Critical Thinking

"The purpose of critical thinking is, therefore, to achieve understanding, evaluate view points, and solve problems. Since all three areas involve the asking of questions, we can say that critical thinking is the questioning or inquiry we engage in when we seek to understand, evaluate, or resolve."
Maiorana, Victor P. Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum: Building the Analytical Classroom. 1992.

"Critical thinking includes the ability to respond to material by distinguishing between facts and opinions or personal feelings, judgments and inferences, inductive and deductive arguments, and the objective and subjective. It also includes the ability to generate questions, construct, and recognize the structure of arguments, and adequately support arguments; define, analyze, and devise solutions for problems and issues; sort, organize, classify, correlate, and analyze materials and data; integrate information and see relationships; evaluate information, materials, and data by drawing inferences, arriving at reasonable and informed conclusions, applying understanding and knowledge to new and different problems, developing rational and reasonable interpretations, suspending beliefs and remaining open to new information, methods, cultural systems, values and beliefs and by assimilating information."
MCC General Education Initiatives

the first quote, to me, seems like an overview of the second quote, simply picking out the important information. The second quote goes more in depth and explains understand, view points, and provblems.

I think that when I write a hypertext i start by first attempt to understand the material, look at comflicting and supporting view points and then start writing. I did not fully connect with any of the other definations, however, these definations suffice. When i write in "hypertext mode" i start writing and my mind wanders, when i wander to a useful topic, i write the title of that topic then continue with my previous thought. hypertext writing feeds off my side thoughts that in linear writing are distracting and discouraged. When i have finally written all of my side thoughts i find connections between them and that is how i link them up. hypertext writing to me is freer and more creative than critical thinking, hypertexual writing could even be considered artistic.