Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing : A Brief Guide to Argument

by Barnet, Sylvan; Bedau, Hugo

• ISBN13: 9780312601607
• ISBN10: 0312601603
• Edition: 7th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-07-14
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writingis a compact but complete guide to critical thinking and argumentation. Comprising the text portion of the widely adoptedCurrent Issues and Enduring Questions, it draws on the authors' dual expertise in effective persuasive writing and comprehensive rhetorical strategies to help students move from critical thinking to argumentative and researched writing. With comprehensive coverage of classic and contemporary approaches to argument, including Aristotle, Toulmin, and a range of alternative views, as well as 35 readings and a casebook on the state and the individual, it is an extraordinarily versatile text. This affordable guide can stand alone or supplement a larger anthology of readings.

Table of Contents

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

Peter Cave, Should We Save the Jerboa?
Five Exercises in Critical Thinking

 

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
Anya Kamenetz,  You’re 16, You’re Beautiful and You’re a Voter
Exercises Examining Paragraphs
Letters of Response by Betty Agard, Robert Epstein, Delia McQuade Emmons, and Amanda Bergson-Shilcock

Gwen Wilde (student essay), Why the Pledge of Allegiance Should Be Revised

A CASEBOOK FOR CRITICAL READING: SHOULD SOME KINDS OF SPEECH BE CENSORED?
Susan Brownmiller, Let’s Put Pornography Back in the Closet

Charles R. Lawrence III,  On Racist Speech

DEREK BOK, Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus

Andrew Keen, Douse the Online Flamers
Thinking Further about Freedom of Expression, Cyberbullying, and Facebook
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

ARGUMENTS FOR ANALYSIS
Stanley Fish, When “ Identity” Politics is Rational

James Carroll, If Poison Gas Can Go, Why Not Nukes?

Gloria Jimenez (student essay), Against the Odds, and Against the Common Good
Anna Lisa Raya (student essay), It’s Hard Enough Being Me

Ronald Takaki, The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority

James Q. Wilson, Just Take Away Their Guns

Sally Satel, Death’s Waiting List
Letters of Response by Dorothy H. Hayes, Charles B. Fruit, and Michelle Goodwin

Heather Rogers, Hiding in Plain Sight

 

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

ADDITIONAL IMAGES FOR ANALYSIS
Nora Ephron, The Boston Photographs

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

ARGUMENTS FOR ANALYSIS

Jeff Jacoby, Bring Back Flogging

Gerald Jones, Violent Media Is Good for Kids

Sunaura Taylor and Alexander Taylor, Is It Possible To Be a Conscientious Meat Eater?

Peter Singer, Animal Liberation

JONATHAN SWIFT, A Modest Proposal

 

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 Moralist’s View: Ways of Thinking Ethically
AMORAL REASONING
IMMORAL REASONING
MORAL REASONING: A CLOSER LOOK
CRITERIA FOR MORAL RULES
A CHECKLIST FOR MORAL REASONING

Peter Singer, Famine, Affluence, and Morality

Garrett Hardin, Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor

Randy Cohen, Three Letters (to an Ethicist)

 

11 A Lawyer’s View: Steps toward Civic Literacy

CIVIL AND CRIMINAL CASES
TRIAL AND APPEAL
DECISION AND OPINION
MAJORITY, CONCURRING, AND DISSENTING OPINIONS
FACTS AND LAW
BALANCING INTERESTS
A WORD OF CAUTION
A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING LEGAL ARGUMENTS

A CASEBOOK ON THE LAW AND SOCIETY: WHAT RIGHTS DO THE CONSTITUTION AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS PROTECT?

Byron R. White and John Paul Stevens, New Jersey v. T.L.O.

Harry Blackmun and William H. Rehnquist, Roe v. Wade

 

12 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

 

13 A Literary Critic’s View: Arguing about Literature
INTERPRETING
JUDGING (OR EVALUATING)
THEORIZING
A CHECKLIST FOR AN ARGUMENT ABOUT LITERATURE

EXAMPLES: TWO STUDENTS INTERPRET ROBERT FROST’S “MENDING WALL”
Robert Frost, Mending Wall
Jonathan Deutsch, The Deluded Speaker in Frost’s “Mending Wall”
Felicia Alonso, The Debate in Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”

Exercises: Reading a Poem and a Story
Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour
THINKING ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF LITERATURE
Plato, “The Greater Part of the Stories Current Today We Shall Have to Reject”

THINKING ABOUT GOVERNMENT FUNDING FOR THE ARTS

 

14 A Debater’s View: Individual Oral Presentations and Debate
CLASSROOM INDIVIDUAL ORAL PRESENTATIONS
Personal Appearance
Forms of Delivery
The Language of the Talk
Pace of Speaking
Movement
Audiovisual Aids
A CHECKLIST FOR AN ORAL PRESENTATION

FORMAL DEBATES
Standard Debate Format
The Audience
Delivery
The Talk
A CHECKLIST FOR PREPARING FOR A DEBATE

PART FOUR
A CASEBOOK ON THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL

 

5 What Is the Ideal Society?

Thomas More, From Utopia

Niccolo Machiavelli, From The Prince

Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions

Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas