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http://howtheuniversityworks.com

critical thinking

I found Halpern's idea that critical thinking is "used to describe thinking that is purposeful, reasoned and goal directed" to be related to my experience writing my hypertext essay. While making my hypertext, I not only had to review the information I read, analyze it and organize it into a cohesive essay, but I had to plan how to spread this essay across multiple web pages. I found this a little challenging at first but by planning and directing my ideas towards my goal, a series of webpages, i was able to create my hypertext. I had to think critically about how to lay out and organize my hypertext before I began writing, which I actually found made writing my paper more easy than the way I would traditionally write a research paper. I also used this concept to predict whether my site would be a successful site for the reader and if it would promote interest.
Moore and Parker's definition of critical thinking, "careful and deliberate determination of whether to accept, reject, or suspend judgment", related to the topic of my hypertext. While researching and writing my essay I had to be careful not to include my own opinions of whether or not I felt prostitution was right. It was difficult to set aside my judgments and opinions when writing but I realized that I had to in order to effectively analyze the topic. I found at some points that my opinion was beneficial to my writing, however, for the most part I had to set aside my own views.
I related to Kurland's definition of critical thinking similarly to that of Moore and Parker. With Kurland's definition, I did find myself "following evidence where it lea[d]; considering all possibilities; relying on reason rather than emotion (...) considering a variety of possible viewpoints and explanations; [and] weighing the effects of motives and biases". I found all of this necessary in order to effectively create a hypertext essay on prostitution. My topic, prostitution is very controversial, especially considering arguments for and against the legalization of it. I found that I had to set my own judgments aside and "consider all possibilities" as well as "rely on reason rather than emotion". I also examined "the effects of motives and biases" and because I remained so openminded, my opinions on some aspects of prostitution did change, however, I did not include my opinions in my paper. I found the part of the definition "being precise" as related to my organization of my hypertext.

Learning Essay

Taking Marc Bousquet’s English II class gave me my first opportunity to learn about composing websites. Obviously, learning how to create a website/ hypertext involves getting through a relatively challenging learning curve. We started by composing a personal page which was the easiest way to learn the basic tools because we didn’t have to focus as much on content. Once it came to creating an actual hypertext, the challenge of getting to know the tools better were slowly fading and I could focus more on creating something that I actually felt proud of. The first drafts were a good way for me to see my progress but the thing that I found helps the hypertext the most was the printable version.

Since the printable version came after the creation of the second draft of the hypertext, creating the printable version was a relatively smooth process. Once I had most of my hypertext in a linear version with added detail and analysis, it was extremely useful to go back and touch up on the hypertext itself. I found that by creating the printable version I came up with a large amount of useful material for extra hyperlinks and pages that weren’t initially there.

Composing a hypertext is a great way to think critically about the topics we chose. First of all, the format of a hypertext allows you to run with your ideas in any direction since the information doesn’t need to flow in a linear manner. It was a huge relief to get away from the traditional five paragraph essay format because it allowed me to break some of the habits that had formed from always using a linear style of writing. I think that this was one of the most important things that I learned in this class.

Composing a hypertext also taught me a lot about my need for improvement in the area of artistic composition. Since the hypertexts can be wrapped around images along with interesting facts about the issue etc., it was necessary to learn how to make the site interesting while keeping the readers attention on the important content.

My site has the potential to reach many different types of people. The focus is somewhat informative yet it has a lot of interesting information on things that I feel need to be changed. I do not feel like this is a site that would be particular interesting to drug dealers because I did not focus on how they should get out of their bind. There is always a demand for drugs and when there is such a strong demand, there will be suppliers. I feel that one of the main issues of solving this problem is helping people get out of their addictive cycles. We need to find ways to decrease the demand for harmful drugs. People who are interested in finding ways out of addiction may find some useful information in my hypertext.

I highlighted a number of goals half-way through the quarter which I felt were important to achieve. As mentioned earlier, composition was one of my main focuses. Although it is very important to make the site interesting, I found that by keeping the design relatively simple, the site was more effective in keeping the readers interested. If I went too far with the design, it almost seemed distracting. Another goal that I wanted to focus on was adding more links within my text and that is a process that I am still involved in. I want to make sure that the reader feels like they are going somewhere and by using both a navigation bar and links it allows the reader to have many options in terms of direction.

The blogging on Google were helpful because they allowed me to see other student’s opinions with even more detail than some of the class discussions. If there was one thing I could do over again, it would be to use the blogs to my advantage even more.