critical thinking is a term that gets
thrown around a lot you've probably
heard it used often throughout the years
whether it was in school at work or in
everyday conversation but when you stop
to think about it just what exactly is
critical thinking and how do you do it
simply put it's the act of deliberately
analyzing information so that you can
make better judgments and decisions it
involves using things like logic
reasoning and creativity to draw
conclusions and generally understand
things better this may sound like a
pretty broad definition and that's
because critical thinking is a broad
skill that can be applied to so many
different situations you can use it to
prepare for a job interview manage your
time better make decisions about
purchasing things and so much more now
as humans we are constantly thinking
it's something we can't turn off but not
all of it is critical thinking no one
thinks critically 100 percent of the
time that would be pretty exhausting
instead it's an intentional process
something that we consciously use when
we're presented with difficult problems
or important decisions in order to
become a better critical thinker it's
important to ask questions when you're
presented with a problem or a decision
before jumping to any conclusions you
can start with simple ones like what do
I currently know and how do I know this
these can help to give you a better idea
of what you're working with and in some
cases simplify more complex issues let's
take a look at how we can use critical
thinking to evaluate online information
say a friend of yours posts a news
article on social media and you're drawn
to its headline if you were to use your
everyday automatic thinking you might
accept it as fact and move on but if you
were thinking critically you would first
analyze the available information and
ask some questions what's the source of
this article is the headline potentially
misleading what are my friends general
beliefs and do they inform why they
might have shared this after analyzing
all of this information you can draw a
conclusion about whether you think the
article is trustworthy
critical thinking has a wide range of
applications in the real world it can
help you to make better decisions become
more hireable and generally help you to
better understand the world around you
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