Critical Thinking

Although I felt that many of these definitions of critical thinking were accurate, the three that I chose really do reflect my experience in my journey to learn how to write in hypertext. You really do have to change your trajectory of thinking when writing in hypertext. The definitions I chose were written by Halpern, Kurland, and Maicrana. When reading Halpern's definition I really felt as if she was discussing hypertext specifically. There is a very specific path that you must take to get to a specific hypertext, involving cognitive skills and the strategies that Halpern discusses to "increase the probability of a desireable outcome". In my mind, the "desirable outcome" in the context of hypertext would be someone being able to easily navigate your site, being able to understand it, and being inspired to action after reviewing it. Halpern states that critical thinking is "purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed" and I think I used attempted to achieve these characteristics in hypertext more than in any other writing I have done.
Maiorana's definition also stood out to me as being extremely valuable in the context of a hypertext essay. With the possibility of multiple layers of our website, we were encouraged to "evaluate view points and solve problems". In our second hypertext, with the review of literature, I attempted to "add to the discourse", to propose what particular viewpoint I was contributing to the issue with my website. As Maiorana claims, "the purpose of critical thinking is to achieve understanding..", which I also feel is a goal that we are striving to reach in our second hypertext essay. We are trying to evoke the lived experience of a low wage worker, and in order to do this, we must be able to "achieve understanding" of these people's lives within ourselves.
Kurland's definition also outlined for me some of the most vital components of writing in hypertext. In his definition, he emphasizes "intellectual honesty", which is something that is necessary in all writing of course, but more important to recognize in this context. We had many class discussions about the issue of copyright, and the fact that writing can be very much influenced by how public it can be. I definitely altered my way of writing due to the fact that it would be viewed by so many people. I made it a point to adhere to all copyright laws, because in this case, not doing so can be much more detrimental that plagiarizing a five paragraph essay. Kurland insists that to achieve critical thinking we must "consider all possibilities, variety of viewpoints and explanations." Once again I feel that this statement is especially salient in the issue of hypertext because we take points of view from all sides of the issue and can develop a more well-rounded argument by doing so.