Critical Thinking Article Summary and Critique.
The article The Age of Clutter: Conducting effective research using the Internet by Charles Fornaciari and Maria Loffredo Roca provides several good points concerning critical thinking as it applies to modern research and the challenge of the information explosion we are seeing. .
The article opens by discussing some of the many problems that the vast information sea known as the Internet creates for the serious researcher: First the lack of in-depth knowledge of the technology of the Internet, for example, how search engines index their data; then the problems that are caused by uncertain data relevance and information overload; and finally, the trouble that users may have evaluating the quality of the data provided by the Internet. The authors then conclude the article by making several concrete suggestions as to what researchers might do to solve, or at least mitigate these problems: .
- Keep your mind engaged as you research .
- Define your objectives and keep those objectives firmly in mind -Know what you are looking for in the way of information .
- Learn how to identify both good sources and bad sources of information .
- Learn to evaluate, question, and interpret as you research, and let the results guide you. .
.
Discussion .
In the course of the article, the authors address a number of elements of critical thinking as they are laid out in the course notes. .
Assumption is important to how we work with information. In the course of researching, assumptions must be made about the relevance and reliability of the data being collected. The authors show how this can create trouble in their discussion of evaluating web sites for quality. They point out the problem with the lack of distinction between various types of sources, and the large amount of low quality information that is easily available on the web. A large proportion of the data retrieved by even the best designed web-based search engine is irrelevant or even just plain wrong, creating the danger of leading you down a blind alley and wasting valuable time.