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