What is Critical Thinking?

What is critical thinking? That is a very interesting question. To be honest, if someone would have asked me this question anytime before Tuesday at 3:30pm I would have give some generic answer or possibly even guessed. It just so happens that I am taking a critical reasoning class this semester and we discussed critical thinking in our first class meeting. I would define critical thinking as the ability to reason logically and apply that reasoning to real life situations. After doing a little investigating I found that "experts" on dictionary.com define it as follows; the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion. This definition does not specifically identify a particular process that a person must engage in to think this way. However, I do believe that through this defintion we can see that critical thinking does take much more effort and deeper thought than everyday life events.

Now, how does critical thinking relate to a class titled 'Research Strategies'? I believe that these 2 things are related becasue to do research, and to do it well, a person must engage themselves in critical thinking. Research is not something a person can just breeze by and barely think about it, they have to think much deeper.  Doing good research is challenging, but once you finish I feel it is very rewarding to see the great work you created. This course will be challenging and fun and I am looking forward to learning how to become a better researcher.