Critical Thinking Standards: Depth Paul and Elder (2008) describe what they believe to be the essential standards of the critical thinking process. These standards, in order of importance, are the following: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, and fairness. When the authors recommend questioning the depth of one's question they are implying that the question under consideration may be more superficial than it should to be. A critical thinker who wishes to render a question less superficial will acknowledge the complexities inherent to the question, judge the relative value of different factors to enable prioritizing the thought process, and setting aside any urges to ignore problems with the question. Once the depth of a question...

My rationale for choosing this topic was based on a National Public Radio (NPR) news piece discussing the contribution of too many calories and too little exercise to this health problem. The question the essay addressed was "What are the causes of childhood obesity?" At first blush there only seemed to be two contributing factors, so I assumed it would be a straightforward essay to write. The first paragraph on a webpage published…