Feedback on Paper One

CRTW 201

Dr. Fike

Grading

• Page length

• Focused topic

• Paragraph on assumptions

• Multiple paragraphs for objections and replies

• (Correct use of MLA format)

The Point Is…

• Grades are inflated, even for process assignments.

• But if you got a 3/5 or 3.5/5, your work is seriously deficient, and you should sign up for a conference.

Comment Sheets

• Check marks indicate that you have achieved the minimum level of proficiency.

• They do not mean that no revision is necessary in a checked category.

Paper’s First Sentence

• Do not boldface the paper’s first sentence.

• The introduction and conclusion do not have topic sentences.

• Only body paragraphs have topic sentences.

Focus

• The most important element.

• Area of inquiry: Paranormal phenomena

• Topic: Remote viewing

• Focus: One guy’s particular viewing of one target

Thesis

• A thesis is not a question. • A thesis answers a question.• A thesis is one sentence only.

• Example: “The question is, then, who is responsible for the formation of these amazing phenomena?”

• Despite tantalizing theories of aliens as the origin of crop circles, I will argue that there is a simple terrestrial explanation because the human perpetrators have been caught in the act.

Background

• Use a signal phrase at the start of the borrowed information, not merely a citation at the end of the borrowed information.

• You must use a signal phrase to mark the start of the borrowed information.

• In other words, you have to tell the reader where your ideas stop and the borrowed information begins.

Works Cited

• The WC list is not sufficient in itself.

• You must use signal phrases and parenthetical citations.

• If your background paragraph does not have these, it is not satisfactory.

Plagiarism

• I do not think that there was any intentional plagiarism in your papers.

• But turnitin.com did detect minor instances of unconscious plagiarism.

• I underlined these in red.

Background Paragraph

• Do not start the background paragraph with a fact about an event.

• Start it with a strong topic sentence that echoes the thesis statement.

Assumptions

• Make sure that your assumptions are really assumptions.

• Example: Your story says that Dr. Fike had granola for breakfast. You then say that the reader has to assume that Dr. Fike had granola for breakfast.

• Can you see that this is too literal? • A real assumption: Dr. Fike is concerned with

the health of his colon.• POINT: An assumption is what is BEHIND a

fact, not the fact itself.

A Common Error

• Cutting directly from assumptions to objections.

• In such a case, you consider your assumptions to be your arguments, but this cannot be so.

• Assumption is not = argument.

Another Error Re. Assumptions

• Some of you mistook your religious assumptions for arguments.

• This approach participates in various fallacies that we went over last week:– Covering Oneself in the Cross: “This argument asserts that a

certain political or denominational stance is true or correct because it is somehow ‘Christian,’ and that anyone who disagrees is behaving in an ‘un-Christian’ or ‘godless’ manner. (It is similar to the patriotic approach except it substitutes a gloss of piety instead of patriotism.)”

– Appeal to Improper Authority– Appeal to Biased Authority– Appeal to Tradition– Appeal to Lack of Evidence– Begging the Question

Nosich, page 142

• “Inertia. It is more comfortable to keep the beliefs we have than to change them, even when we get evidence that our beliefs are not accurate.”

• Nosich identifies inertia as an impediment to critical thinking.

• My term for this is “belief perseverance.”

Other Impediments

• Page 145: “having an agenda that gets in the way of what you hear and read”

• Page 148: “sticking with pre-established views that seem sufficient because we have not examined alternatives”

• Page 157: “religious, spiritual”: an example of a non-critical-thinking standard

• Pages 164-65: “the problem is the tendency we all have to see our own views as automatically ‘right,’ and those of people whose interests conflict with ours as automatically wrong.”

Do you find any fallacies here?

• According to the Bible, when a person dies his soul goes either to Heaven or to Hell; therefore, there can be no ghosts. If the Bible does not mention the possibility that a soul could hang around as a ghost, then it must not be possible because the Bible is the ultimate authority on all things, and I know that it is because my church says so.

Understand It This Way

• The point of CRTW is not to give you tools (N’s elements) so that you can defend your preconceptions more tenaciously.

• The point of CRTW is to give you tools so that you can examine your preconceptions in a way that makes deeper insight (transformation) possible.

