The 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.

This week we learned about egocentric thinkers. In reading the postings from my classmates this week, I think it is fair to say that we all agree that egocentric thinkers can be difficult people to deal with. An egocentric thinker believes his ideas are better than all others. Egocentric thinkers are not only difficult to work with, they can also make it difficult to use critical thinking in the workplace. In this paper, I will discuss how a lack of critical thinking can impede creativity and innovation.

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 one of the most important traits that a person can have in their day to day lives. It involves the person to have the ability to ascertain claims and make judgments based on well-support evidence or logic rather than anecdote or emotion. There are 8 protocols that critical thinkers’ exhibit in their day to day lives in order to become better at their craft.

In 1990, the American Philosophical Association defined critical thinking as “purposeful, self-regulatory process that results in reasoned judgment”. Critical thinking can be defined in a number of similar phrases that all seem to focus on the importance of conscious analysis. Our text starts off with the working phases of critical thinking as analyzing thinking, evaluating thinking, and improving thinking. The process of critical thought is cyclical and not linear. Being a “fair-minded critical thinker” is not a permanent attribute, and it must be consistently worked at as applying intellectual standards and elements of reasoning instead of emotion can be difficult. Overall, to be a strong critical thinker you must work toward strong intellectual traits such humility, courage, and integrity to better represent issues and or arguments.

A crucial skill in critical thinking is learning to distinguish inference from assumption. An inference is an act of concluding that something is true or seems to be true. An assumption is an act of assuming something based on previous beliefs. Everyone has their own point of view, therefore, they have different assumptions about what the see. For example, if two people see an overweight person at the gym, one might infer, "There's a lazy person." The other might infer, "That person is taking control of their health." These inferences are based on different assumptions about the conditions under which overweight people end up in the gym; these assumptions are connected to the point of view about people that each has formed. The first person

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.

Having those strong critical thinking skills is very vital to this career. Critical thinking means that you have to make decisions based upon treatments, symptoms and changes that occur in a child’s state of health (educationcareerarticles.com, pg.2). You have to know what specific type of care each patient needs so you can diagnose any problems that may happen. Having patience is another strong quality at the top of the list. Dealing with kids can give someone a lot of stress just because they are all over the place sometimes which is where your patience ability has to kick in. Kids who are really young have a lack of trepidation meaning they rarely understand what’s going on around them (educationcareerarticles.com, pg.2).

Encyclopedia Britannica defines critical thinking as the ability to construct and evaluate various reasons that have been or can be offered as pros or cons to personal beliefs, judgments and actions (Siegel,

Critical thinking is defined as “the systematic evaluation or formulation of beliefs or statements, by rational standards” (Vaughn 4). Many people exercise critical thinking in everyday situations. The act of thinking critically involves many steps starting from valuable reasoning and logic along with evidence and investigation.

What is critical thinking? Simply put it is looking at both sides of an issue then weighing your position based on factual evidence you have gathered on the subject matter.

Critical thinking is utilized by a person who might be having a problem, a need to find a solution. A critical thinker first has to find ways to confront the issues in order to find the best solution. Critical thinking has many different combinations that can be rational, awareness, honesty, open-mindedness, discipline and judgment. When a person is being rational there looking for facts by finding evidence that might lead to solving the problem. A person is aware of his/her surroundings by paying attention to every detail. A person might be impulsive and he/she can recognize their emotions can be impulsive. Being open-mindedness can be negative because the imagination of a person can lead him/her to believe things beyond his/her expectations.

Critical thinking is a combination of thinking and communication skills. It can be defined as an internal analyzation of facts and circumstances to develop a reasonable, informed conclusion. To be proficient in critical thinking, a person must have the ability to gather relevant information, carefully consider all the options, maintain an open-mind, effectively communicate,

The intellectual virtues that are necessary for the development of fair minded critical thinking skills are Intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, Intellectual sense of justice, Intellectual perseverance, Intellectual fair- mindedness, Intellectual confidence in reason, Intellectual courage Intellectual empathy, and Intellectual autonomy. Each of the above qualities can put into practice to improve our thinking because they are all valuable life traits. All individuals have a conscious knowledge to do not only what is right, but to make the best choice into any thinking capacity. Only if we truly apply all of the above intellectual virtues it will help individuals see the more of the critical thinking skills that are each of them.

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.