Page 18 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

SMART THINKING 5

• finding answers ('Why did the government decide on a higher-quality digital
television standard?')
• justifying actions ('When first introduced, I thought subscribing to pay tele-
vision was not a good idea because ... ').
So, smart thinking is about reasoning, which is about the use and communi-
cation of knowledge. Researching, reading, analysing, testing, checking, planning,
and writing all depend on understanding those interrelationships. Once you
understand that knowledge consists of innumerable interrelations between small
'bits' of information, then you will be able to find, shape, and use knowledge for
yourself.
But reasoning is also about people: the authors and audiences of arguments,
explanations, and so on. And it is in relation to the human, social aspect of
reasoning that we must really be 'smart'. Reasoning is not just formal logic; nor is
it an abstract way of thinking about ideas. It is always a social act. People always use
reasoning for particular purposes (be they economic, political, or whatever). They
all have different perspectives on the issues being debated. Their age, class, race,
gender, and ethnicity all influence the broad structures upon which they rely in
reasoning. If we forget that reasoning has this social aspect, then we will run the
risk of failing to think effectively (this point will be explored in more detail in later
chapters). The connections and relations between ideas, events, proposals, and so
on only become meaningful in the context of how, when, where, and why they are
communicated with others.

How do we study smart thinking?

Thinking about thinking
Reasoning is something we already do: all of us have learnt, in one way or another,
to think and to reason, to make connections and see relationships between various
events and attitudes in our world. So, being a smart thinker is not about becoming
a different sort of person, but about improving skills that you already have. The way
to achieve this goal (and the main emphasis within this book) is to become explic-
itly aware of the analytical processes involved in reasoning. If you do, then you will
be able to analyse complex issues more deeply, understand and process information
more effectively, and communicate your ideas convincingly.
In succeeding chapters, then, we will learn a way of talking and thinking about
reasoning that allows us to understand and use reasoning better. In particular, we
will learn about the 'analytical structure' of ideas, which is, essentially, the clearest
expression of reasoning. However, we usually encounter such structures 'embedded'
in the words we read and hear, or in so-called 'natural language'. We must learn to
distinguish more effectively between the structures and the natural language
through which it comes to us. We will also encounter the idea of 'analytical
questions', which can guide the way we think about and develop the relationships
that comprise our analytical structures.