this all the time on commercials or ads. Limited time only, Black Friday Sale, Fourth of July Savings - these are all popular examples of kairos, or stressing a short time frame to create a sense of urgency.

Question 8

CAH - Critical Thinking - Informed Opinion

Answer 8

Compared to a regular opinion, an ‘informed opinion’ is also a judgment, but it is supported with information or knowledge on the subject. This is also known as an educated belief. Informed opinions rely on evidence and not personal experience. An opinion piece will often present only one side of an issue, which is always the personal belief of the writer. An informed opinion should explain the other side of the issue, since it can only be shaped from complete and accurate information. A professional informed opinion includes academic journals. They are periodicals in which experts in a specific field publish their work and research.

Question 9

CAH - Critical Thinking - Bias

Answer 9

Bias occurs when a writer displays a partiality for or prejudice against someone, something, or some idea. Sometimes biases are readily identifiable in direct statements. Other times a writer’s choice of words, selection of facts or examples, or tone of voice reveals his or her biases.

Question 10

CAH - Critical Thinking - Bias - How to Identify

Answer 10

(1) Does the writer use overly positive or overly negative language about the subject? (2) Does the writer use emotionally charged language about the subject? (3) Does the writer use vague or generalized language about the subject? (4) Does the writer omit any important facts? (5) Does the writer add information and evidence that seems unnecessary just to bolster his or her point? (6) Does the writer fail to properly cite his or her sources?

Question 11

CAH - Critical Thinking - Assumption

Answer 11

Assumptions are points in an argument that a writer takes for granted and doesn’t prove with evidence. We all make assumptions everyday based on our experience, culture, education, and beliefs; and assumptions are present in every piece of writing. In fact, assumptions can be very good things because they provide common ground between writers and readers and free a writer from having to prove every point he or she makes.

Question 12

CAH - Critical Thinking - Assumption - How to Identify

Answer 12

Readers have to be conscious that assumptions exist and make an effort to identify them and think critically about whether or not they are valid. To recognize assumptions in a piece of writing, first identify the writer’s claim. What is the writer trying to prove? What does he or she want readers to accept? Now think about the reasons and evidence the writer presents to support his or her claim. Finally, reflect on what the writer has left unsaid or taken for granted about his or her argument, those ideas that hover in the background and must be accepted if the argument is to work. Those are the assumptions.

Question 13

CAH - Critical Thinking - Stereotypes

Answer 13

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a stereotype as ‘a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing’. Stereotypes distort reality and provide skewed views of whole groups of people based on their sex, age, race, religion, or abilities.

Question 14

CAH - Critical Thinking - Stereotype - How to Identify

Answer 14

To recognize stereotypes, readers should ask themselves if the writer is identifying a unique individual according to the characteristics of a group (stereotype) or identifying a whole group as having the same characteristics without acknowledging individual differences (also, a stereotype).

Question 15

CAH - Critical Thinking - Breaking Down Two Opposing Arguments

Answer 15

To analyze two texts with opposing arguments, first look at each text separately to figure out what it’s saying, then compare both texts to see P, E, A, C (position, evidence, assumptions, and counterarguments), how texts use rhetorical devices to make their points, what kind of language they use, and what kind of style or tone they adopt.

Question 16

CAH - Critical Thinking - Rhetorical Devices

Answer 16

Rhetorical devices are basically the choice of language and styles used to make a point, and they can range from using metaphors to using logic to persuade an audience. To evaluate rhetorical devices look for flower/poetic language, metaphors/similes, historical references, biblical references, use of number and statistics, cites scientific studies, uses casual/colloquial language, legalistic language, and overall tone/style.

Question 17

CAH - Critical Thinking - Argument

Answer 17

An argument is a discussion, either written or spoken, that takes a position about an issue and then presents reasons and evidence to convince an audience that its position is true.

Question 18

CAH - Critical Thinking - Argument - Claim, Reasons, Evidence, and assumptions.

Answer 18

The argument’s claim is a statement of its position about an issue. The claim of an argument must be supported by reasons, which are the points offered to justify the claim and tell why readers should accept it. Reasons, in turn, must be supported by evidence, which provides proof that the reasons are true or at least have some merit. Evidence may be verifiable facts or statistics, stories or examples, or testimony from expert witnesses. Finally, every argument contains assumptions, which are stated or unstated beliefs that must be held in order to accept the claim of the argument.

Question 19

CAH - Critical Thinking - Great Man theory

Answer 19

The great man theory is a 19th-century idea according to which history can be largely explained by the impact of great men, or heroes; highly influential individuals who, due to either their personal charisma, intelligence, wisdom, or political skill used their power in a way that had a decisive historical impact. The theory was popularized in the 1840s by Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle, but in 1860 Herbert Spencer formulated a counter-argument that has remained influential throughout the 20th century to the present: Spencer said that such great men are the products of their societies, and that their actions would be impossible without the social conditions built before their lifetimes.

Question 20

CAH - Critical Thinking - Environmental Determinism

Answer 20

Environmental determinism (also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism) is the study of how the physical environment predisposes societies and states towards particular development trajectories. Nineteenth century approaches held that climate and terrain largely determined human activity and psychology, and it was associated with institutionalized racism and eugenics. Many scholars underscore that this approach supported colonialism and eurocentrism, and devalued human agency in non-Western societies. Jared Diamond, Jeffrey Herbst, Ian Morris, and other social scientists sparked a revival of the theory during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This “neo-environmental determinism” school of thought examines how geographic and ecological forces influence state-building, economic development, and institutions.

Question 21

CAH - Critical Thinking - Historical Perspective

Answer 21

Historical Perspective shows how a set population chooses to remember a set of events. This doesn’t necessarily make one perspective absolutely right or absolutely wrong, but it does mean that historians always have to be on the lookout for when the perspectives of others, or even their own, obscure the truth.

Question 22

CAH - Critical Thinking - Informational Text

Answer 22

An informational text is simply a piece of writing with the primary purpose of conveying knowledge about a topic. These texts often feature well-defined sections with bold headings, highlighted vocabulary and definitions, and visual elements like pictures, graphs, and maps. Informational texts can be history books, biographies, science texts, how-to books, volumes about art or music, business textbooks, or any other book that is chiefly focused on telling you, the reader, something you didn’t know before.

Question 23

CAH - Critical Thinking - Informational Text - Pre-Reading Process

Answer 23

Before you even start to read, you should think about what you already know about the topic, jot down some questions about what you want to learn, and survey the text.

Question 24

CAH - Critical Thinking - Informational Text - Reading Process

Answer 24

Informational texts require active reading. Read the text slowly, breaking it into small chunks. Take notes. Pause to write down summaries, further questions, and your reactions. Reread as necessary. Even after all that, you’re still not finished. After reading, you should see if your questions have been answered, review your notes, record any further thoughts, and quiz yourself about main ideas and important details.

Question 25

CAH - Critical Thinking - Informational Text - Textual Evidence

Answer 25

Informational texts tend to be built from other texts and consolidate information taken from many different sources. This information is called textual evidence, and it usually takes the forms of facts, statistics, anecdotes, examples or illustrations, expert testimony, and graphical evidence like charts or tables. Writers might quote it directly, paraphrase it, or summarize it from their sources. In any case, textual evidence should be logical, clear, relevant, accurate, directly supportive of the writer’s point, and taken from a credible source that is properly credited.