Critical Thinking-Andrew Agcaoili

It is used to describe thinking that is purposeful, reasoned and goal directed - the kind of thinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and making decisions when the thinker is using skills that are thoughtful and effective for the particular context and type of thinking task.

Critical thinking is "the art of thinking about your thinking while you are thinking in order to make your thinking better: more clear, more accurate, or more defensible."

critical thinking is concerned with...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

Writing for a hypertext was much different thatn writing a paper. The goal of the hypertext is to convey a view point, but without disregarding other view points. this is in stark contrast to papers in highschool where our goal was simply to prove a point, an arguement. The main difference is that the hypertext took more than simple analysis, it took critical thinking in order to porve your point, but in a more mature way.

For example, even in my first hypertext, which was about Filipino food, I had to put myself out of my own context and think about how to introduce the strange and different dishes of my culture to another audience. This reinforces the second point I chose about critical thinking; Critical thinking is simply thinking about the way you think, in order to improve on it. The world does not simply lie in your perspective, and the preperation for writing hypertext simply requires that you bring yourself out of your own mind, while trying to prove your point. therin lies the problem of the hypertext, which reinforces the first point about critical thinking. Critical thinking, and thus your hypertext must have a goal. just like a standard essay, a website cannnot just be about nothing. I realized this when I started out writing my second hypertext about the realtionship about boys and girls. It turns out writign a website about frustration with the other sex is not that interesting, so I had to think about how to focus it into something useful. The website needed a goal. After some critical thinking, I realized I could focus the site on bringing the sexes together. thus the hypertext developed from my "I Resign" to the analysis of how guys and girls feel about relationships. Finally, this brings up the thrid point about critical thinking, the need to be precise. As I was writing my thrid hypertext, I realized that the website had a goal, but I was talking about too many subjects, thus the site ended up as a big generic mess. Writing the hypertext caused my writing to become more focus, but more diversified in arguementative style. Hypertext writing forces one to think outside his or her comfortzone, but to spread their ideas in relation to other people's ideas; all this requires critical thinking.