PREFACE
PART ONE
CRITICAL THINKING AND READING
1 Critical Thinking
THINKING ABOUT DRIVERS’ LICENSES AND PHOTOGRAPHIC IDENTIFICATION
THINKING ABOUT ANOTHER ISSUE CONCERNING DRIVERS’ LICENSES:
IMAGINATION, ANALYSIS, EVALUATION
THINKING ABOUT STUDENT EVALUATIONS OF THEIR PROFESSORS
Idea Prompt: Visualizing Pros and Cons
WRITING AS A WAY OF THINKING
Getting Ideas
Idea Prompt: Understanding Classical Topics
A CHECKLIST FOR CRITICAL THINKING
A SHORT ESSAY ILLUSTRATING CRITICAL THINKING
Harlan Coben The Undercover Parent
Letter of Response by Carol Weston
A Checklist for Evaluating Letters of Response
EXAMINING ASSUMPTIONS
A CHECKLIST FOR EXAMINING ASSUMPTIONS
2 Critical Reading: Getting Started
ACTIVE READING
SUMMARIZING AND PARAPHRASING
A Note about Paraphrase and Plagiarism
Last Words (Almost) about Summarizing
Susan Jacoby, A First Amendment Junkie
Summarizing Jacoby, Paragraph by Paragraph
A CHECKLIST FOR GETTING STARTED
Exercise: Letter to the Editor
3 Critical Reading: Getting Deeper into Arguments
PERSUASION, ARGUMENT, DISPUTE
REASON VERSUS RATIONALIZATION
SOME PROCEDURES IN ARGUMENT
Definition
Idea Prompt: Ways to Give Definitions
A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING STATISTICAL EVIDENCE
NONRATIONAL APPEALS
DOES ALL WRITING CONTAIN ARGUMENTS?
A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING AN ARGUMENT
AN EXAMPLE: AN ARGUMENT AND A LOOK AT THE WRITER’S STRATEGIES
George F. Will, Being Green at Ben and Jerry’s
George F. Wills’s Strategies
4 Visual Rhetoric: Images as Arguments
SOME USES OF IMAGES
APPEALS TO THE EYE
ARE SOME IMAGES NOT FIT TO BE SHOWN?
Politics and Pictures
Exercises: Thinking about Images
READING ADVERTISEMENTS
A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING IMAGES (ESPECIALLY ADVERTISEMENTS)
WRITING ABOUT A POLITICAL CARTOON
Idea Prompt: Analysis of a Political Cartoon
A Checklist for Analyzing Political Cartoons
Jackson Smith (student essay), Pledging Nothing?
VISUALS AS AIDS TO CLARITY: MAPS, GRAPHS, TABLES, AND PIE CHARTS
A Checklist for Charts and Graphs
A NOTE ON USING VISUALS IN YOUR OWN PAPER
A NOTE ON FORMATTING YOUR PAPER: DOCUMENT DESIGN
PART TWO
CRITICAL WRITING
5 Writing an Analysis of an Argument
ANALYZING AN ARGUMENT
Idea Prompt: Drawing Conclusions and Implying Proof
An Argument, Its Elements, and a Student’s Analysis of the Argument
Nicholas D. Kristof, For Environmental Balance, Pick Up a Rifle
Betsy Swinton (student essay) , Tracking Kristof
An Analysis of the Student’s Analysis
A Checklist for Writing an Analysis of an Argument
6 Developing an Argument of Your Own
PLANNING, DRAFTING, AND REVISING AN ARGUMENT
A Checklist for a Thesis Statement
A Checklist for Imagining an Audience
Idea Promt: Using Transitions in Argument
A CHECKLIST FOR ATTENDING TO THE NEEDS OF THE AUDIENCE
PEER REVIEW
A PEER REVIEW CHECKLIST FOR A DRAFT OF AN ARGUMENT
A STUDENT’S ESSAY, FROM ROUGH NOTES TO FINAL VERSION
Emily Andrews, Why I Don’t Spare “Spare Change”
The Essay Analyzed
Exercise
7 Using Sources
WHY USE SOURCES?
CHOOSING A TOPIC
FINDING MATERIAL
Finding Quality Information on the Web
A Word about Wikipedia
Finding Articles Using Library Databases
Locating Books
INTERVIEWING PEERS AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES
EVALUATING YOUR SOURCES
A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING PRINT SOURCES
TAKING NOTES
A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING ELECTRONIC SOURCES
A NOTE ON PLAGIARIZING, PARAPHRASING, AND USING COMMON KNOWLEDGE
A CHECKLIST FOR AVOIDING PLAGIARISM
COMPILING AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
WRITING THE PAPER
QUOTING FROM SOURCES
Incorporating Your Reading into Your Thinking: The Art and Science of Synthesis
The Use and Abuse of Quotations,
How to Quote,
A Checklist for Using Quotations Rather than Summaries
DOCUMENTATION
Idea Prompt: Signal Phrases
A Note on Footnotes (and Endnotes)
MLA Format: Citations within the Text
MLA Format: The List of Works Cited
APA Format: Citations within the Text
APA Format: The List of References
A CHECKLIST FOR PAPERS USING SOURCES
AN ANNOTATED STUDENT RESEARCH PAPER IN MLA FORMAT
THERESA WASHINGTON, Why Trials Should Not Be Televised
AN ANNOTATED STUDENT RESEARCH PAPER IN APA FORMAT
LAURA DEVEAU, The Role of Spirituality and Religion in Mental Health
PART THREE
FURTHER VIEWS ON ARGUMENT
8 A Philosopher’s View: The Toulmin Model
THE CLAIM
GROUNDS
WARRANTS
BACKING
MODAL QUALIFIERS
REBUTTALS
A MODEL ANALYSIS USING THE TOULMIN METHOD
A CHECKLIST FOR USING THE TOULMIN METHOD
Putting the Toulmin Method to Work: Responding to an Argument
Michael S. Dukakis and Daniel J. B. Mitchell, Raise Wages, Not Walls
Thinking with Toulmin’s Method
9 A Logician’s View: Deduction, Induction, Fallacies
DEDUCTION
INDUCTION
FALLACIES
Fallacies of Ambiguity
Fallacies of Presumption
Fallacies of Relevance
A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING AN ARGUMENT FROM A LOGICAL POINT OF VIEW Exercise: Fallacies—Or Not?
MAX SHULMAN, Love Is a Fallacy
10 A Psychologist’s View: Rogerian Argument
Rogerian Argument: An Introduction
Carl R. Rogers, Communication: Its Blocking and Its Facilitation
A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING ROGERIAN ARGUMENT
Edward O. Wilson, Letter to a Southern Baptist Minister