Paul for their project with the National Council for Excellence in

Critical Thinking Instruction:

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively
and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing,
and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by,
observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a
guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on
universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions:
clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence,
good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.[38]
You’re probably thinking, is there some way this definition could be
worded differently so that it’s easier to digest and understand? If indeed that
was the first thought that entered your mind, congratulations – you just put your
creative thinking cap on! Having discussed the creative mental process, let’s
now look at our critical thinking skills.
Rephrasing the definition above, we’ll take some of the keywords:
conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing and evaluation. These are all
verbs. The key nouns are: observation, experience, reflection, reasoning,
communication. Both verbs and nouns are interspersed with modifiers: clarity,
accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons,
depth, breadth and fairness.
We’ve got all the components of the original definition. How about the
following as an alternative definition?
Critical thinking is the way our mind takes in information supplied by
our five senses and processes that information through analysis, application and
then summarizing it so that we can come up with a clear, accurate and fair
assessment of that information.