What is Critical Thinking?

My definition of critical thinking is analyzing or evaluating information to come to a conclusion to the question. Thinking critically takes a lot of thought and you have to think deeply about the information. I have heard this term before. I have heard it in some of my high school english classes when my teachers asked us to think about the question critically. Another place where I've heard about it is in my Philosophy class that I am taking this semester. An "expert's" definition of critical thinking is, "the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion. (Dictionary.com/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/critical+thinking) The expert does identify a particular process that one must engage in to think critically and that is a mental process.I think that the connection between critical thinking and IM 204 Research Strategies is that with these blogs we are going to have to think critically about them. Also with the Semester Research Project I believe that we are going to have to really think critically about the whole thing.