While critical thinking skills are important in any setting, they are especially important in the field of Black Studies.

"Critical thinking and information literacy skills need to be consciously merged. They must become part of the assessment criteria for American students"

- Christina Doyle

Information Literacy in an Information Society

Bias, especially cultural bias is evident in almost all fields of research. Therefore, Black Studies students must learn to evaluate information for a variety of criteria including: subtleties of language, external and internal motivations, and social or historical context. They must learn the differences between correlation and fact, Stereotypes and Attributes and the manipulation of statistical data to fit into schema.

For example, merely reading the Constitution of the United States word for word does not provide the same context as being able to read the constitution in its transformation over time.


"While critical thinking skills provide the theoretical basis for the process, information literacy provides the skills for practical, real world application."

- Christina Doyle

Information Literacy in an Information Society

Information literacy is merely a tool for critical thinking. Being information literate allows students to look at an issue and realize there is additional information to find, evaluate and apply before coming up with conclusions. Information literacy skills provide students with all the puzzle pieces needed to solve a problem or issue.