© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete 2005 revised text of Building Yourself, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's guide to living the successful life.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Building Yourself Table of Contents
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• There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

Critical thinking is the process of determining the authen­ticity, accuracy, and value of information. A critical thinker will ask four major questions. First, how reliable is the source of the information? Second, is it fact, or is it opinion? Third, are there any hidden assumptions? Fourth, are items of information included that are irrelevant, biased or illogical?

A true critical thinker will also take most statements “with a grain of salt,” that is, with a healthy dose of skepticism. A critical thinker requires proof, or something close to it. A critical thinker puts information through a wringer.

How reliable is the source? If someone comes to us with a hot stock tip, we'll almost always ask where the information came from. We might even try to find out the original source before we take any action on the “information.” But in many other cases we tend to accept reported information as fact. Let's go back to our discussion of careers for an example. Does the college placement office or your respected Uncle Harry really have the latest information on careers? Does a particular career book have reliable information, or is it based on yesterday's realities and assumptions?

Television, radio and the press carry a lot of clout. People tend not to question them closely. But this broad group is made up of thousands of individual units, each with different information gathering methods and standards. Reader's Digest, for example, is well known for its high standards of accuracy. Most other periodicals are not so careful. A large portion of news, especially features and fillers, is publicity generated. That means that professional public relations people send information to the media in the form of press releases, hoping to get into print or on the air with minimal alteration or fact checking. When I received a good deal of publicity a few years ago, I was never once asked to give proof of my statements. And I was interviewed over two hundred times.

If the American Widget Foundation puts out a press release stating that forty-five percent of all Americans take widgets to bed with them every night, and the story is picked up by a major wire service chain and printed in seven hundred newspapers, do you think anyone calls to verify the quality of the Foundation's research, or even the source of its data? Not on your life. And if the newspapers believe it so readily, what about all those readers who turn to the newspapers for “facts?” The next time you read one of those definitive magazine articles, note how many times the author resorts to quoting experts and other authorities. How do these experts get their information? What portion is fact, and what portion is opinion? Can you tell the difference? Does the periodical or the reporter go to any trouble to advise you of the differ­ence?

Assumptions are another problem. They come in two varieties. The first are hidden assumptions in the information we receive. The second are the assumptions we ourselves make based on the information we have. The combination of the two is deadly—the raw material for stereotype, prejudice, superstition, and plain error.

Never assume. If you have any chance of verifying the truth of the information you're tempted to assume, verify it. If you can't, then make an educated guess. All too often, when we assume, our brains play tricks on us. We'll often assume what we wish to believe. This is wishful thinking. People who have their heads screwed on tightly enough so that water doesn't seep in at the seams, don't engage in wishful, confused thinking.

Also, is the information relevant? Is it useful? Quality of information is as important as its quantity. Consider informa­tion tainted if it reflects bias, if its logic seems to rest on an unsound foundation, if it doesn't treat the question at hand. In the financial field, for example, almost every “expert” has some kind of axe to grind or something to sell. Beware of the traps to effective information gathering.

So practice clear thinking. Question what appears to be cloudy thinking. Cultivate skepticism. I don't mean the type of skepticism that would make you a difficult, negative person. But you do need a healthy level of skepticism to keep your brain in shape, and ready to seek out the truth.