Critical Thinking- Bri Cassara

1) Critical thinking is "the examination and testing of suggested solutions to see whether they will work."
Lindzey, Hall, and Thompson, 1978.

2) "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.

Writing for a hypertext is unlike anything I have ever experienced. All through high school I was assigned persuasive essays and timed-writing; never once was I assigned anything remotely similar to that of hypertext writing. To create a successful hypertext you must be aware of your audience and their behavior. Eloquent writing of great length is welcome in many places, but on a website is not one of them. This only begins to describe the technicalities of a hypertext. For your content to be successful, you must have several things: a clear topic, numerous view-points, research, and a personal contribution. You must grab your topic and look at it from all angles. You must study your topic on a deeper level, and then you must determine what you will add to the existing research.
Often times, a writer creates a hypertext because he or she is passionate about a problem. The first definition rings true to me because a purpose of a hypertext can be attempting to find a solution. A proposed solution is not necessarily valid, but the thinking that is needed to succeed in proving the solution is the same thinking it takes to create a successful hypertext.
The second definition is, in my opinion, true because I had to learn to do those things as I began writing my hypertexts. You must consider all options, you must be open-minded, you must look at all viewpoints, you must search from truth, and you must be aware of biases. This definition is linked directly to what it takes to write successfully for a hypertext.