The process of critical thinking requires you to ask more questions of both others and of yourself before a decision or determination is made. In order to successfully evaluate data in a critical manner, you must have a system in place to assess information as it is presented. In any situation whether you are having a conversation, observing others, or material you have read, you must be ready to probe deeper and ask the right question at the right time.

Browne, Keely, McCall and Kaplan, refers to critical thinking as a "Systematic evaluation of arguments based on explicit rational criteria (1998, p.IX)." The authors go on to state that "critical thinking refers to the following: awareness of a set of interrelated critical questions, ability to ask and answer critical questions at appropriate times and the desire to actively use the critical questions (1998, p. 4)."

The process of making a...