Critical Thinking

Thinking critically is a big part of daily life. Thinking critically and making critical decisions can change how you do something now or even forever. Critical thinking is the process of thinking that questions assumptions. Critical thinking is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, false, or sometimes true and sometimes false, or partly true and partly false. Critical thinking is a major component in decision-making. Most professions require critical thinking, and not thinking critical can make you lose things like your job.

My mind has grown as far as thinking critically through this class. This critical inquiry class has helped me make better decisions because I have learned how to think out my choices more. When I think about my options on choices, I also think about the precautions that come with those choices, this is why I feel that I am a better critical thinker now. An example on how I critically think better is that now I stopped partying as much as I use to in the beginning of the year because I realized that my actions have cause me to fall behind in my work. When I think about partying now, my immediate, association is that it is going to be bad for me in the long run. Its either I am thinking more critically or I am just growing up as a whole.

In order to become a critical thinker you have to have a certain mindset. A critical thinker views frustrations as opportunities. A critical thinker listens actively, refuses to tolerate confusion, and captures insight. Becoming a critical thinker can only help boost your mind, decisions, and help you study more efficiently. Critical thinkers use evidence skillfully, organizes thoughts and articulates them in in a concisely coherent manner, and understands the difference between reasoning and rationalizing.

In class, we learned about deduction reasoning and induction reasoning. Deduction reasoning typically moves from general truths to specific conclusions, and induction reasoning moves from specific examples to a general conclusion. I realized that I use to use more of a deductive reasoning and now I use more of an inductive reasoning. When I used a deductive reasoning, I used statements and "what I believed to be true" to make decisions on situations and people to decide how I felt about them. Now that I use more of induction reasoning, I just use what is factual to go about my actions and my opinions. This reasoning has helped me personally take things like drama out of my life, because now I do not worry about what someone tells me how another person feels, or what they said about me.

Learning the common fallacies of thinking has also helped my thinking. When thinking critically doing the right thing plays a big role in your decisions. Fallacies of distraction deal with things like fear, pity, name-calling, and ignorance. Fallacies of relevance deal with falsely relating things, failure to see complexity, and making wild conclusions that extend far beyond the situation.

In-class situations have also