Critical Thinking Paper

Critical Thinking Essay

Title - Critical Thinking paper   Year -  Freshman  
Skills - research, analysis, persuasion, problem solving Category - Critical Analysis

The critical thinking paper is a three year project. This requires each student to write a 4-6 page essay to support one side of a particular issue happening locally, nationally, or internationally. I decided to write an essay against the one-child policy of China. At first I thought this would be an easy thing to argue however, afterwards I realized that most of the arguments I had in mind were humanitarians. The essence of this essay was to use logic and facts to support my point of view therefore I could not use humanitarian issues as a basis of my arguments. I found this to be very hard towards the beginning of my research. I wondered to myself “what other reasons could there be to end the one-child policy?” however what I didn’t realize was that this drive to know what else there could be helped me in my research. It caused me to be more interested in what I was doing. I learned quite a few interesting things about the one-child policy such as its actual effect on the population. I also found out that the one-child policy could possibly lead to an economic crisis in China. Before this point, none of these things even occurred to me and I found these things quite interesting.

Although I was able to find good arguments, my next issue was how to put them into words to persuade people, without leaving out vital information. Trying to write the essay all together proved to be an issue because I was focusing on all of the topics at one time and I realized that I was jumbling many different thoughts. Therefore I decided to write my essay in sections. I would write each argument separately and then connect them and present my solution. This proved to be very effective.

This essay was very educational by teaching me how to look deeper than the surface of my topic. It also taught  me how to organize a professional essay. Next year I will have to write an essay supporting the one-child policy which I am sure will be a problem in itself but I can use the skills and knowledge that I acquired from my first critical thinking paper to help me.