One's Thoughts example essay topic

The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" is universally acknowledged, however; one does not always have access to pictures, graphics, or visualizations to present thoughts or ideas. This leaves the spoken and written word as the only conveyance vehicles for communication. Subsequently, organizing one's thoughts prior to committing to verbalization or writing is essential to establishing a framework of understanding. In today's world, where at best, conversations are a series of loosely amalgamated sound bytes, one has to learn the art of taking disparate or random thoughts and constructing them into intelligible dialog or prose.

Thinking first and organizing one's thoughts is tantamount to clear and unambiguous communication. Emotive visual imagery has long been the goal of communication throughout the ages. In fact Plato stated, "We all have innate ideas". So how does one take these innate ideas and structure them into cohesive thoughts? Dr. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), a close colleague of Dr. Freud, believed that thoughts were organized as "instinctual patterns of behavior and perception". If this is true, then organization is critical to projecting these thoughts into a forum and substance of understanding.

This supports the concept of natural and mental orders and provides the insight required to understand the role of organization in critical thinking. Organizing in of itself is an art and science. One must take the complex association of mental and natural sequential and disassociative memory images and use intuition and inherent reflective reasoning in order to produce a stream of comprehensible thought. If one's memory is can toned from verbal emergence, then the essence and conceptual basis is forever lost. Preventing this requires organization, which results in one's ability to logically structure thoughts similar to how the universe is designed.

One knows that the universe is comprised of galaxies, which are made up of solar systems that include planets. This natural order is familiar and provides guidance to a way of structuring thoughts and ideas. To assist one in organizing thoughts or information, a three-step methodology is presented in the UOP text. These steps are cluster, analyze, and prioritize. Clustering is simply the associative process of grouping seemingly dissimilar data elements. By grouping data elements by commonality, a pattern of organization emerges that forms the basis for the structure of a concept.

Next, an analysis is performed to qualify the original data elements to ensure that they meet the criteria of the original concept. This allows one to identify gaps in clarity and understanding. During this process, one may find that more or less information is required to close the gap of understanding. The last step, prioritize, requires that the data elements are sequentially ordered in a manner that allows the conceptual thought to flow as an articulate statement. There is one last important component to organization, and that is the use of orders. Order allows the data elements to be presented in such a manner where emphasis can be placed to ensure clarity when clarity is required or ambiguity when ambiguity is required.

One has heard that data can be manipulated to prove or disprove virtually anything; order is the modal operand that facilitates the importance of data and meaning. Some may find that the process of organizing constrains the creative and scientific thought process. Others will commit to a life of organizational behavior and lead a seminal structured existence. Regardless of which end of the argument one gravitates toward, organization undoubtedly has a place in critical thinking.

Whether basic topical organization is used or the more complex casual order, there is a time honored rational for using organizational structure..