From Critical Thinking to Argument

*= new to this edition

Preface

PART ONE From Critical Thinking to Argument and Research
1   Critical Thinking
Thinking about Thinking         
Thinking as a Citizen   
Obstacles to Critical Thinking             
An Essay on Types of Thinking (and Rethinking)      
*Adam Grant, A Preacher, a Prosecutor, a Politician, and a Scientist
Thinking through an Issue
Evaluating a Proposal
Survey, Analyze, and Evaluate the Issue
VISUAL GUIDE: EVALUATING A PROPOSAL
Anticipating Counterarguments
Critical Thinking at Work: From a Cluster to a Short Essay
Alexa Cabrera, Stirred and Strained: Pastafarians Should Be Allowed to Practice in Prison (student essay)
Generating Ideas: Writing as a Way of Thinking     
Confronting Unfamiliar Issues
Using Clustering to Discover Ideas
Approaching an Issue (or an Assignment)
Prompting Yourself: Classical Topics and Invention
An Essay for Generating Ideas
*Asao B. Inoue, Do Grades Help Students Learn in Classrooms?
THINKING CRITICALLY: Generating Ideas
Generating Ideas from Multiple Perspectives
A Checklist for Critical Thinking
A Short Essay Calling for Critical Thinking
*Anand Jayprakash Vaidya, The Inclusion Problem in Critical Thinking: The Case of Indian Philosophy

2   Critical Reading: Getting Started
Framing Arguments
Active Reading
Previewing
A Checklist for Previewing and Skimming
A Short Essay for Previewing Practice
Thinking Critically: Previewing
Charles R. Lawrence III, On Racist Speech
Reading With a Careful Eye: Underlining, Highlighting, Annotating
Reading Fast and Slow
Summarizing and Paraphrasing
A Checklist for a Paraphrase
Patchwriting and Plagiarism
Strategies for Summarizing
Critical Summary
A Short Essay for Summarizing Practice
VISUAL GUIDE: WRITING A CRITICAL SUMMARY
Susan Jacoby, A First Amendment Junkie
A Checklist for a Summary
Essays for Analysis
Gwen Wilde, Why the Pledge of Allegiance Should Be Revised (student essay)
*Sohrab Ahmari, Porn Isn’t Free Speech — on the Web or Anywhere
 
*3   Understanding Rhetorical Appeals
Argument and Persuasion
Persuasive Appeals      
THINKING CRITICALLY: Identifying Ethos
VISUAL GUIDE: EVALUATING PERSUASIVE APPEALS
Seeing the Appeals in Real-World Events
Unethical Uses of Rhetorical Appeals 
Are Such Appeals Always Unethical? 
Nonrational Appeals: Satire, Irony, Sarcasm  
Does All Communication Contain Arguments?
Arguments for Analysis
Afrika Afeni Mills, A Letter to White Teachers of My Children
Dodai Stewart, The Case for a National One-Week Vacation

*4       Identifying Procedures of Argument
The Power and Perils of Reason
Rationalization 
Confirmation Bias        
Types of Reasoning
Induction
Deduction
Premises and Syllogisms
Testing Truth and Validity   
A Checklist for Evaluating a Syllogism
Thinking Critically: Inductive and Deductive Reasoning
Some Procedures in Argument
Definitions
Thinking Critically: Analyzing Definitions
Evidence
THINKING CRITICALLY: Authoritative Testimony
A Checklist For Evaluating Statistical Evidence
Assumptions
A Checklist for Examining Assumptions    
An Essay for Examining Assumptions        
A Checklist For Examining Assumptions
An Example Argument and a Look at the Writer’s Strategies 
John Tierney, The Reign of Recycling

5    Visual Rhetoric: Thinking about Images as Arguments
Uses of Visual Images
Seeing versus Looking
Reading Advertisements
A Checklist for Analyzing Images
Detecting Emotional Appeals in Visual Culture     
Reading Photographs
Do Photographs Always Tell the Truth?
A Checklist for Inspecting Digital Photographs
Are Some Images Not Fit to Be Shown?
A Checklist for Publishing Controversial Images
Accommodating, Resisting, and Negotiating the Meaning of Images
Writing about Political Cartoons and Memes
THINKING CRITICALLY: Analyzing Memes and Political Cartoons
An Example: A Student’s Essay Analyzing Images
Ryan Kwon, The American Pipe Dream? (student essay)
Visuals as Aids to Clarity: Maps, Graphs, and Pie Charts
A Checklist for Charts And Graphs
Using Visuals in Your Own Paper

