Critical Thinking and Ethics

Study Notes

Critical Thinking and Communication

Critical thinking involves evaluating information, identifying patterns, and making informed decisions.
It encompasses analyzing logical relationships, assessing evidence, and distinguishing between fact and opinion.

Key Concepts in Communication

A message is whatever a speaker communicates to someone else.
A listener is the person who receives the speaker's message.
Ethics is the branch of philosophy that deals with issues of right and wrong in human affairs.

Ethical Decisions in Public Speaking

Sound ethical decisions involve weighing a potential course of action against a set of ethical standards or guidelines.
Plagiarism can take three forms: global, patchwork, and incremental.
Global plagiarism involves stealing a speech entirely from a single source.
Patchwork plagiarism involves stealing ideas or language from two or three sources.
Incremental plagiarism involves failing to give credit for particular parts of a speech that are borrowed from other people.

Listening Types

Appreciative listening involves listening for pleasure or enjoyment.
Empathic listening involves listening to provide emotional support for a speaker.
Comprehensive listening involves listening to understand the message of a speaker.
Critical listening involves listening to evaluate a message for purposes of accepting or rejecting it.
Active listening involves giving undivided attention to a speaker in a genuine effort to understand the speaker's point of view.

Speech Organization and Structure

The ice breaker speech is a speech early in the term designed to get students in front of the class as soon as possible.
Chronological order is a method of speech organization in which the main points follow a time pattern.
Topical order is a method of speech organization in which the main points divide the topic into logical and consistent subtopics.
The body is the main section of a speech.
Main points are the major points developed in the body of a speech.

Speech Development

A topic is the subject of a speech.
Brainstorming is a method of generating ideas for speech topics by free association of words and ideas.
General purpose is the broad goal of a speech.
Specific purpose is a single infinitive phrase that states precisely what a speaker hopes to accomplish in his or her speech.
Central idea is a one-sentence statement that sums up or encapsulates the major ideas of a speech.
Residual message is what a speaker wants the audience to remember after it has forgotten everything else in a speech.

Description

Test your understanding of critical thinking concepts, including logical relationships, evidence, and fact vs. opinion. Also, explore the branch of philosophy that deals with ethics and making sound ethical decisions.