Importance Of Critical Thinking

Critical thinking occurs when a person thinks about a subject or problem to where the development of the quality of ones very own psychological process of actively and skillfully applying, analyzing, and gauging information to come up with an answer or decision. A few important skills that is learned through critical thinking is learning how to discipline oneself in thinking, understanding the world as well as learning themselves. While using Critical thinking in your academic career path while other benefiting from your answer or idea.

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness. (Critical thinking community, n.d.)

Critical thinking is described as unbiased, clear and factual thought process that helps any student with any decision-making process. Critical thinking is an essential tool that every student will need to master to continue academic success. There are multiple phases of critical thinking as described by Benjamin Bloom which include remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating. The critical thinking process starts by remembering. If we can remember what we read and apply key facts we will be able to move forward to understand what decisions we need to make. From there we can then apply the facts to the decision we have to make and innovate, or create, as needed.

Critical thinking is when one strives to improve basic thought. Critical thinking involves one to be self-guided and

Critical thinking is the ability to think of something, and be able to give an opinion/judgement about the subject. If you can’t think critically, you can’t understand the relationship between ideas, or facts given to you. Having

Critical thinking’s meaning to me is a very well-disciplined thinking process of an individual who skillfully, analyzing and evaluating. A process from information gathered from information given to an individual. It also is coming from communication, observations and past experiences that the individual has experienced from the past. Critical thinking allows you to think and ask yourself the right questions so that you can reach the best conclusion.

According to The Critical Thinking Community website, critical thinking is defined as the ability to consider and to analyze information in an unbiased manner in order to make decisions and judgments (2013). Critical thinking is important. Blooms Taxonomy breaks critical thinking as Evaluation Synthesis Analysis Application, Comprehension and Knowledge. The components of critical thinking are: the application of logic and accepted intellectual standards to reasoning; the ability to access and evaluate evidence; the application of knowledge in clinical reasoning; and a disposition for inquiry that includes openness, self-assessment, curiosity, skepticism, and dialogue.

The author will be introducing a paper in which she discusses critical thinking and how this form of thinking has affected her personal in her own life.

Before I started college, I had no idea what critical thinking was. Critical thinking is a method of thinking that emphasizes reflective, open minded, and rational analysis. I had never heard of such a thing before, but now I realize that it could be the key to success in anyone’s life. I have learned that we are a lot less than we can be, we have the capacity to be great, but our critical thinking is undeveloped.

Critical thinking involves evaluating and analyzing data in order to form a reasonable judgment about a particular topic or idea. It is not simply believing a subject matter because someone in authority or expertise said it, but challenging those arguments in order to form a well thought out conclusion. A critical thinker will normally not accept an answer without reasoning; they require evidence to validate or prove their conclusion. The ability to reason logically is a fundamental and disciplined skill that can be learned over time.

Critical thinking is a vital task that must be done in our everyday lives. In “Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking” found at criticalthinking.org, Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul explain critical thinking as “the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances”. Even tough there are many different types of methods to achieve a better quality of critical thinking, Dr. Elder and Dr. Paul discuss four specific ones in the article. All strategies, however, force you to put yourself in an uncomfortable and difficult position to develop a better quality of thinking.

Critical thinking can be defined as analyzing and evaluating information with a view to improve it, and making more effective decisions. Critical thinking is asking questions on the information and analyzing the answers to find the logic and applying it to real life situations. Critical thinking moves us past just the description and into scientific interference and reasoning. (The conversation, June 19, 2013).

All the steps in the research process require critical thinking. First, in defining a topic or a thesis statement, we use it to determine our goal. We use it to consider the premise of our research, to plan the method of how we are going to prove our stand, and to formulate the steps on how we are going to deliver the results.

The process of critical thinking requires you to ask more questions of both others and of yourself before a decision or determination is made. In order to successfully evaluate data in a critical manner, you must have a system in place to assess information as it is presented. In any situation whether you are having a conversation, observing others, or material you have read, you must be ready to probe deeper and ask the right question at the right time.

What is critical thinking to you? To some it may mean making wiser choices, taking time to critically analyze a situation, or to just put greater thought in your everyday life. According to Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Pauls’ article, “Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking”, critical thinking is defined as the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances. To us, critical thinking is a very important aspect of life and something we can all improve on. It allows us to think outside the box and put ourselves in others shoes and really look at things differently. We made sure to think about our own thinking habits while discussing these articles and to notice if we were ever being close-minded.