Critical Thinking Skills and Their Importance Today

As rapid urbanization continues to dominate the world, humans are being exposed to brand new ideas that feeds their mind logistically as well as holistically. This phenomenon in turn opens an opportunity for us to gain knowledge in various subjects that equips us with an abundance of information. We are well aware that the ability to think cognitively is the greatest gift mankind can ever receive and that involves conscious scholarly activities such as thinking, using common sense and remembering. Due to having vast access to knowledge, it is crucial to possess the capacity to think unmistakably and normally on what to believe as well as weigh out the possibilities of whether an information is true or false. What is a critical thinking? In this essay we can understand critical thinking if we know what it is. 

Thinking is described as ‘A purposeful, organized cognitive process that we use to understand the world and make informed decisions’. Only through thinking can we make sense and relate to the world. By practicing critical thinking, we actively apply our skills, knowledge, and intelligence to deal effectively with ourselves, others, and life situations. What does critical thinking actually mean in a less complicated way? Critical thinking is referred to as the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe. To put it in other words, critical thinking is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, partially true or false. According to me, critical thinking is crucial as we are bombarded with various information these days without knowing its authenticity. This makes us prone to being persuaded by everything that we see or hear without giving it a second thought.

In order to be a critical thinker that uses their thinking in an efficient way is to follow the Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Model. In this model, it is said that intellectual standards should be pertained to elements of reasoning in order to grow intellectual traits. Intellectual standards that a critical thinker should possess are accuracy, clarity, relevance, being logical, sufficiency, precision, depth, significance, fairness and breadth.

Someone who has mastered the art of critical thinking is someone who is a well cultivated thinker who brings up fundamental issues and detailing them unmistakably and precisely. Moreover, they use are able to collectively gather relevant information and present their ideas in a well reasoned way. One quality that critical thinking bestows us is the ability to think open-mindedly where we don’t jump into conclusions as well as make unwarranted assumptions out of a situation. This helps us communicate effectively with others whilst helps us bring across our ideas to find solutions for problems. However, there is always hurdles along the way. Critical thinkers are often faced with egocentricism, sociocentricism, making unwarranted assumptions and having wishful thinking. It's important to develop critical thinking skills for more than just academic reasons. Substantial critical thinking capacity serves us well in all aspects of our lives. It encompasses problem-solving, decision making, personal responsibility, and managing relationships of every kind effectively. There's no doubt it's one of the most crucial mindsets critical thinkers could ever possess in life.

‘A Claim’ is the process of convincing someone by trying to do the convincing and someone who is supposed to be convinced. A claim is a process that is used to convince someone. Claims are made when someone tries to convince either themselves or others. However, the act of convincing someone is known better as ‘argument’. Claims can be either true or false declarative sentences. For example, ‘Colleen Hoover is a great author’. When we analyse this sentence, we can come to a conclusion that this is a claim as this sentence can be either true or false. This sentence is categorized as a declarative sentence. Claims can have declarative sentence that are either true or false but not both. Another example that could further explain what a claim is, ‘Tomorrow will be a sunny day’. This sentence has declared that it will be a sunny day tomorrow. This shows that it allegedly might be a sunny day tomorrow but it can be entirely true or false. Through this, we can know that a claim often has a truth or false value to it.

‘An argument’ can be defined as an attempt to convince, using reasons. In critical thinking, argument is a technical term that is used to imply logical reasoning. An argument is an attempt to convince someone by suggesting that a claim is true. In arguments, the sentences require either a truth or false value. In an argument, a particular claim called conclusion is true whilst the rest of the argument is called premises which are supporting reasons as to why the conclusion is true. The primary aim of an argument is that to convince someone that the claim is true. When an argument is good, people are convinced that the said claim is true.

For instance, ‘Mrs Anita is a bad mother. She often neglects her children’s needs and leaves them home alone unattended.’. The sentence is an argument. The conclusion is that Mrs Anita is a bad mother. And the premise is ‘she often neglects her children’s needs and leaves them home alone unattended’. Through the above example, we can derive that ‘The argument only makes sense because you’re filling in the background premise automatically’.

How Critical Thinking Would Help Us in Real Life?

When we learn to become an exemplary critical thinker, we reap many benefits through sowing the seeds that makes our mind fruitful. From my standpoint, critical thinking helps us make better decisions. The reason for this circumstance is, by thinking we can weigh out possibilities and outcome of a situation when making important decisions. This enables us to make choices that not only favours us but also gives us the best possible result when it comes to decision making. Presumably, critical thinkers take the best decisions and when we are facing everyday problems critical thinking aids us in taking the best decision. Often times, this thought process is done subconsciously and critical thinking enables us to think independently without any constraints as well as trust our gut feeling.

On the contrary, critical thinking also improves language and presentation skills. This is mainly due to express ourselves in the best way possible where we think clearly and systematically. Critical thinking not only assists us with thinking judicially, but improves our ability to comprehend information that is being fed through mainstream media nowadays as well. In addition, we can monitor ourselves through evaluation in order to make learning more successful. For instance, we can learn how to analyze texts and interpret data and information given to us in an orderly manner that proves efficiency.

So what is critical thinking and what role it plays? It plays a huge role in self – reflection. Owning to the fact that we can scrutinize ourselves along the way by providing well – constructed criticism that would contribute to our progress. As we practice self – reflecting upon our deeds, we may find ourselves continuously striving further to achieve excellence. Bearing in mind that this is the consequence of applying critical thinking skills to our daily lives, we will constantly challenge ourselves to become the better version of ourselves in a positive manner.

Moreover, critical thinking enables us to improve relationships with the people around us. We can forge close ties with everyone when we can get a message across while exchanging opinions. Due to this, we are able to understand other’s perspectives towards life without being mistaken. In turn, this helps us relieve tensions among relationships and become more open – minded towards different views that makes up a broad spectrum of views. Apart from that, critical thinking certainly helps us to have smooth conversations with everyone when we are upright in communicating. From my standpoint, critical thinking paves the right way for us that molds us into better human beings as a whole.