Critical Thinking

"Broadly speaking, critical thinking is concerned with reason, intellectual honesty, and open-mindedness, as opposed too emotionalism, intellectual laziness, and closed-mindedness. Thus, critical thinking involves: following evidence where it leads; considering all possibilities; relying on reason rather than emotion; being precise; considering a variety of possible viewpoints and explanations; weighing the effects of motives and biases; being concerned more with finding the truth than with being right; not rejecting unpopular views out of hand; being aware of one's own prejudices and biases, and not allowing them to sway one's judgment." Kurland, Daniel J. I Know What It Says . . . What does it Mean? 1995.

I feel that I can greatly relate with Kurland's quotation above. When writing for my hypertexts, I consider all of the parties involved in an issue and I try to write as open-mindedly as possible. Everyone has an equal say on the issue, which is why I am to accurately show their views. I try to be aware of how I portray my own views and biases, and I don't allow my views to completely affect my writing.

Critical thinking is the development of cohesive and logical reasoning patterns. Stahl and Stahl, 1991.

These critical thinking projects have shown me the importance of reserching information in order to become knowledgeable on a specific issue. After reviewing the literature and understanding the conversation, I can then try to fuse the information I've gathered. I can look for patterns and make logical hypotheses on the issue, maybe even proposing new ideas. I'm still working on developing this process of cohering research together to form my own original research.