TFY Chapter 6 & 7 Summaries and Exercises

Chapter 6 Thinking for Yourself
Summary


Opinions


This chapter looks at the word Opinions. This word can be confused with facts. An opinion express the decisions we make about life. It involves a judgment, belief, claim or statement we believe to be true. There are several types of opinions, judgments, advice, generalizations and personal taste or sentiments. Public opinion polls can be used to determine or manipulate public sentiments.



























CHAPTER 6 TYF
An Exercise in Evaluating Opinioins

Rate the following opinions as:
A. An opinion I would accept and act on.
B. Worthy of consideration.
C. I’d want another opinion.
D. Forget it!


A 1. Your doctor says you need surgery immediately.
B 2. A psychiatrist testifies in court that the defendant is not guilty by reason of insanity.
C 3. The weather forecaster says it will rain tomorrow.
C 4. Your attorney says you should sue your neighbor for damages.
C 5. You want to rent an apartment but the neighbor next door says the landlord is a weirdo.
D 6. Your best friend tells you your fiancée is tacky.
D 7. Your English instructor says you don’t know how to think and should see a psychiatrist.
B 8. Your astrologer tells you not to go on any long trips in May.
A 9. The judge says you are guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol.
A 10. An engineer says you can prevent your basement from flooding by blasting holes for drainage in your foundation.















Chapter 7 Thinking for Yourself
Summary
Evaluations


In critical thinking, one must learn to recognize an evaluation because it can be viewed in many ways. It intentions can be honest, hidden and manipulative. To evaluate is to determine the value of something or to examine, judge, appraise and estimate. Quite often we prematurely evaluate things without carefully looking it over. This can lead us to make hasty judgments and can lead to a lot of problems. Evaluations are not facts and expectations can influence evaluations. Evaluations are opinions and word connotations can manipulate our evaluations.



























Discovery Exercise Page 202

Recognizing Evaluative Words’ Persuasive Powers.

Underline the words in the following passages that contain connotations that could influence feelings, and thus opinion as well.

1. I listen to the feminists and all these radical gals-most of them are failures. They’ve blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Caspar Miquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That’s all they need. Most of these feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they’re mad at men. Feminists hate men. They’re sexist. They hate men-that’s their problem.
2. We saved these helpless pets from being butchered for ‘gourmet’ food in South Korea. You can help us save thousands more from the cruel Cages of Despair.
3. (Photograph of a happy white middle-class family walking into the arms of a grandfatherly figure). All these years we’ve been protecting you. When you walk into our insurance office, you’ll learn how we can protect the lives of a husband and wife. Your children. Or even the lives of your business associates.
4. Before Sept. 11, though, we thought of globalization as mainly meaning us sending ‘them’ good things, like the Internet and Coca-Cola. Now we understand that globalization also means ‘them’ being in a position to send ‘us bad things like terrorist attacks, emerging diseases, illegal immigrants and situations requiring the dispatch of U.S. troops.
5. This city does not need our vote for a ballpark shopping mall complex that would only be a megashrine to cookie-cutter consumerism.
6. Corporate welfare – the enormous and myriad subsidies, bailouts, giveaways, tax loopholes, debt revocations, loan guarantees, discounted insurance and other benefits conferred by government on business – is a function of political corruption.