You now possess a basic understanding of higher order and critical thinking skills, as well as some knowledge about the nature of geography, and the definitions of geospatial intelligence. This lesson capitalizes on that base of knowledge, and gives you the opportunity to demonstrate and improve your professional and academic writing skills.

To exercise our recently acquired critical thinking skills and geographic knowledge, we are going to carefully read the works of several eminent scholars: Samuel Huntington, Stephen Walt, and Edward Said. Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations?" was a provocative article that articulated a new geopolitical discourse for the post-Cold War era. Published in Foreign Affairs in 1993, it created an immediate stir and resulted in a book length treatment of the idea by the same name. Steven Walt is a professor of international relations at Harvard. He challenged Huntington’s clash theory in his article “Building up New Bogymen” published in Foreign Policy in 1997. Edward Said was a Palestinian-American scholar of the Middle East famous for his writings on orientalism. Said countered Huntington's discourse in his article "The Clash of Ignorance" published in The Nation in 2001. Works of both Huntington and Said are still frequently referenced and cited. For example, see recent articles on Huntington and Said.

You will have the pleasure of writing your first critical analysis paper as your deliverable for this lesson. For many of you, this will be a challenge as you have not written a graduate level paper employing critical thinking skills. However, the ability to clearly and concisely articulate your critically derived thoughts is another essential skill for the geospatial intelligence professional in any agency or organization.

Lesson Objectives

At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

• analyze multiple sources challenging and supporting a particular thesis (Huntingdon's Clash of Civilizations thesis);
• defend your own analysis using your higher order and critical thinking skills;
• write a graduate level academic paper.

Lesson 3 will take us one week to complete. Please refer to the Calendar in Canvas for specific time frames and due dates. Specific directions for the assignments below can be found within this lesson.

You might find doing research somewhat daunting, but you probably do research all the time. Consider planning a vacation. You most probably don’t just jump in the car and drive off with no destination in mind (OK maybe some of you do—to each their own). You go through a process to plan out your vacation and this includes research.

Brigham Young University Library lays out six steps to doing research.

Step 1: Find and narrow your topic

Say your daughter lives in China and you would like to take a vacation to China. You have narrowed the topic of your vacation to China.

For your first paper, you have a very specific topic and your instructor has done step one for you.

Step 2: Finding articles

Now that we want to go to China, we can start our research going from the general to the specific. You can use the internet to look up articles on China in general and then zoom in on travel articles specifically.

In academic writing, articles come in many different flavors. You could use a general internet search, a more specialized search such as Google Scholar, or a library (you have access to the Penn State Library online) that has subscriptions to specialized databases with academic articles.

You may find some articles in trade journals such as NGA’s Pathfinder magazine. These are good sources but such articles are usually not “peer reviewed”. Articles in academic journals have been vetted through a process of blind peer review and thus have the stamp of approval of a particular academic discipline. Let us say you write a research article based on data you collected. You submit your article to an academic journal. The editor of the journal removes anything identifying you as the author and sends it out to two or three reviewers who have expertise with your topic. The reviewers look at your data sources, collection methods, analytical methods, literature review, etc., as well as your organization and writing style. They then recommend to the editor that they accept, accept with revision, or reject your article. This peer review process ensures the quality of the work and is a key institutional stamp of approval. University professors must often have a sustained record of peer-reviewed research publications to get tenured and promoted.

One other thought on journal articles: don’t just pick the first two you find. You should read the abstract of a few that sound interesting before selecting them and diving into the analysis.

Step 3: Finding Books

Books can be an excellent source for in-depth information. In our China trip example, you might find a book on the history and geography of China to give you deep background on the country and ideas for places to visit.

Books can be expensive so using the Penn State Library is a good idea. The library has access to many e-books. If you find a book that is not available as an e-book, you can request that the book be mailed to you, free of charge.

Step 4: Evaluating Credibility

This step is key. As you look at sources, you want to understand if they are commercial, government, academic, news, or opinion-making oriented. In our China example, is our source an advertisement from a tour company, a travel advisory from the US Department of State, an individual review based on a personal experience, or a peer-reviewed academic journal article?

Take for example a student paper on the pros and cons of gun control in America. How credible would you consider an opinion piece (with no citations) in the magazine American Rifleman (which is the official journal of the National Rifle Association)?

For this week’s assignment, you would do well to use reputable academic journal articles.

Step 5: Accessing and storing your sources

For big research projects like a major research paper, master's thesis, or PhD dissertation which might have tens or hundreds of sources you should consider using a source management and archive tool. Ask your research librarian for help.

