Developing critical thinking skills is essential in life provided that you are interested in examining the objective side of living. Some people are content with knowing basic things that just help them to survive. We are not going to judge them. Everyone decides how to live his/her life on his/her own. However, we would like to offer you another way of living. Before we tell you about our suggestion, please, answer these questions:
- Do you want no one to manipulate you?
- Is it important for you to find the truth?
- Do you like to know something about you?
- Are you fond of discussions on diverse topics?
If most of the answers to these questions are positive, you are probably eager to widen your mental horizons. And we’ll try to help you with this by telling you how to improve critical thinking skills.
How to Improve Critical Thinking Skills
We have prepared for you simple but effective techniques that will help you with developing critical thinking skills. Here they are:
- Analyze everything you read, hear, or watch. Nowadays, we are living in a world where everyone wants to grab our attention. Don’t believe anything that you are watching on TV or reading from the Internet. Think of the motives of people that created that material. Perhaps, some of them are written or filmed with the aim to manipulate you.
- Make you brain think. The brain is a lazy organ. It doesn’t want to think. It would like to automatize every process. If you want to live rather than simply function, you should make your mind think. Start to observe the process of your coming to conclusions. Maybe some of your conclusions will seem ridiculous after you find their foundations.
- Think of your beliefs. For example, you know that cheating is bad from your childhood. However, is it really so? Is cheating “bad” in any situation? Actually, do things that are just “bad” or “good” exist? Try to make revisions of most of your beliefs.
The Simple Truth About “Adult Life”
When you are studying at school, your teachers always demand that you give them right answers. However, sometimes there are several correct answers or even no correct answer. Now, we are talking primarily about the humanities. For example, if your instructor asks you about reasons of the First French Revolution, this doesn’t mean that you should answer word for word the reasons that are presented in your textbook. Your main task is to analyze the situation. Even if you haven’t read the paragraph you still can answer because each revolution has similar reasons for starting.
So, we are trying to tell you that the point of your studying is not only to memorize as many facts as you can. You should also pay proper attention to developing critical thinking skills. You need to evaluate and analyze the information that you hear and read. Children tend to divide all things into “bad” and “good.” However, when you become an adult you find out that most things can’t be considered as pure “good” or “evil”.
Advice That Won’t Help You With Developing Critical Thinking Skills
We’ve just discussed some tips for good critical thinking skills. However, now we’d like to cover some poor advice to avoid which will serve only to stunt the growth of good critical thinking habits:
- Define several authoritative sources where you get the information from and stick to them. Most people read the same newspapers and magazines every day. They chose these sources a long time ago and they stuck to them. However, even reliable sources sometimes publish unreliable information. If you want to be manipulated, always read the same sources.
- Believe everything that you hear from your relatives and friends. Unfortunately, your relatives and friends are not always right. We don’t want to spoil your relationships with other people. Therefore, we’ll try to explain to you our logic chain. Imagine that one of your friends was on the bus when heard two women talking about some issue. Your friend doesn’t know those women, however, he or she tells you the information he or she heard (that is not actually true). In your turn, you reproduce this information to another friend, and he or she believes you because you are an authoritative source of information for your friend, just as your first friend is an authoritative source for you. The reality is that you trust the information that unfamiliar women discussed. We hope you understood the thread of our thoughts.
- Never betray your beliefs. If you once started thinking in a certain way, you should keep your convictions to your last breath. Follow the example of some old ladies who are confident that same-sex marriage is bad. Why do they think as they do? Primarily because they were told so many years ago and they feel comfortable in the world where everything is familiar to them.
- Pin faith on all your professors. They also could provide you with false data. The majority of professors have been teaching students for many years. Teaching is a tiresome process, just like studying. Professors get used to the information they convey to their students for many years, and sometimes it is difficult for them to change the content of their lectures, even if they heard about innovations in the field. So, it’s up to you to decide whether you believe literally each word from your professors’ mouths or you double-check the information.
Need More Help?
We hope our tips and recommendations will really help you so you don’t have to search “how to critical thinking skills” anymore. However, if you are not feeling confident about your critical thinking skills, you can apply to our cheap writing service WritingCheap.com. Writers from our service will try to help you with your assignments if you are in need. We are able to provide you with qualified help any time. So if you are not sure that you can cope with the task on your own, just contact us right now! We are available 24/7!