The Core Message of the Video

Critical thinking is the attempt to evaluate claims and arguments in light of good reasons
and evidence. It means not taking claims at face value and recognizing that arguments can be
tainted by cognitive biases, logical fallacies, insufficient evidence, and poor reasoning. In the First
video, it was stated that as a critical thinker one must evaluate the information the writer
presents. In the Second video, critical thinking was divided into five parts, Analysis,
Interpretation, Synthesis and Evaluation. Analysis is to break a work into individual parts to learn
and get greater understanding of the larger concept. Interpretation is working to understand the
individual parts of an author’s work, an example given was to interpret the meaning as to why
Mr. Darcy’s favorite body part of Elizabeth is her eyes.
Synthesis is to bring individual parts together whereas evaluation is to consider or
examine a work in order to judge its value, quality or importance. After following the process of
critical thinking an assertion must be made, in which you provide a strong statement to support
that something is true. There is also a certain process for Evaluation in which one must come up
with questions about the text, infer meaning from important images and support those
inferences with citation from the read text.
Knowledge about it before the video
I love reading, it gives me great comfort to wrap my head around things not only of
feeding me information but making me question about life and the purpose I want to serve. I
would like to think that I already have some semblance of what a critical thinker is, as I’ve already
been exposed to research and debate for years. I do not consider myself an expert but I am not
completely ignorant either. I have personally built my very own concept of what a critical thinker
is, Critical thinking is simply being observant, knowing that change begets change, and
questioning the consequences of the changes proposed. The opposite is of critical thinking is
knee-jerk reaction. A critical thinker is not impulsive, fickle or even necessarily a hard thinker, but
is smart with available resources – more thoughtful in the way he consumes information, actively
interested in knowledge and understanding, rather than just being passively satisfied with
whatever he’s served – as the thinker aims to reach sound conclusions.
Striking Point that interest you
The point that enamored me was not really about the definition of critical thinking but
rather the application of such skill. Interpretation and assertion were the most relevant to me as
to look at actions at face value may be very different from what the author actually wants to tell
or how it applies to life metaphorically. Interpretation allows us to magnify actions like holding
someone’s hand a more in depth meaning, as to what it implies to the relation of the people
involved. Interpretations gives us the platform to the implementation of processes through which
information is reviewed for the purpose of arriving at an informed conclusion. Information is very
likely to come from multiple sources, and tends to enter the analysis process with haphazard
ordering.
 Assertion on the other hand can be affected by our biases and prejudice if not careful as
you exert a magnanimous amount of energy to prove that a certain idea is the truth. I’ve always
been labeled assertive but most often the word aggressive comes with it, a very common flaw in
making an assertion. As to assertion in readings, one must set boundaries whether one’s opinion
is politically correct, culturally appropriate or is it timely. One must leverage their own convictions
as if its is really the absolute truth but don’t forget to acknowledge that the differing side also
has their own set of truths and must take it to consideration to create a credible, respectable
assertion.

What is the most important lesson learned?

If there’s one thing that separates the human species to other mammalian species is this
thing called “metacognition” or the ability to think about thinking. Critical thinking allows us to
exercise the evolutionary trait we’ve been given in order to function better in society. Critical
thinking in reading puts the work into perspective and apply meaning to it. Without critical
thinking, humans would be at the state that existed thousands of years ago, where people
believed everything that they saw and experienced as magic, not as natural phenomena. Critical
thinking gives us the ability to form clear and rational judgments to separate what is true from
what is imaginary. It considers both our own internal experience and the external world.
The critical thinker is consistent, uses logic, connects ideas, judges the relevancy or
irrelevancy of ideas, recognizes and avoids preconceptions and mistakes, analyzes and solves
potential problems, forms sound arguments, and is able to explain and justify his or her own
beliefs and conclusions to others. Critical thinking awakens our inner skeptics, to be critical is
about questioning your assumptions, ways of living and thinking patterns and consistently
changing it until arriving at better choices, assumptions or way of living and thinking patterns.
Nevertheless, critical thinkers have something in common, they are very good observers,
skeptical and logical. They observe human behavior, a problem or a subject for very long, and
then they question them, and come to a decision. They do not accept ideas easily, they think
ideas through their own way and they either accept the idea or make some changes in it.