critical thinking paper

Guidelines for the critical thinking paper

Based exclusively on the textbook, the recommended books, the online short readings, the PowerPoint slides, the videos or video synopses, and the current issues in the news announcements, write a critical thinking paper in which you discuss (1) the top three issues that contributed significantly to your learning in this course, (2) the top two examples that strongly stimulated your critical thinking about the region’s opportunities and problems; and (3) the single top finding that clearly influenced your worldview and vision about how to promote mutual understanding between the American people and the peoples of the Middle East.

The critical thinking paper must be formatted as a Microsoft Word file (according to these guidelines) and uploaded through the TurnItIn link. The paper should reflect your own independent and original thought and your own critical thinking and synthesis. The paper should be persuasive and well written. It should be carefully formatted in accordance with the following detailed instructions, which will ultimately help you learn basic and useful word processing skills from Microsoft Word (if you don’t know them). The paper should consist of four to five single- spaced pages, or 2000 to 2500 words. It should have four paragraphs per page. There should be one space between paragraphs and no indentation. Each page should have top/bottom and right/left margins of 0.9" as well as full justification. It should have Times New Roman as the base font. Each page should have your name and Indiana State University on two lines aligned as left headers, and the course title and academic term on two lines aligned as right headers. The point size of the headers should be 11, the title of the paper should be centered and should have bold appearance and a font point size of 14, the rest of the text should have a font point size of 12 (except the footnotes whose font size should be 10). The standardized format is designed to improve your writing presentation skills and to help the grader and/or peer reviewer focus more on the content of your paper and not be distracted or influenced by the format (since it should be the same format in all papers). For your references, you must use ONLY footnotes (without bibliography) entered at the bottom of each page according to the Notes [without bibliography] system of The Chicago Manuel of Style Online at: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

Keep in mind that I am NOT the author of the assigned materials (books, articles, slides, videos, currents issues in the news...). For example, when you cite a PowerPoint slide, you should provide the source (if any) cited on the slide as well as the slide number and the topic number.

The grade of your paper will be based on the originality and quality of your discussion of (1) the top three issues that contributed significantly to your learning in this course, (2) the top two examples that strongly stimulated your critical thinking about the region’s opportunities and problems; and (3) the single top finding that clearly influenced your worldview and vision about how to promote mutual understanding between the American people and the peoples of the Middle East. It will be also based on following all instruction guidelines and demonstrating an ability to think critically, reason clearly, and communicate effectively through English writing. You find below some basic universal intellectual standards that should help you think critically and check the quality of your thinking and reasoning about a problem, issue, or situation: