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Purchase Benefits
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Preface | p. ix |
The Benefit of Asking the Right Questions | p. 1 |
Introduction | p. 1 |
Critical Thinking to the Rescue | p. 2 |
The Sponge and Panning for Gold: Alternative Thinking Styles | p. 3 |
An Example of the Panning-for Gold Approach | p. 4 |
Panning for Gold: Asking Critical Question | p. 6 |
The Myth of the "Right Answer" | p. 6 |
The Usefulness of Asking the Question, "Who Cares?" | p. 7 |
Weak-Sense and Strong-Sense Critical Thinking | p. 8 |
The Satisfaction of Panning for Gold | p. 9 |
Effective Communication and Critical Thinking | p. 9 |
The Importance of Practice | p. 9 |
The Right Question | p. 10 |
Critical Thinking As a Social Activity | p. 11 |
Values and Other People | p. 11 |
The Primary Values of a Critical Thinker | p. 13 |
Thinking and Feeling | p. 14 |
Keeping the Conversation Going | p. 15 |
Avoiding the Dangers of Groupthink | p. 18 |
What Are the Issue and the Conclusion? | p. 19 |
Kinds of Issues | p. 20 |
Searching for the Issue | p. 21 |
Searching for the Authors' or Speaker's Conclusion | p. 22 |
Clues to Discovery: How to Find the Conclusion | p. 23 |
Critical Thinking and Your Own Writing and Speaking | p. 24 |
Practice Exercises | p. 25 |
What Are the Reasons? | p. 28 |
Reasons + Conclusion = Argument | p. 29 |
Initiating the Questioning process | p. 30 |
Words That Identify Reasons | p. 31 |
Kinds of Reasons | p. 32 |
Keeping the reasons and conclusions Straight | p. 33 |
Critical Thinking and Your Own Writing and Speaking | p. 34 |
Practice Exercises | p. 34 |
What Words or Phrases Are Ambiguous | p. 37 |
The Confusing Flexibility of Words | p. 38 |
Locating Key Terms and Phrases | p. 38 |
Checking for Ambiguity | p. 40 |
Determining Ambiguity | p. 41 |
Context and Ambiguity | p. 43 |
Ambiguity, Definitions, and the Dictionary | p. 44 |
Ambiguity and Loaded Language | p. 46 |
Limits of Your Responsibility to Clarify Ambiguity | p. 48 |
Ambiguity and Your Own Writing and Speaking | p. 48 |
Summary | p. 48 |
Practice Exercises | p. 49 |
What Are the Value and Descriptive Assumptions? | p. 53 |
General Guide for Identifying Assumptions | p. 55 |
Value Conflicts and Assumptions | p. 56 |
Typical value Conflicts | p. 57 |
The Communicator's Background as a Clue to Value Assumptions | p. 58 |
Consequences as Clues to Value Assumptions | p. 58 |
More Hints for Finding Value Assumptions | p. 59 |
Finding Value Assumptions on Your Own | p. 60 |
Values and Relativism | p. 62 |
Identifying and Evaluating Descriptive Assumptions | p. 62 |
Illustrating Descriptive Assumptions | p. 62 |
Clues for Locating Assumptions | p. 64 |
Avoiding Analysis of Trivial Assumptions | p. 66 |
Assumptions and Your Own Writing and Speaking | p. 66 |
Practice exercises | p. 67 |
Are There Any Fallacies in the Reasoning? | p. 70 |
A Questioning Approach to Finding Reasoning Fallacies | p. 71 |
Evaluating Assumptions as a Starting Point | p. 72 |
Discovering Other Common Reasoning Fallacies | p. 74 |
Looking for Diversions | p. 80 |
Sleight of Hand: Begging the Question | p. 82 |
Summary of Reasoning Errors | p. 83 |
Expanding Your Knowledge of Fallacies | p. 84 |
Fallacies and Your Own Writing and Speaking | p. 85 |
Practice Exercises | p. 85 |
How Good Is the Evidence: Intuition, Personal Experience, Testimonials, and Appeals to Authority? | p. 89 |
The Need for Evidence | p. 89 |
Locating Factual Claim | p. 91 |
Sources of Evidence | p. 92 |
Intuition as Evidence | p. 93 |
Dangers of Appealing to Personal Experience and Anecdotes as Evidence | p. 94 |
Appeals to Authority as Evidence | p. 96 |
Summary | p. 100 |
Practice Exercises | p. 100 |
How Good Is the Evidence: Personal Observation, Research Studies, Case Examples, and Analogies? | p. 103 |
Personal Observation | p. 103 |
Research Studies as Evidence | p. 104 |
Generalizing from the Research Sample | p. 108 |
Biased Surveys and Questionnaires | p. 110 |
Critical Evaluation of a Research-Based Argument | p. 111 |
Case Examples as Evidence | p. 113 |
Analogies as Evidence | p. 114 |
Summary | p. 118 |
Practice Exercises | p. 118 |
Are There Rival Causes? | p. 122 |
When to Look for Rival Causes | p. 123 |
The Pervasiveness of Rival Causes | p. 123 |
Detecting Rival Causes | p. 126 |
The Cause or A Cause | p. 126 |
Rival Causes for Differences Between Groups | p. 129 |
Confusing Causation with Association | p. 130 |
Confusing "After this" with "Because of this" | p. 132 |
Explaining Individual Events or Acts | p. 133 |
Evaluating Rival Causes | p. 134 |
Evidence and Your Own Writing and Speaking | p. 134 |
Summary | p. 134 |
Practice Exercises | p. 134 |
Are the Statistics Deceptive? | p. 137 |
Unknowable and Biased Statistics | p. 138 |
Confusing Averages | p. 138 |
Concluding One Thing, Proving Another | p. 140 |
Deceiving by Omitting Information | p. 141 |
Risk Statistics and Omitted Information | p. 143 |
Summary | p. 144 |
Practice Exercises | p. 144 |
What Significant Information Is Omitted? | p. 147 |
The Benefits of Detecting Omitted Information | p. 148 |
The Certainty of Incomplete Reasoning | p. 148 |
Questions That Identify Omitted Information | p. 150 |
The Importance of the Negative View | p. 152 |
Omitted Information That Remains Missing | p. 153 |
Practice Exercises | p. 154 |
What Reasonable Conclusions Are Possiblee? | p. 157 |
Assumptions and Multiple Conclusions | p. 158 |
Dichotomous Thinking: impediment to Considering Multiple Conclusions | p. 158 |
Two Sides or Many? | p. 159 |
Searching for Multiple Conclusions | p. 160 |
Productivity of If-Clauses | p. 161 |
Alternative Solutions as Conclusions | p. 162 |
The Liberating Effect of Recognizing Alternative Conclusions | p. 162 |
All Conclusion Are Not Created Equal | p. 163 |
Summary | p. 163 |
Practice Exercises | p. 164 |
Overcoming Obstacles to Critical Thinking | p. 167 |
Reviewing Familiar Obstacles | p. 167 |
Mental Habits That Betray Us | p. 168 |
Wishful Thinking | p. 173 |
Final Word | p. 174 |
Index | p. 176 |
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The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.