An Actual Comment

• “Since this is critical thinking class, you are required to think about why you consider the Bible to be the ultimate authority—and to explore the possibility that there might be more going on than you presently believe. The point is not to run a topic through your preconceptions but to use a topic as an occasion to question those preconceptions.”

Even the Bible Itself Validates Critical Thinking

• Jesus in John 14.12: “’Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.’”

• Paul in Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

The Point

• Both Bible passages imply the importance of being open about truths that may come to light in the future.– Given the kind of things that Jesus reportedly

did, his statement suggests that paranormal phenomena are possible.

– Paul encourages us to be open to things that do not fit into our preformed intellectual boxes.

Furthermore…

• The two Bible passages are important because they both endorse the possibility that the absence of something from the Bible does not necessarily mean that it is untrue or nonexistent or bad.

Are you mad?

• If so, good!

• Anger means that I got through to you.

• It also means that you have identified a place where your assumptions, preconceptions, and background stories may be interfering with your critical thinking.

Bottom Line:

• It is not going to suffice in this class to insist that something is wrong or false or nonexistent because your religion does not validate or include it.

• That sort of thinking is a fallacy.

• Run your preconceptions through the elements rather than the elements through your preconceptions.

Final Point on This

• In critical thinking class, something cannot be your background story, assumption, argument, and conclusion.

• If you assign such importance to one Bible-based point, you are not doing critical thinking.

Another Common Error

• Omitting opposition.

• Remember: After you argue, you must object to arguments and reply to objections.

Opposition

• Argument, objection, and reply paragraphs must talk about the focused topic.

• It is a huge error to argue about the focused topic and then to object about the general topic.

• The focused topic (the paper’s main illustration or example) must appear in every single paragraph.

Reply Paragraph

• Concession: Give a little ground

• Rebuttal: Overturn the objections to your argument(s).

Conclusion

• This is where you must address implications—where you must push beyond the bounds of your thesis statement.

Example

• “Whether or not the entity that William S. and his friends encountered was the spirit of Martin Gurule, it was able to communicate in a way that I cannot attribute simply to natural laws. And even if we are able to communicate with beings outside of our reach of understanding, where is the boundary between helpful and dangerous? If entities truly can see things beyond our sight and know things beyond our time frame, how do we distinguish between what we should and should not ask to know? More importantly, if a being beyond our realm of reality does communicate with us can it be trusted, or are we opening a very dangerous doorway that we may not be able to close?”

“See me”

• If you have this written in your margins, we should discuss a lower-order problem at our conference.

Conferences

• I will pass around a sign-up sheet. You will need to have a conference with me on Paper One or Paper Two.

• It is your choice.

• Another conference is required in the second half of the semester.

Rubric for Conferences

• Conferences require that you bring two copies of the paper that you want to discuss and that you ask questions, make comments, float solutions, etc.  If you do these things, you will receive 5/5.  If you omit any of them, you will receive 4/5.  There will be no credit for missed conferences.  If I let you make up a conference (and that is a big "if"), you will not receive credit.  Be sure when you sign up that you are actually free at the specified time, mark it down on your calendar, and be sure to show up on time.  Conferences should last approximately 15 minutes.

Suggestions

• Photocopy the copy of your paper with my comments on it.

• Construct a list of questions to discuss.

• Remember that my memory of your paper may be dim.

Revision of Paper One

• Submit your new draft with the following:– A blank comment sheet (double-sided printing)– Your original graded draft– Your original comment sheet with my comments on it

• Put a paper clip around all of this material.• Keep ALL of this these documents because you

may need them for your portfolio.

Revision

• It must be substantive or substantial.• Fixing your lower-order errors is important:

please fix them. (I get ornery if you don’t fix things I clearly marked as incorrect.)

• But the key will be to address higher-order matters:– Rethink your argument.– Develop it.– Reorganize.

What NOT To Do

• Do not turn in a clean copy of the same paper.

• I will read them side by side and will check to see if you have made substantial changes.

• If you have not done so, I will take a point off.

• Likewise, I will take a point off if your Works Cited list is not 100% correct.

Was that too harsh?

Smile,everybody!