Thinking Critically An introduction

Critical thinking is an essential skill for students, academics and those whose thinking forms an important aspect of their jobs. Critical thinking is a way of seeing things and a descriptive term for the set of methods used to consider problems. It leads to an informed, aware, systemic, considered and logical approach to deciding what to believe or do; with arguments and conclusions that are more likely to be valid, substantiated, resistant to criticism and representative of the situation. This paper introduces critical thinking and related concepts to students, and suggests methods of applying critical thinking to the process of writing of an academic paper.