Critical Thinking

Critical thinking consists of a mental process of analyzing or evaluating information, particularly statements or propositions that people have offered as true. It forms a process of reflecting upon the meaning of statements, examining the offered evidence and reasoning, and forming judgments about the facts.

Critical thinkers can gather such information from observation, experience, reasoning, and/or communication. Critical thinking has its basis in intellectual values that go beyond subject-matter divisions and which include: clarity, accuracy, precision, evidence, thoroughness and fairness.
 

Methods of critical thinking

Itemize opinion's from all relevant sides of an issue and collect Logical argument's supporting each.
Break the arguments into their constituent statements and draw out various additional implication's from these statements.
Examine these statements and implications for internal contradictions.
Locate opposing claims between the various arguments and assign relative weightings to opposing claims:
Increase the weighting when the claims have strong support especially distinct chains of reasoning or different news sources, decrease the weighting when the claims have contradictions.
Adjust weighting depending on relevance of information to central issue.
Require sufficient support to justify any incredible claims; otherwise, ignore these claims when forming a judgment.
5. Assess the weights of the various claims.
Mind maps provide an effective tool for organizing and evaluating this information; in the final stages, one can assign numeric weights to various branches of the mind map.

Critical thinking does not assure that one will reach either the truth or correct conclusions. First, one may not have all the relevant information; indeed, important information may remain undiscovered, or the information may not even be knowable. Second, one's biases may prevent effective gathering and evaluation of the available information.

Critical thinking may be distinguished, but not separated, from feeling. Refusal to recognize their interaction in real life leads to various forms of self-deception, individually and socially; and at the left, right, and mainstream of economic, political, and religious issues. Further analysis and resources about this interaction may be found in Roderick Hindery (2001): Indoctrination and Self-deception or Free and Critical Thought.
 

Books

Argumentation and Critical Thinking Tutorial by Dr. Jay VerLinden, Humboldt State University -- "Intended to help students in college level critical thinking classes learn some of the basic concepts of the formal logical structure of arguments and informal fallacies."
The Critical Thinking Community Resources for teaching critical thinking, including syllabi; library; sponsors seminars and conferences.
Critical Thinking .org.uk A guide for students taking OCR's A-level course.
"Critical thinking as a journey" -- non-traditional account of teaching critical thinking by Peter Taylor, UMass Boston.
Critical Thinking Core Concepts from the "Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum" Project, Longview Community College
"Critical Thinking on the Web" by Tim van Gelder
Critical Thinking Web Aims to supplement and improve the teaching of critical thinking in universities in Hong Kong by providing online teaching and learning resources on critical thinking.
"Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts" by Peter A. Facione (pdf)
Graduate Program in Critical and Creative Thinking and associated resources
An Introduction to Critical Thinking by Adam Wiggins
"Statistical Literacy: Thinking Critically About Statistics" Milo Schield, Augsburg College (pdf)
Teaching Undergrads Web Evaluation: A Guide for Library Instruction. Association of College and Research Libraries
Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources, UCLA College Library Help Guides
"Using Critical Thinking To Conduct Effective Searches of Online Resources" by Sarah K. Brem and Andrea J. Boyes
A General Semantics Perspective on 'Critical Thinking' by Steven Lewis
A Field Guide to Critical Thinking by James Lett
Critical Thinking on JISCmail - Academic and Research Mailing List
Critical Thinking: What Is It Good for? (In Fact, What Is It?) by Howard Gabennesch, Skeptical Inquirer magazine
Seven rules for sharpening up your thinking skills A summary of critical thinking techniques.