Chapter Seven Evaluations
This is a chapter about one variety of opinion called evaluations. Evaluations can be openly stated or remain hidden and manipulative. They can be based on explicit or vague criteria, clear or vague feelings. Their effects are powerful. When we mistake them for facts or are influenced by them unawares, we get into trouble. This chapter teaches how to both recognize and detach from evaluations. Exercises and discussion in this chapter will show you how evaluations express and influence feelings, how they can be used covertly to persuade or directly to advise. The writing application in this chapter gives you a choice of analyzing evaluations in advertisements or of writing a critical review. One concluding reading evaluates the monetary evaluation of human life; a second reading evaluates the use of pornography for profit.
Chapter 7 | |
Evaluate | To determine the value or worth of something. |
Evaluations in word connotations | Highly connotative words can be chosen to convey a person’s likes and dislikes under the guise of offering facts. |
Expectations | Mental constructs that anticipate the way things will be or should be. |
Infer | To use imagination and reasoning to fill in missing facts. To connect the dots. |
Opinion | Opinion is a word used to include an unsupported belief, a supported argument, an expert’s judgment, prevailing public sentiment, and a formal statement by a court. |
Premature evaluation | To judge something before one has finished examining it. |
Principal claim and reasons | These are the two parts of an argument. The principal claim is the thesis or conclusion. The reasons support this claim through evidence or other claims. A claim is an assertion about something. |
Propaganda | Propaganda is the manipulation of public opinion for the benefit of the propagator. |
Relativism | Relativism is the belief that concepts such as right and wrong are not absolutes but depend on situations and the cultures. |
Skilled Evaluations | Skilled evaluations are opinions formed by experts after a careful and impartial study. |
Thinking | Purposeful mental activity such as reasoning, deciding, judging, believing, supposing, expecting, intending, recalling, remembering, visualizing, imagining, devising, inventing, concentrating, conceiving, considering. |
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Critical Reading for College and Beyond
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER GOALS
After learning Chapter 6, you should be able to demonstrate:
What supporting details are.
How to distinguish between details and main ideas.
How to identify and prioritize major and minor details in paragraphs, articles, and textbook chapters.
What are supporting details?
Supporting details are used to explain, exemplify, or clarify the main ideas.
Supporting details are frequently introduced by word clues and phrases.
Details can be described as major or minor, depending on their function in a reading.
Major Supporting Details
Directly support the main idea
Answer who, what, when, where, and why
Commonly presented in the form of:
examples
illustrations
explanations
definitions
facts
opinions
Minor Supporting Details
Clarify and enhance the major supporting details
Not usually considered important
Prioritize the Details
Once you identify the main idea, divide the rest of the information into two categories:
major details
minor details
Important to know the major details
Minor details interesting, but less valuable
Helps you decide what you need to know
Look for the Bigger Picture
Always keep in mind the big picture when reading
Chapters tend to have many “main ideas” but they have one larger, main point
Paragraphs tend to support the general concept
Chapter Vocabulary
details
minor supporting details
major supporting details
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Critical Reading for College and Beyond
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER GOALS
After learning Chapter 7, you should be able to demonstrate:
What inference is.
Strategies you can use to infer an author’s meaning as you read.
What limits the amount of information you should infer.
How to identify implied main ideas.
What is Inference?
Inference is the process of making assumptions and drawing conclusions about information when an author’s ideas are not directly stated.
Inference Strategies
Understand an author’s purpose.
Note comparisons and implied similarities.
Understand an author’s use of tone.
Detect an author’s bias.
Recognize information gaps.
Tips For Recognizing Information Gaps
Consider all information presented.
Note author’s use of key words and phrases.
Identify when an author leaps from one idea to the next, and mentally fill in the blanks.
Knowing How Much to Infer
Recognize author’s perspective.
Use the text to support your conclusion.
Chapter Vocabulary
inference
diction
imply
purpose
tone
author’s bias
information gaps
implied main idea
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