Step 6: Citing your sources

You must cite your sources!  Most students understand that you must cite your sources. If you do not, then you are indicating that the ideas are your original work—and that is plagiarism and academic dishonesty.

But there is another key reason we cite our sources in academic work, and that is to help other scholars conduct their research. Readers must be able to understand where your ideas came from, and must be able to easily access the original source you used. This helps them verify your use of the source, and more importantly, allows them to go to that source and look at your source’s sources. In this way, a scholar can follow links in a chain to help with their own research. Many sources are now found online. Ensure you provide the full universal resource locator (URL or web address) preferably as a clickable link in your citation.

This week’s lesson has detailed technical instructions on how to cite your sources in text and how to provide a full bibliographic reference in the “Works Cited” section at the end of the paper. Every citation must have a bibliographic reference in Works Cited.

Students who do not cite their sources get an automatic “REDO” on the paper and a very cross look from the instructor.

Penn State Library

Penn State has a great library with many resources for online students. Here are some key links:

Online Students Use of the Library

Research: Penn State University Libraries

College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Librarian

The intelligence writing style may be different than what most of you are familiar with. Because intelligence analysis requires clarity and precision, the written text explaining your analysis must also be clear and precise. For these reasons, please review the Writing Guidelines adopted from the text, "Intelligence and Crime Analysis: Critical Thinking through Writing" by David Cariens.

Rules for Intelligence Writing

From "Intelligence and Crime Analysis: Critical Thinking through Writing," (2012) p. 18.

Writing is thinking on paper. When you write you give the reader a glimpse of your thinking abilities-you are saying something about yourself. Like it or not, people form images about you based on how you write. If there are a number of spelling or grammar mistakes, what are you saying about yourself - that you are careless, not well educated, lack pride? Writing can be easy if you will remember a few simple rules:

Rule One: Think before you write. Know what you want to say before you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.
Rule Two: Organize your thoughts. If you are writing a longer paper or memorandum, take time to organize your thought so you can present a logical argument.
Rule Three: Use simple sentences wherever possible-in the active voice.
Rule Four: Pick your words carefully. Use shorter English words based on the Anglo-Saxon roots of the language. Usually these words are clear and void of nuance and innuendo.
Rule Five: Pursue the economy of language. Make each word count and use familiar terms.
Rule Six: Make the majority of your sentences short and to the point.
Rule Seven: Self-edit and proofread.

The Intelligence Style is expository writing. It is plain talk, straightforward and matter-of-fact communication. Expository writing efficiently conveys ideas, requires precision, and stresses clarity. A major goal of expository writing is to never make the reader wonder what the main point is in the paper or paragraph. Expository writing emphasizes the use of the active voice.

Basic Principles of Analytic Writing

From "Intelligence and Crime Analysis: Critical Thinking through Writing," (2012) pp. 87-88.

1. Put your conclusion(s) first. If the reader reads nothing else, he or she will know from the topic sentence of the first paragraph the main intelligence point or conclusion you want to make.
2. Organize your analysis by your topic sentences. Make sure the topic sentences of each succeeding paragraph ties to, explains, or advances your analysis.
3. Know the formats your intelligence organization uses and know when to use them.
4. Be precise: pick your words carefully so that you are sure you are conveying the right message.
5. Be economical in your use of words-avoid adjectives and adverbs.
6. Clarity trumps all else in intelligence writing. Your intelligence analysis must not leave the reader wondering what you mean or why you decided to write.
7. Know when to use the active voice and when to use the passive voice  [note: while this is David Carien's perspective, do not use passive voice in this class].
8. Self-edit and then welcome the editorial review of others.
9. Know the reader’s needs-know why the reader needs to take the time to read what you have written.

Mistakes

From "Intelligence and Crime Analysis: Critical Thinking through Writing," (2012) p. 41.

Six mistakes are common to all new intelligence analysts, mistakes that must be corrected to have a career in intelligence analysis:

1. Breaking away from the more verbose academic writing style. The simple truth is, if you cannot write in the tighter intelligence style, you do not have a career.
2. Being content with throwing down numbers and facts and not making judgments. These analysts do not identify gaps in knowledge, nor do they identify opportunities. In the case of new law enforcement analysts, they do not make recommendations.
3. When new analysts do make judgments, they do not give their strongest evidence to support their analysis.
4. When they write, they often write something that is very interesting, but their draft is not intelligence-it does not address an intelligence problem or question.
5. They do not conceptualize their main point at the outset, and their drafts do not have an angle. If the intelligence is not clear, if there is no indication as to why a policy-maker should take his or her time to read their product, they have lost the reader.
6. They overuse adjectives and colorful language; their goal seems to be to elicit an emotional response. The net result is sensationalism. This emotionalism undercuts the objectivity and credibility of the intelligence.

