Analysis v. Critical Thinking

The other night at dinner, my dad and I were talking about the skills that I need to improve.  I came up with the need to memorize information, and he said this was not enough.  I thought a little more, and came to the conclusion I needed to work on my analysis and critical thinking.  We were arguing about whether or not it was the same thing.  I thought they were different things, so I decided to look up the meanings and write a blog about it.

My original thought was that analysis was the deeper meaning within the text, meanwhile critical thinking was the deeper thinking making connections from outside of the text.  However, I am proved wrong withen this blog post.

Analysis is the process of dividing big things into individual constituents.  This is the breaking down, and examining of what the meaning is.  Meanwhile, critical thinking is the way of deciding what information is true or false.  Critical thinking involves coming up with a reasoned conclusion based on a reasoned process.

Both critical thinking and analysis are processes to help you understand the material.  They are both ways to break the information down to see if it logically makes sense.  Analysis is more of the thinking side of things, meanwhile critical thinking is more of the part where you come up with a conclusion.