Animal World (V)

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Sources: dpchallenge.com, flickr.com, stumbleupon.com
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A Useful Guide for Critical Thinking

Home Argument Mapping Art Assessing Bibliographies Blogs Cognitive Biases and Blindspots Critical Reading and Writing Definitions Email Lists and Newsletters The Enlightenment Experts and Expertise Fallacies General Resources Great Critical Thinkers Group Thinking Guides Health & Medicine Hoaxes, Scams and Urban Legends Institutes, Centers and Societies Intelligence (military, etc.) Language and Thought Logic Magazines & Journals The Media Miscellaneous & Fun Numeracy Nursing Podcasts Postmodernism and all that Political Correctness Skepticism Software Specialists Statistics & Probability Teaching Terrorism Textbooks Theory & Research Tutorials Vendors Web Page Evaluation

Top Ten Argument Mapping Tutorials. Six online tutorials in argument mapping, a core requirement for advanced critical thinking. The Skeptic's Dictionary - over 400 definitions and essays. The Fallacy Files by Gary Curtis. Best website on fallacies. Butterflies and Wheels. Excellent reading - news, articles, and much more. Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts by Peter Facione. Good overview of the nature of critical thinking. (pdf file) Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion by John Stuart Mill. Classic chapter, densely packed with wisdom about thinking. Chance - best resource for helping students think critically about issues involving probability and statistics Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, by Richards Heuer. A good overview of how to improve thinking in the light of insights from cognitive psychology. A Handbook on Writing Argumentative and Interpretative Essays by Ian Johnston Baloney Detection Part 1 and Part 2 - by Michael Shermer. 10 step guide. What is critical thinking? Nobody said it better than Francis Bacon, back in 1605: For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things … and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture. A shorter version is the art of being right. Or, more prosaically: critical thinking is the skillful application of a repertoire of validated general techniques for deciding the level of confidence you should have in a proposition in the light of the available evidence. More definitions...

Software for Critical Thinking

The Colors of Earth (XIV)

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Source: flickr.com
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The Internet and Virtual Civil Society: The New Frontier of Social Capital

Miki Caul Kittilson, Arizona State University
Russell J. Dalton, University of California, Irvine

April 2008

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ABSTRACT:
Although scholars generally agree that social interactions within traditional social groups build social capital, they debate the benefits of a virtual civil society based on social interactions over the Internet. Our research examines how interpersonal social group activity and virtual activity contribute to the multiple dimensions of social capital: social trust, citizen norms and political involvement. Our analyses rely on data collected in the 2005 Citizenship Involvement Democracy survey conducted by the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University. This survey provides unique detail on participation in both social groups and virtual interactions. Our findings suggest that social group activity and virtual interactions both foster democratic norms and activities.

Download the Paper

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SUGGESTED CITATION:
Miki Caul Kittilson and Russell J. Dalton, "The Internet and Virtual Civil Society: The New Frontier of Social Capital" (April 16, 2008). Center for the Study of Democracy. Paper 08-05.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/csd/08-05

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