Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is "the art of thinking about your thinking while you are thinking in order to make your thinking better: more clear, more accurate, or more defensible."
Paul, Binker, Adamson, and Martin (1989)

define, analyze, and devise solutions for problems and issues; sort, organize, classify, correlate, and analyze materials and data; integrate information and see relationships; evaluate information, materials, and data by drawing inferences, arriving at reasonable and informed conclusions, applying understanding and knowledge to new and different problems, MCC General Education Initiatives

Critical thinking also involves evaluating the thinking process - the reasoning that went into the conclusion we've arrived at the kinds of factors considered in making a decision. Critical thinking is sometimes called directed thinking because it focuses on a desired outcome."
Halpern, Diane F. Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking. 1996.

Composing a hypertext differs quite drastically from composing a linear essay. Instead of developing an idea over the course of a multi-paragraph essay, a hypertext requires the ideas to be centrally connected. In elementary school it was known as the spider chart – taking a central idea and connecting various offshoots to it. The authors of the above quotes think that critical thinking is all about classifying, organizing, and developing relationships between these various concepts. And this is exactly how I go about composing a hypertext. I take a central idea and then try to organize all the related information around it.