ABSTRACT
Engineers must be excellent critical thinkers. Those who fall into patterns of sloppy thinking may pay dearly for those lapses. Three potential sources of thinking traps are improper use of heuristics, cognitive biases, and errors in logic. This chapter examines a few important heuristics in detail, noting how they may impact the mechanics of writing: common sense, rule of thumb, availability, familiarity, reasoning with analogies, and risk-loss aversion. Cognitive biases are distortions in rational thought that lead to errors. Quick thinking relies on immediate access to predetermined solutions so that decisions can be made without time spent pondering alternatives. This heuristic can fail when the existing conditions differ from those under which engineers developed their solution. Humans are naturally tuned to avoid loss and reduce risk. Cognitive biases are distortions in rational thought that lead to errors. They help set traps for us.
