Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

132 SMART THINKING: SKILLS FOR CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING & WRITING

Exercise 9.3

Apply the questions developed in the first section of this chapter to the argument
just outlined about higher education in Australia. What do you think of the
reasoning? Is it strong? weak? Can it be improved? challenged? Write additional
claims, with appropriate diagrams, that either improve on, counter, or further
explore the issues raised in this argument. Then think about the general use of
these analytical questions and structures in relation to your own reasoning: how
can they help you to be a better smart thinker?

Review

Since reasoning is about knowledge, we must think about the epistemologies

(philosophies of knowledge) that underpin the relationship between text and

context. Questions can reveal the external boundaries of our topic and how it relates

to other topics, knowledge, or audiences; questions can also reveal important

aspects of our topic itself. The questioning process is not a 'once-off task that we

complete and then forget: it is a continuous process that relates specifically to the

way in which we set down our ideas in the analytical structure format.

This structure is most useful as a planning tool and differs from usual

plans, which either involve unstructured concepts (mind-maps) or ideas

arranged in the order that we will write them (a narrative sequence plan). The

key advantage of the analytical structure format is that it lays out, in advance

of writing or presentation, the structure of key claims and the links between

them in a way that is driven by the analysis—the reasoning—rather than by the

way we will present the argument or explanation.

CONCEPT CHECK

The following terms and concepts are introduced in this chapter. Before checking
in the Glossary, write a short definition of each term:
intersubjective
mind-map
narrative sequence plan

objective

relativism

Review exercise 9

Answer briefly the following questions giving, where possible, an example in your

answer that is different from those used in this book: