Criteria Corner Activities:
Click on each intellectual standards term above for activities focused on each one.
Internalize These Essential Intellectual Standards for Thought:
Precision
The intellectual standard of precision derives from the fact that we often need details and
specifics to accomplish our purpose. Imprecision, or the failure to provide details and
specifics, defeats that purpose.
Activity: Recognize When Precision is Needed
Can you think of a recent situation at work or at home in which you needed more details to figure
something out, a circumstance in which, because you didn't have the details, you experienced
some negative consequences? For example, have you ever been given directions to someone's
house, directions that seemed precise enough at the time? Yet when you tried to find the person's
house, you got lost because of lack of details in the directions?
Identify a situation where there were consequences for imprecise information.
First identify a situation in which the details and specifics were important (for example, in
buying a house, a computer, or a car). Then identify the negative consequences that resulted
because you didn't get the details you needed to think well in the situation.
