Monitoring thinking patterns is a good way to hone beginner critical thinking skills. A person who is thinking critically is aware of her thinking process and can, therefore, begin to control how she thinks about certain topics. Monitoring thinking includes looking at the role of thinking as it relates to specific concepts, assumptions, inferences and points of view. Monitoring often takes time and effort to develop. Students who have just begun to monitor their thinking process may need practice before this becomes second nature. Monitoring thinking requires daily practice, in much the same way that sports require practice and discipline for improvement.
A person looking to increase critical thinking skills should concentrate on areas of analysis, synthesis and evaluation, as these are the core elements to critical thinking. Analysis is the process of breaking information down into smaller parts to understand it; being able to analyze information is also a way to organize it. Synthesis is the ability to connect prior knowledge with new knowledge and see new patterns. Evaluation involves drawing conclusions about a topic based on certain criteria. The results of an evaluation may not be clear-cut, as evaluating a topic might include using "what if" scenarios. For instance, in evaluating a novel, you may imagine "what if" a character made a different choice and what the character's choice says about the choice made.
Illogical thinking patterns inhibit critical thinking and can actually cause mental health problems such as depression. For instance, all-or-nothing thinking is when a person views a scenario as having only two choices. Another thinking pattern is emotional reasoning, where a person believes his negative feelings rather than logical facts. Thinking in "shoulds" is another, where thoughts attributed to the way a person believes things should be. These thinking patterns prevent a person from seeing multiple choices and multiple possible results and can get in the way of thinking critically. Challenging these patterns is a good way to develop critical thinking skills.
A good critical thinker is willing to look at all parts of her life with some amount of scrutiny. Practice involves intellectual perseverance or being driven by questions and seeking answers that have some purpose or meaning in many aspects of life. This involves setting aside egocentric or self-involved thinking in favor of considering and evaluating the evidence. By being persistent and practiced in thinking critically, a person can apply these skills to many areas.