In the previous two articles we introduced some of the intellectual skills, abilities, and dispositions essential to the development of the educated person as articulated in our Thinker's Guide for Students on How to Study and Learn. All the ideas in this miniature guide are designed to help students think deeply through content and develop intellectually. In this article we focus on the analysis and evaluation of reasoning.

To analyze thinking, we focus on its parts. In other words, we focus on the purpose of thinking, the questions the thinking is pursuing, the information being used, the assumptions and inferences being made, the concepts and point of view guiding the thinking, and its implications.

To evaluate or assess thinking, we apply intellectual standards to the parts of thinking, standards such as clarity, accuracy, relevance, logic, precision, justifiability, significance, depth, and breadth. For example, we ask whether the purpose and question are clear, the information relevant and accurate, the inferences and implications logical, the assumptions and concepts justifiable, the point of view relevant.

When students can analyze and assess reasoning, they have skills essential to the educated person. In this column, we provide templates for students to use in analyzing and assessing reasoning in written form, the reasoning, for example, embedded in an article, essay, chapter, or textbook. Each of the sections in this column is written in the form of directions for students.