How to Be a Critical Thinker - Effective communication Tips

Welcome to this session on Critical Thinking. 

Communication across any medium is essentially an exchange of information or ideas and any exchanges needs to be backed by clear logic and reason. And therefore, with this session, you will develop critical thinking abilities to formulate and structure your thoughts, ideas and arguments in a more refined fashion.

Before you begin this session on critical thinking and research techniques, we have a pre-work exercise for you to complete. Do note how you felt about the research methodology followed by Terry Moore to answer the question of why is 'x' the symbol for unknown.

Francis Bacon once said, “Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider”. This statement is very much relevant for critical thinking. Every great mind in history was a critical thinker. They had the vision to look at problems from many different perspectives and then come up with the best possible solution. 

Similarly, at work too, you must train your mind to think critically. This will not only help you make calculated decisions but also help you avoid impulsive ones. In this session, our subject expert, Rakesh, with the help of some fun and easy examples, will explain the importance of thinking critically and also share some useful tips and tricks to help you become a critical thinker yourself. So, let’s watch the next video to get started.

Let’s summarise some key takeaways from the video above:

• Critical thinking means evaluating a problem from all sides before reaching a decision.
• This requires reading and understanding the experts' view both in support of and against the topic.  
• The chief aspect of critical thinking is to listen, read and view each and everything precisely.
• Critical thinking is vital for making informed and right decisions.
• The entire critical thinking process involves four main stages: Research, Analyse, Build Personal Opinion and Express your View.
• Developing a reading habit, surfing the web or talking to some intelligent people will help gain information.

The next segment will cover the first three stages of critical thinking- i.e. how to research, analyse and build your personal opinion. You will also learn how to defend an argument.

Additional Resources:

• Watch this TED playlist on Curiosity to ignite the mind, revolutionise thoughts and inspire ideas worth spreading.
• If you are a project manager do go through this link to strengthen your critical thinking muscle through a disciplined focus and diligent practise.
• Use this rurbic to benchmark thinking - The Holistic Critical Thinking Scoring rubric