Role of Organizing in Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a process of discovery, analysis and conclusion. As in any process, order is key to the completion. In this paper I will attempt to explain the important role organizing plays in the critical thinking process.

Order exists outside of our human capacity. What we have called chaos has later proven to be an organizational system. The entire universe has its own order and our world mimics that order in our structure and systems. As an infant, we learn order through our own bodies. The calling of our digestive and sleeping system rules our entire existence and we live within the guidelines of this order. We are born into order continue to build upon a basic foundation of innate systems and cycles. Order exists before us, and while the origins are unclear, the fact remains that order exists before we accepted it as an idea.

Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines

English: There are no symbols that represent skept...

Thinking

Our mental processes imitate a bigger natural order. Concepts of order can be categorized into four major categories; topical, analogical, chronological and casual. Topical order refers to the natural place of things regarding mass, size, density and other earth science. Analogical order draws similarities, thus the name analogical like an analogy. Chronological order is obvious in name and refers to order of time or growth. Casual order is the relationship between cause and effect or consequence. Other mental orders exist and have been created by us to organize other ideas in both our personal and professional lives. These formulas used to create order help us to better understand objectives and qualify various activities or results into a logical end.

Although I am sure there are innumerable steps created in the organizing process, three valuable steps are cluster, analyze and prioritize. These are almost instinctive in us because they mirror the larger...