Series of Journalistic Writing Part 2 : Critical Thinking (August 24, 2022)
The Series of Journalistic Writing with Kristin Samah continued on August 24, 2022. Critical thinking was discussed along with the participants. Post truth is a real threat and challenge in our lives today. For that, we need to develop the ability to think critically and creatively. Thinking is an organized cognitive process aimed at understanding our world. Critical thinking is a clear and precise thinking process, according to purpose, has a foundation for argument, and is not inconsequential. Critical thinking is an orderly process, including the flow and logic of thinking. With critical thinking, we are able to find relevant sources of information, utilize information to solve problems and in the end we can draw conclusions from a series of phenomena. Critical thinking behaviour including open minded, honest, curious, optimistic, brave, patient and tough.
The critical point of the thinking process begins with the emergence of assumptions. Assumption is the author’s initial understanding of a particular phenomenon or issue. Assumptions must be criticized using experiences data in the form of historical data or facts. This will produce knowledge that contains an understanding that can be applied. The next step is to apply the thinking results then be analyzed, synthesized and evaluated. This thinking process is in line with the scientific method principle which begins with formulating problems, collecting data, compiling hypotheses, proving hypotheses (through experiments), collecting research data, processing data, making conclusions and finally publishing the results of the research.
Fransiska Yuenda (grantee Widya Mandira Catholic University) asked about effective decision making. Healthy and critical thinking is much better than quick and wrong decisions. For this reason, critical thinking exercises are important in order to get an ideal decision making, both quickly and precisely. Next, Siti Rohimat (grantee Padjadjaran University) asked about expressing opinions and thoughts. Sometimes before expressing opinions or thoughts there is a fear of being rejected by the audience. Currently, there are many media that can be a channel for delivering our opinions or ideas. We can write our opinion in our social media and get feedback from the readers. A feedback should be considered as a constructive criticism, which makes us grow up and mature. At the end of the session, participants were asked to find 1 scientific article on food security related to the participant’s field of study to be discussed in the next session (part 3).
