Critical thinking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 14

Critical thinking - Essay Example Another definition of critical thinking is that given by Michael Scriven and Richard Paul, in a presentation at the 8th Annual International Conference on Critical Thinking and Education Reform, Summer of 1987.They defined critical thinking as the intellectually disciplined way of active and skillful conceptualization, application, analysis and evaluation of data collected by observing, experiencing, reflecting, reasoning, and communicating, as a guidance to believing and acting. Paul and Elder (2008), defines the term as Critical thinking as the way of thinking - about something, where the person who is thinking develops the quality of his or her thinking by being skillful when taking care of the structures involved in thinking and forcing intellectual standards on them. In my understanding, for this reason, critical thinking means, thinking outside the box, having creative thoughts, and internalizing the thoughts. Critical thinking involves general intellectual values. Critical thinking includes several skills. These skills include rationality, self-awareness, honesty, open-mindedness, discipline, and judgment. Rationality is based on the fact one is thinking critically when he or she relies on reason and not emotions; when one requires prove, not ignoring evidence, and follow where the evidence leads. Also being rational in critical thinking is concerned more with coming up with the rightful way of explaining other than being right through analysis of apparent confusion and asking questions. Self-awareness in critical thinking involves comparing the effects of motives and bias, recognition of one’s assumptions, biases and point of view. Being honest in thinking critically, is evident when one recognizes emotional impulses, selfish motives, nefarious purposes, or other ways of deceiving ones-self. One is thinking critically, with an open mind when all reasonable inferences are evaluated, considerations of various viewpoints or