Critical Thinking

Do any of the descriptions of "critical thinking" described below apply to your experience of composing hypertext? If so, which ones? Why?

"The purpose of critical thinking is, therefore, to achieve understanding, evaluate view points, and solve problems. Since all three areas involve the asking of questions, we can say that critical thinking is the questioning or inquiry we engage in when we seek to understand, evaluate, or resolve." 
Maiorana, Victor P. Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum: Building the Analytical Classroom. 1992.

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

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." 
Paul, Binker, Adamson, and Martin (1989)

Each of the descriptions listed adds its own unique and important piece to the puzzle that is trying to define what exactly “critical thinking” is. I found that after reading through them all, the above three stood out to me as especially relevant to the process I went through when writing my research hypertext. I found that, with what I felt like was critical thinking for myself, I was able to achieve a very focused mindset in which I would critique my own thoughts and ideas in my head over and over again until I had distilled them into what I thought were the most important and effective things to write.

Specifically, which aspects of the composing process are most relevant to which parts of the "critical thinking" process?

I would often find myself coming up with ideas for ways to solve writing problems or clarity problems in my research hypertext writing. I was thinking of ways in my head that if I were reading my own writing how I would perceive it and how it would be useful to me as an online source. One of the most difficult parts was trying to overcome the difficulties of thinking ahead the entire writing and giving myself a mental outline of what was to come. I tried to keep a clear mind with some loose guidelines for my project so that the links from page to page within my writing would flow freely and I found that I was coming across the important topics that I needed as I went. In this way I feel as though my writing was more relevant and fresh and didn’t feel like it had been molded.

Does your engagement in these elements differ in some ways from your writing habits before you took this class or composed hypertextually?

Before I took this class I thought in a very standard essay-writing format. I would think out the usual thesis statement then intro, body paragraphs, etc. It was very structured and designed really only for a teacher to read and grade. The type of writing that I have to come learn (and love) in this class lets me think about my writing in a whole new way. I now feel as though I see my writing as affecting people and I write with the mindset that it has to be easy to read with links to many subtopics in a far less formal format and a structure that opens up a whole new world of writing.