What follows are some guidelines helpful to students as they work toward developing their reasoning abilities: 1. All reasoning has a PURPOSE: * Take time to state your purpose clearly * Distinguish your purpose from related purposes * Check periodically to be sure you are still on target * Choose significant and realistic purposes 2. All reasoning is an attempt to FIGURE SOMETHING OUT, TO SETTLE SOME QUESTION, TO SOLVE SOME PROBLEM: * Take time to clearly and precisely state the question at issue * Express the question in several ways to clarify its meaning and scope * Break the question into sub questions * Identify if the question has one right answer, is a matter of opinion, or requires reasoning from more than one point of view 3. All reasoning is based on ASSUMPTIONS: * Clearly identify your assumptions and determine whether they are justifiable * Consider how your assumptions are shaping your point of view 4. All reasoning is done from some POINT OF VIEW: * Identify your point of view * Seek other points of view and identify their strengths as well as weaknesses * Strive to be fair-minded in evaluating all points of view 5. All reasoning is based on DATA, INFORMATION and EVIDENCE: * Restrict your claims to those supported by the data you have * Search for information that opposes your position as well as information that supports it * Make sure that all information used is clear, accurate, and relevant to the question at issue * Make sure you have gathered sufficient information 6. All reasoning is expressed through, and shaped by, CONCEPTS and IDEAS: * Identify key concepts and explain them clearly * Consider alternative concepts or alternative definitions to concepts * Make sure you are using concepts with care and precision 7. All