References

Cariens, D. J. (2012). Intelligence and crime analysis. Lulu.com. 

Your assignment is to write a critical analysis paper of 1000 words (plus or minus 10%), which is about four double-spaced pages in a 12-point font. Ensure you have a title and your name on the paper. Use one-inch margins all around and please use either Times Roman or Arial as your font.

Organization

Your paper must be well organized with an introductory paragraph that clearly states your thesis/purpose and outlines the supporting points you will be addressing for your audience. You may want to begin your paper with, "The purpose of this paper is to …" The body of the paper follows with paragraphs in logical succession that allows you to make your point. Finish with a conclusion that very briefly summarizes the paper and powerfully ends with your concluding statement.

Citing Your Sources

Cite your sources in text using the format of (author date), e.g. (Corson 2000). Include a “Works Cited” section at the end of your paper using the bibliographical reference format below.

Multi-authored journal article:

Palka, Eugene J., Francis A. Galgano, and Mark W. Corson (2006) "Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Military Geographical Perspective," The Geographical Review Vol. 95, No. 3, pp. 373-399.

Single authored journal article:

Corson, Mark W. (2000), "Hazardscapes in Reunified Germany." Environmental Hazards. Vol. 1, No. 2.

Book Chapter:

Corson, Mark W. and Eugene J. Palka (2004), "Geotechnology, the US Military, and War," in Geography and Technology edited by Stanley D. Brunn, Susan L. Cutter, and JW Harrington Jr. Dordrect: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Book:

Corson, Mark W. (2007), I Wish I had Written a Book (New York: No Such Publisher).

Page Numbers

Please insert page numbers at the bottom of the pages. You may also include images, maps, charts, etc. Please ensure you include captions and reference any graphics in the text. Captions do not count against your 1000 words. Cite the source of the graphic in the caption, e.g. "author's photo."

Voice

Write your paper in active voice and avoid passive voice. Passive voice begs the question of who or what is the subject. For example, “You have been ordered to attack the hill” is passive voice. It begs the question who ordered me to attack that dangerous hill? Active voice puts the subject at the front of the sentence. “General Corson orders you to attack the hill” is active voice. Active voice also makes you take responsibility for your writing and helps you avoid imprecise language.

Writing in the third person (thus avoiding I, we, us, and our) helps writers maintain their objectivity and avoid personalizing the work. Your analysis and judgment must stand on its own. Do not assume the reader knows the assignment or has read the lesson or readings.

As indicated above, we write in third person in academic and professional writing. First person is “I, we, us, our”. Second person is “you, your”. Third person is “the author, this paper, Corson”. For example, “I want you to write in third person” is first person. “You must write in third person” is second person. “Corson contends that academic writing is done in third person” is third person.

Punctuation

Note the difference between a comma, semi-colon, and colon.

A comma indicates a pause between parts of a sentence. It is also used to separate items in a list and to mark the place of thousands in a large numeral. (Dictionary.com)

The most common semicolon use is joining two independent clauses without using a coordinating conjunction like and. Semicolons can also replace commas when listing items that already use commas, such as listing cities and states. (Grammerly.com)

The colon (:) is a punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots aligned vertically. A colon often precedes an explanation, a list, or a quoted sentence. It is also used between hours and minutes in time, between certain elements in medical journal citations, between chapter and verse in Bible citations, and, in the US, for salutations in business letters and other formal letter writing. (Wikipedia.com)

Bloom's Taxonomy

Please review Bloom's taxonomy and note what I mean when I say demonstrate higher order thinking skills.

