ENGL 110 AMU Week 6 lesson Analytical Questioning Making Writing Relevant American Military university
Analytical Thinking
Why are analytical skills important? This week, we begin our discussion on analytical skills and thinking. But, why are these topics important to you? Consider how you may use these skills on the job or in everyday life:
- Solving a problem
- Thinking critically about a topic
- Analyzing information to make a decision
- Programming something to work efficiently
- Reporting information to someone else
- Completing a task
- Creating a process to complete a task
- Collecting data to analyze to solve a problem
You can see that these are skills that overlap or can be used independently, depending on the goal or task. We use these skills throughout each and every day at home, at work, and in simple and complex tasks. When we make decisions, we often use analytical skills as we weigh our options, consider alternatives, look at potential consequences, and arrive at the best decision. This may involve something complex at work or might be something in daily and personal life such as choosing a car to purchase, deciding to rent an apartment rather than purchase a home, or whether to become a cat or goldfish owner.
Analytical Thinking (Cont’d)
Consider your own analytical skills. How would you answer the following job interview questions that may be asked of you to help determine your analytical skills?
- What would be the steps you would follow to study a problem and then make a final judgment on?
- Talk to me about a time when you discovered a more efficient method to carry out a particular work-related task.
- Can you give me an example of a smaller problem that you identified and fixed before it could turn into a major problem?
- Describe a task that you undertook that tested your analytical abilities.
- Do you recall a problem you analyzed that required a quick and easy solution?
- Can you recall a situation where your analytical outcome was incorrect and if you could do it again what would you handle differently?
- What is the most complex analytical assignment you have undertaken to date? (Copied and pasted from here)