Are you a careful thinker? Can you understand exactly the meaning of a rule or pattern? Instructions for building or creating provide rules and patterns which say and suggest that when this is done, that should happen. Every cook and dressmaker knows the importance of following instructions carefully. Instructions and suggestions which are not repeatable and results which are not reproducible are not of interest to a cook or dressmaker.

To read rules carefully, do not imagine too much. To decide or choose among opinions and actions, you must understand the exact meaning of written and spoken words. You need this skill to understand, to follow, to write and to change rules, guidelines, instructions and laws, etc.

Use your imagination in language courses. Use your imagination when you are reading novels (and newspaper opinion columns). When reading newspapers or listening to radio and television ask: Is the story presented in a one-sided way? Headlines may suggest conclusions which are not in the stories or the text. Look at the details. Here imagination allows you to guess what the full story might be. But imagination provides only suggestion, not proof. Confidence in suggestions must come after proof is given, not before.

Also use your imagination for poorly written rules to guess their meanings. Guesses and speculations give possible meanings. These may or may not be correct. Proof and evidence, or tests, may decide which among various possibilities, if any, are correct.

Each of us needs to understand fully or as much as is possible, whatever we might be doing or learning. In reasoning, some rules and patterns are reliable. Others are guidelines. Each of us needs to know which is which.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), April 17, 2001

Answers

impeach dumbya

-- impeach@the.thief (Impeach@him.now), April 17, 2001.

Hear, hear! I second that motion. Impeach the thief now!

-- Tony Baloney (Impeach that fucking@repug.com), April 17, 2001.