Critical thinking for business students, Linda Dyer

Chapter3: Evidences
Evidences
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Form a judgement about the claim

Are used to persuade reader to accept the authors claim (the central idea)
o Answer to WHY THIS IS TRUE? (This = Claim)
o W/o evidences Claim = unsubstantiated opinion
o The more contestable or controversial the claim, the more important that it be bolstered
by solid evidence.
Finding evidences
o Argument (in this context disagreement/ contention) => combination of a claim and
the evidence for it
Cue word
1. Because
2. As a result
3. In the first place
4. In the second place
5. For example
6. In addition
7. Given that
8. Studies show
9. For the following reasons
10.Therefore
11.Others synonyms of these words/phrases
Answer to WHY THIS IS TRUE? (This = Claim)
Quality of evidences
1. Accuracy (undetermined confidence in the authors reliability)
a. Information provided in justification (To undermine or negate the claim) is not
false.
i. Need independent and infallible source of information. (research on our
own)
1. Proxies
2. Other cue
a. Trivial error
i. Grammar
ii. Spelling mistakes
iii. Inaccurate quotations
3. Precisions of evidences
4. Judgement about the informations sources
2. Precision (appropriately)
Providing direct quotation of what people usually said are common way to increase
the precision of our evidence (depend on situation). Some examples:
Over- precision or under-precision
o Work hours 17h, 9m, 34.6 s vs. scientific experiment 1m, 56s for a
reaction to occur.
Not believable.
Believable
Overuse of ambiguous and abstract word
o Roughly 63 people attended vs. {63 people attended suggest
that we actually counted heads or ticket studs, and creates the
impression of accuracy.}
Others ambiguous work
1. Quite well
2. Rather low

3. Almost
4. Great deal
5. Many
6. Often
7. A high probability
8. Few
9. Unusually
10.Other synonyms.
3. Sufficiency
Claim can be unsubstantial with a single piece of data.
Single complains is not enough if there is thousands customers.
How much is sufficient?
Depend on the important of claim and the potential damage that would
occur if the claim is incorrect.
Fallacy of hasty generalization
When the evidence is not sufficient to support a claim
Fallacy an erroneous but frequently persuasive way of being led from a
reason or circumstance to a conclusion.
o Jumping to conclusions based on insufficient evidence = engaging in
fallacious thinking.
4. Representativeness
Does the data relate to the questions ask or point the author trying to convey?
Does the sample represent the population in study?
o University students do not represent the entire Canadians population.
Fallacy of hasty generalization
We should not be persuaded by evidence that does not come from a fair
sample of information.
5. Authority
We dont have the firsthand knowledge of the evidence when we wrote
Experts have firsthand knowledge of only a small sample of experiences.