• Knowledge - is the lowest level of learning outcomes. Memorizing and recalling a wide range of facts, data, or even complete theories falls into this category. Being able to remember and regurgitate facts from reading assignments is an example of this category. This is NOT an acceptable level of scholarship for graduate studies.
• Comprehension - occurs when you understand the meaning of the material. You can demonstrate comprehension by interpreting the material through explanation or summation, by showing effects or consequences, or by translating the material from one form to another. While comprehension is critically important, it is still NOT an acceptable level of scholarship in graduate study.
• Application - is the ability to take knowledge that you comprehend and apply it to new situations. This could include applying new methods, principles, concepts, theories, or laws to new situations. Application demonstrates higher order thinking than simple memorization and comprehension and will often be required in follow-on technically oriented courses.
• Analysis - is essentially taking something and breaking it apart to see how it works. Deconstructing something to see its component parts and how they relate to the organizational structure are good examples of analysis. Analysis is higher order thinking because it requires an understanding of both the content and structure of the material in question. Graduate level coursework will often ask you to analyze something as part of an assignment.
• Synthesis - is essentially taking several different ideas and putting them together to form a new whole. This might mean taking numerous research sources, analyzing them, and then taking select components to build a new idea presented as a paper or presentation. Synthesis stresses being creative in formulating new patterns, ideas, or structures. Your reflection papers, case studies, and research papers will often demand that you synthesize various inputs.
• Evaluation - is the ability to make judgments about the usefulness, value, or veracity of given material for a specific purpose. The judgment must be based on definite criteria rather than instinct, faith, or feeling. These criteria may be external (relevance to purpose) or internal (organizational criteria). Evaluation is the highest in the cognitive hierarchy as it includes the other elements plus a conscious value judgment based on defined criteria.

Critical Thinking Skills

While you will have to demonstrate some knowledge and comprehension, you must demonstrate the ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate complex ideas to produce a satisfactory reflection paper. Now review the cognitive skills of the critical thinker:

• Interpretation is to comprehend and express the meaning or significance of a wide variety of experiences, situations, data, events, judgments, conventions, beliefs, rules, procedures, or criteria. The three sub-skills of interpretation are categorization, decoding significance, and clarifying meaning.
• Analysis is to identify the intended and actual inferential relationships among statements, questions, concepts, descriptions, or other forms of representation intended to express belief, judgment, experiences, reasons, information, or opinions. The three sub-skills of analysis are examining ideas, detecting arguments, and analyzing arguments.
• Evaluation is to assess the credibility of statements or other representations which are accounts or descriptions of a person's, perception, experience, situation, judgment, belief, or opinion; and to assess the logical strength of the actual or intended inferential relationships among statements, descriptions, questions or other forms of representation.
• Inference is to identify and secure elements needed to draw reasonable conclusions; to form conjectures and hypotheses; to consider relevant information and to educe the consequences flowing from data, statements, principles, evidence, judgments, beliefs, opinions, concepts, descriptions, questions, or other forms of representation. The three sub-skills of inference are querying evidence, conjecturing alternatives, and drawing conclusions.
• Explanation is to state the results of one's reasoning; to justify that reasoning in terms of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, and contextual considerations upon which one's results were based; and to present one's reasoning in the form of cogent arguments. The sub-skills under explanation are stating results, justifying procedures, and presenting arguments.
• Self-Regulation is to self-consciously monitor one's cognitive activities, the elements used in those activities, and the results educed, particularly by applying skills in analysis, and evaluation to one's own inferential judgments with a view toward questioning, confirming, validating, or correcting either one's reasoning or one's results. The two sub-skills here are self-examination and self-correction.

You must demonstrate the appropriate critical thinking skills based on the approach you take. On this first paper, you may want to explicitly articulate the higher order thinking skills and type of critical thinking that you are applying. Please do not ruin the flow of your paper by overdoing this explicit articulation (be subtle).

This may seem daunting and cause some of you to worry. Remember that I am on your side and I want to help you develop these skills. As you get into this very intellectually stimulating exercise, I hope that you will actually find that critical thinking and concise written reflection are enjoyable.

Summary

In this lesson, we:

• read:
  • Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations?”
  • Walt’s “Building up the New Bogeyman”
  • Said’s “The Clash of Ignorance”
• researched two academic journal articles supporting Huntington’s thesis
• discussed the intelligence writing guidelines (or the uniqueness of writing in the intelligence field)
• reviewed the necessity and use of higher-order and critical thinking skills in intelligence writing.  

The most important thing to get out of Lesson 3 is the ability to write a clear and concise academic/professional paper to explain your analysis and evaluation to others.

Final Tasks

Before you move on to Lesson 4, double-check the Lesson 3 Checklist to make sure you have completed all the required activities for this lesson.

Looking Ahead

Next week, we begin part two of the course, addressing national security applications of geospatial intelligence. Lesson Four: Intelligence Organizations and Functions introduces you to a broad overview of intelligence, including definitions of intelligence, purposes of intelligence, and US intelligence community organization and functions. There will be a lot of reading once again, and the quiz experience. The next lesson will cover:

• the definition of "intelligence" as articulated by Lowenthal;
• the evolution of the US intelligence system;
• the layout of the US intelligence infrastructure and functions of the major agencies;
• the intelligence process including requirements, collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and consumption, and feedback;
• the functions of collection and analysis as described by Lowenthal.

I am looking forward to reading your papers.