Critical Strategies and Writing

The path to a good final draft can be winding and unpredictable, involving exploration through brainstorming, outlining, and various types of exploratory writing. However, the goal of this exploratory writing is critical thinking.

What is critical thinking and why does it matter? For starters, critical thinking will help you complete college writing assignments. However, there are other, better reasons why critical thinking matters.

Critical thinking is thinking with a goal. Not everyone agrees on what that goal should be, but in this guide, we have four goals in mind.

Deciding what is true about a subject
Deciding what you believe about a subject.
Communicating what you believe.
Communicating why you believe it.

There is more to critical thinking than the learning objectives we listed in the previous section. However, we have focused on two activities most closely associated with the critical thinking goals above: knowing and arguing.

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Online Guide to Writing and Research Thinking Strategies and Writing Patterns

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