6   Writing an Analysis of an Argument
Analyzing an Argument
Examining the Author’s Thesis
Examining the Author’s Purpose
Examining the Author’s Methods
Examining the Author’s Persona
Examining the Author’s Audience
A Checklist for Analyzing an Author’s Intended Audience
Organizing Your Analysis
VISUAL GUIDE: ORGANIZING YOUR ANALYSIS
Summary versus Analysis
A Checklist for Analyzing a Text
An Argument, Its Elements, and a Student’s Analysis of the Argument
Nicholas D. Kristof, For Environmental Balance, Pick Up a Rifle
THINKING CRITICALLY: Examining Language to Analyze an Author’s Argument
The Essay Analyzed
Theresa Carcaldi, For Sound Argument, Drop the Jokes: How Kristof Falls Short in Convincing His Audience (student essay)
An Analysis of the Student’s Analysis
A Checklist for Writing an Analysis of an Argument

7   Developing an Argument of Your Own
Planning an Argument
Getting Ideas: Argument as an Instrument of Inquiry
Brainstorming Strategies
Revision as Invention
The Thesis or Main Point
Raising the Stakes of Your Thesis    
A Checklist For A Thesis Statement
THINKING CRITICALLY: “Walking the Tightrope”
Imagining an Audience
Addressing Opposition and Establishing Common Ground
A Checklist for Imagining an Audience
Drafting and Revising an Argument
The Title
The Opening Paragraphs
Organizing the Body of the Essay
VISUAL GUIDE: ORGANIZING YOUR ARGUMENT
Checking Transitions 
THINKING CRITICALLY: Using Transitions in Argument
The Ending
Uses of an Outline
A Checklist for Organizing an Argument
Tone and the Writer’s Persona
THINKING CRITICALLY: Eliminating We, One, and I
A Checklist for Establishing Tone and Persona
Avoiding Sexist Language
Peer Review
A Checklist for Peer Review
A Student’s Essay, from Rough Notes to Final Version
Emily Andrews, Why I Don’t Spare “Spare Change” (student essay)

8   Using Sources
Why Use Sources?
Entering a Discourse
Understanding Information Literacy
Choosing a Topic
A Checklist for Approaching a Topic
Finding Sources
VISUAL GUIDE: FINDING DISCOURSE ON YOUR TOPIC
Finding Quality Information Online
Finding Articles Using Library Databases
THINKING CRITICALLY: Using Search Terms
Locating Books
Evaluating Sources
Scholarly, Popular, and Trade Sources
Evaluating Online Sources
A Checklist for Identifying Reliable Websites
A Checklist for Identifying Fake News
Considering How Current Sources Are
A Checklist for Evaluating Sources
Performing Your Own Primary Research
Interviewing Peers and Local Authorities
Conducting Observations
Conducting Surveys
Research in Archives and Special Collections
Synthesizing Sources
Taking Notes
A Note on Plagiarizing
A Checklist for Avoiding Plagiarism
Compiling an Annotated Bibliography
Quoting from Sources
VISUAL GUIDE: INTEGRATING QUOTATIONS
Thinking Critically: Using Signal Phrases
Documentation
A Note on Footnotes (and Endnotes)
MLA Format: Citations within the Text
MLA Format: The List of Works Cited
An Annotated Student Research Paper in MLA Format
Lesley Timmerman, An Argument for Corporate Responsibility (student essay)
APA Format: Citations within the Text
APA Format: The List of References
An Annotated Student Research Paper in APA Format
Hannah Smith Brooks, Does Ability Determine Expertise? (student essay)

PART TWO  Further Views on Argument
9   A Philosopher’s View: The Toulmin Model
Understanding the Toulmin Model
VISUAL GUIDE: THE TOULMIN METHOD
Components of the Toulmin Model
The Claim
Grounds
Warrants
Backing
Modal Qualifiers
Rebuttals
THINKING CRITICALLY: Constructing a Toulmin Argument
Putting the Toulmin Method to Work: Responding to an Argument
*Jonathan Safran Foer, Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast    
Thinking with the Toulmin Method
A Checklist for Using the Toulmin Method

10  A Logician’s View: Deduction, Induction, and Fallacies
Using Formal Logic for Critical Thinking
Deduction
Visual Guide: Deduction and Induction
Examples of Deduction
Induction
Observation and Inference
Probability
Mill’s Methods
Fallacies
VISUAL GUIDE: COMMON FALLACIES         
Fallacies of Ambiguity
Fallacies of Presumption
Fallacies of Irrelevance
A Checklist for Evaluating an Argument with Logic
Additional Fallacies
THINKING CRITICALLy: Identifying Fallacies
Max Shulman, Love Is a Fallacy

11 A Psychologist’s View: Rogerian Argument
Rogerian Argument: An Introduction
VISUAL GUIDE: ROGERIAN ARGUMENT
A Checklist for Analyzing Rogerian Argument
Carl R. Rogers, Communication: Its Blocking and Its Facilitation
*Lewis Oakley, Is It Time to Retire the Word “Privileged”?        

Appendix: Sentence Guides for Academic Writers
Index of Authors, Titles, and Terms