WHY IS CRITICAL THINKING IMPORTANT IN WRITING?

Why is critical thinking important? It is important because how we ask a question plays a very important role in the answers at which we arrive.

Think of it this way:

Imagine a plant on a hillside. There is a lot of knowledge that could be produced by studying this plant, and by asking different questions.

We could examine its cellular structure. We could determine its place in the taxonomy of other plants. We could discover its potential medicinal value. We could track the history of its migration. We could determine its life cycle. We could look up its Latin name. We could conduct research to see if it plays a role in any ancient myths. We could determine its role within the local ecology, etc. For each way in which we ask a different question of that plant, we would get a different answer.

Even if we put all of those questions and answers together, we still wouldn’t know everything about that plant. That is because the plant is what is called existent . In the end, it does not matter how many ways we measure it, or how many other kinds of things to which it is compared: the plant simply is what it is. It might be a difficult notion to wrap one’s head around, but being and knowledge are simply not the same things.

That does not mean that truth is relative, or that we can’t say something important,

useful, and accurate about the plant. We can produce knowledge about it; we can be

right, or wrong, in the knowledge that we produce. Rather, it is that we have different structures for determining what is true. Producing knowledge is often systematic. We compare things according to criteria that are already established. We process an object that we find, in the world (e.g.: Milkweed), through a system that is designed to produce answers (e.g.: Botany-the study of

plants), and get a variation of the same answer that we receive when we run a different

object (e.g.: Chrysanthemum) through that system. In doing so, we generate categories

and taxonomies, and we understand things better.

We can ask the same question of different objects, or we can ask different questions

of the same object. In other words, the questions that we ask, and how we ask them, and why we ask them, play an important part in determining the answers we receive. We like to organize the world, and that requires repeating the same questions, in the same way, of

similar objects.

Critical thinking is about paying attention to the way that we think when we ask these questions and get our answers, including what we’re taking for granted—such as the notion that Latin and plants are related, or how we would define a myth. Most of all, it is a way to understand how our discursive practices affect our view of the significance of that knowledge. All skilled academic thinkers and writers pay close attention to critical thinking. People are not quality thinkers just because they find answers; they are quality thinkers because they remain mindful of the way in which they are asking questions.

That’s why the history of ideas is not just a history of the steadily growing accumulation

of answers to which we have arrived. It is also a history of the ever-changing ways that our questions have limited, or expanded, the range of the answers that it is possible for us to receive. The tricky thing about critical thinking is accepting that it is not about answers, but

rather the way that we get to them. Critical thinking is an ongoing, self-corrective habit-of-mind that helps academic writers to understand how thinking is structured, the elements that influence the way that we think, how those influences can bias our thinking, how to guard against those biases, and the strengths and limitations of the language we use to express those thoughts.

In relationship to writing, critical thinkers raise vital questions, formulate them in language that is precise and clear, identify any assumptions made in asking the question, adjust when encountering valid points that contradict expectations, and remain rigorously honest. Writers who engage in critical writing do that, on paper, for a reader. That’s what academic writing is supposed to do.