One of the main fundamentals of success in general, and eloquent speaking and writing well in particular is thinking and reasoning. Many people use their thinking and reasoning skills haphazardly. Although thought is regarded to be highly esteemed, at times we criticize someone’s thoughts as being “worthless”. By this expression, we mean the thoughts which have no values, which do not follow any logical order, and which are regarded to be far from being accurate.

By the term thinking, we sometimes mean only imagining something. The type of thinking that we see as the condition of success is deep thinking with deliberation. It is the thinking process wherein ideas are set out coherently rather than in a simple way. This ability is improved by being processed all over his education and arranged by the sciences of logic and mathematics. Despite this, one can often come across with reasoning irregularities in many educated people. Therefore, we must pay attention to this issue and succeed in protecting and saving ourselves from irregularities in reasoning.

One irregularity often seen in reasoning is making immediate generalizations. The other one is false dilemma, also called false dichotomy. This involves a situation in which one reduces the options to only two alternatives, forcing one to accept one of these two, when in fact there are other alternatives which are deliberately disregarded. Third mistake is making comparisons between two different things that are in different circumstances and conditions, and eventually reaching a false conclusion from these false premises.

Many people would behave in an assertive manner in making a decision or in reaching a conclusion; and some would distort proofs and events to prove their arguments. Some would try to achieve an illogical result by appealing to one’s emotions; over-praising one’s loved one and speaking very ill of a person whom one dislikes; giving a bad nickname to a person or an idea that one is against; approaching the issue deliberately from the wrong angle or pretending to be uncomprehending, etc.

It is a must to learn to be original and productive in our ideas to overcome the challenges we face in education and professional life. We should be able to approach issues with objectivity, including our own problems, and follow a logical pattern of reasoning.

Improving the Ability to Reason (Bulleted )