Information Literacy Instructional Program

Information Literacy Learning Guides

Critical Thinking

"It is not possible to become a good thinker and be a poor questioner. Thinking is not driven by answers but, rather, by questions."    - Richard Paul, Critical Thinking Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life

Critical Thinking Definition

Critical thinking recognizes:

• patterns and provides a way to use those patterns to solve a problem or answer a question
• errors in logic, reasoning, or the thought process
• what is irrelevant or extraneous information
• preconceptions, bias, values and the way that these affect our thinking.
• that these preconceptions and values mean that any inferences are within a certain context
• ambiguity - that there may be more than one solution or more than one way to solve a problem.

Critical thinking implies:

• that there is a reason or purpose to the thinking, some problem to be solved or question to be answered.
• analysis, synthesis and evaluation of information

Critical thinkers:

• can approach something new in a logical manner
• look at how others have approached the same question or problem, but know when they need more information
• use creative and diverse ways to generate a hypothesis, approach a problem or answer a question
• can take their critical thinking skills and apply them to everyday life
• can clarify assumptions, and recognize that they have causes and consequences
• support their opinions with evidence, data, logical reasoning, and statistical measures
• can look at a problem from multiple angles
• can not only fit the problem within a larger context, but decide if and where it fits in the larger context
• are comfortable with ambiguity

  - Bellevue Community College

Next: Differences between critical and non-critical thinking..

Debbie Anderson, librarian
Estrella Mountain Community College  
2001 - 2002