Critical thinking is the process of being able to identify a problem, explore interpretations and connections, prioritize alternatives and communicate conclusions and lastly integrate and refine strategies. (Wolcott & Lynch, 2001) Given that the role of organizing to the critical thinking process is important to help one get through each step. "Organizing gives clarity to our thoughts." ~ Kirby, Goodpaster and Levine. The origins of order come from both nature and mental orders. People put things in order by place, time, similarity and cause. Putting things is place would be topical order such as, how things fit into place in the universe. People use time to order things in sequence which would be using chronological order. Similarity or analogical order gives one insight into both the mind and world of how things belong. Then people have the reason of why, what caused it and what the effects are going to be which is the causal order.
Thinking
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English: There are no symbols that represent skept...All these methods of order are directly involved in the process of critical thinking. When someone wants to sit and think about what it at hand. During the each step of the process one uses the above orders to help get through each step.
Logical order is the most basic order people use in critical thinking. (Kirby, Goodpaster & Levine, 1999) During writing one states a premise, applies a particular then comes to a conclusion using the five w's, who, what, when, where and why. The method used during this process is clustering, analyzing and prioritizing. Clustering is going to help us put words or thoughts into similar groups. Analyzing helps to determine if more information is needed or is less information is required. Prioritizing is putting things together based on the information at hand to give us a bigger picture. Logical order is important to critical thinking because it gives one material to work with to get through each step.
To put this into prospective, critical thinking is not going to happen if one does not use organizing to put his or her thoughts in order. If people don't try to use some sort of organization in his or her thought process the outcome would not be the same as if they had used some order. So in my opinion if people have no sort of way to think about how to get through the process one is not truly critically thinking about the situations, one is only simply going through life out on a limb. In the end the role of organization and critical thinking are one in the same.
ReferencesKirby, Goodpaster & Levine, (1999), Critical Thinking [UOP custom edition], Needham Height, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing.
Wolcuttlynch, (2001) Retrieved on July 18, 2008 from www.wolcottlynch.com
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Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines