President's Tip of the Week

Critical Thinking Techniques, Part 1
(7/27/09)

Not too long ago, Liz visited a brand new club in which one of its brand new members was required to evaluate an advanced speech. She praised the evaluation as the best she’d ever heard. The evaluator’s secret? A training program teaching critical thinking skills.

I would love to see our club become known as one where speakers routinely receive excellent evaluations. I found a blog site listing 16 basic critical thinking techniques that I’d like to pass on to you in a series of tips. If you’d like to read the complete article, visit the author’s site. Like me, you may not agree with his biases or all of his examples, but I think you’ll agree his 16 techniques could be implemented to improve evaluations. I’ve come up with some questions below each technique for you to ask about a speech you are evaluating. I encourage you to add in your own questions.

1. “Clarify. State one point at a time. Elaborate. Give examples.”
   Did the speaker make the point clear? Were examples provided to clarify or emphasize the point? Were the examples appropriate and did they truly support or elaborate on the point?
2. “Be accurate. Check your facts.”
   When the speaker stated a fact, was a source cited? Was it a reputable and credible source?
3. “Be precise. Be precise, so you are able to check accuracy. Avoid generalizations, euphemisms, and other ambiguity.”
   Did the speaker avoid such words as “most,” “every,” “all,” or other words indicating generalizations? Were statements descriptive?
4. “Be relevant. Stick to the main point. Pay attention to how each idea is connected to the main point.”
   This goal is covered in project #3 of the Competent Communication manual, but is a difficult discipline to maintain. Did the speaker attempt to say too much during the speech? Were there subtopics that did not support the main point of the speech?