critical thinking

"Critical thinking is the use of those cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome. 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 also involves evaluating the thinking process - the reasoning that went into the conclusion we've arrived at the kinds of factors considered in making a decision. Critical thinking is sometimes called directed thinking because it focuses on a desired outcome." 
Halpern, Diane F. Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking. 1996.

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)

"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.



Hypertext writing is different from essay writing in that its audience is intended to be wider and with more variety. In scholarly writing, I only intend for the writing to matter for one person: the professor. In hypertext writing, I actually have to think critically about choosing a topic that I want to write about. It has to be something I care about, and something that perhaps other people may want to care about as well. When looking for sources, I have to separate what I believe is the truth, and what I believe is exaggerated. My writing has to be “purposeful, reasoned and goal directed”, which is why for a hypertext, the topic choice is extremely important, because it is easier to focus on your writing when it matters to you. “Intellectual honesty” is important in hypertext because anyone can have access to it. If you lie in a hypertext the purpose of having a defensible and goal-orientated writing is defeated. While I was writing my research hypertext, I had to constantly ask myself if what I was writing worthwhile, and not a bunch of mumbojumbo. This act of “thinking about [my] thinking in order to make [my] thinking better” made it so the writing wasn't just full of air, repetition, and big vocabulary words, like my scholarly essays tended to be. I had to find a lot of different viewpoints that helped explain my topic, whereas my normal essays were told to only focus on one side of the story or argument. In this way, I can search for the truth, and tell the truth to anyone who reads my writing.