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

by Barnet; Bedau

• ISBN13: 9780312459871
• ISBN10: 0312459874
• Edition: 6th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-07-09
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writingis a compact but thorough 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 rigorous critical thinking. It helps 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, it is an extraordinarily versatile text. This affordable guide can stand alone or supplement a larger anthology of readings.Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writinghas been revised to address current student interests and trends in argument, research, and writing.

Author Biography

SYLVAN BARNET, professor of English and former director of writing at Tufts University, is the most prolific and consistently successful college English textbook author of the past 30 years. His several texts on writing and his numerous anthologies for introductory composition and literature courses have remained leaders in their field through many editions.

HUGO BEDAU, professor of philosophy at Tufts University, has served as chair of the philosophy department and chair of the university’s committee on College Writing. An internationally respected expert on the death penalty, and on moral, legal, and political philosophy, he has written or edited a number of books on these topics. He is the author of Thinking and Writing about Philosophy, Second Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002).

Table of Contents

PART I. CRITICAL THINKING AND READING

1. Critical Thinking

Thinking about Drivers' Licenses and Photographic Identification

Thinking about Another Issue Concerning Drivers' Licenses: Imagination, Analysis, Evaluation

Writing as a Way of Thinking

A CHECKLIST FOR CRITICAL THINKING

A Short Essay Illustrating Critical Thinking

Alan Dershowitz, Why Fear National ID Cards?

Examining Assumptions

A CHECKLIST FOR EXAMINING ASSUMPTIONS


]Thinking about Wild Horses


]Deanne Stillman, Last Roundup for Wild Horses

A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING LETTERS OF RESPONSE


Letters of Response by Herb Kimsey and Tom Burke


]Luke Saginaw (Student Essay), Why Flag-Burning Ought Not to Be Permitted

Five Exercises in Critical Thinking

2. Critical Reading: Getting Started

Active Reading


Previewing


Skimming: Finding the Thesis


Reading with a Pencil: Underlining, Highlighting, Annotating


ÒThis; Therefore, ThatÓ


First, Second, and Third Thoughts

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

]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


]Stanley Fish, Conspiracy Theories


]Letters of Response By Jonah Seligman, Richard Dimatteo, Miriam Cherkes-Julkowski, Joseph Kyle, and Patrick Ward


Jean Kilbourne, ÒOwn This ChildÓ

Exercise: Letter To The Editor

3. Critical Reading: Getting Deeper Into Arguments

Persuasion, Argument, Dispute

Reason Versus Rationalization

Some Procedures in Argument


Definition


Assumptions


Premises and Syllogisms


Deduction


Sound Arguments

Induction


Evidence


Examples


Authoritative Testimony


Statistics

A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING STATISTICAL EVIDENCE

Nonrational Appeals


Satire


Irony


Sarcasm


Humor


Emotional Appeals



A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING AN ARGUMENT

Does All Writing Contain Arguments?


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


Gloria JimŽnez (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


]Nadya Labi, Classrooms for Sale


]Nadine Strossen, Everyone is Watching You


]E-Mail Responses to Nadine Strossen


]Sally Satel, Death's Waiting List


]Letters of Response By Dorothy H. Hayes, Charles B. Fruit, and Michelle Goodwin


]Paul Kane, A Peaceful Call to Arms


]Letters of Response By Julie E. Dinnerstein, Murray Polner, Joan Z. Greiner, and Joshua Zimmerman

4. Visual Rhetoric: Images as Arguments

Some Uses of Images

Appeals to the Eye

Are Some Images Not Fit to Be Shown?

Exercises: Thinking about Images

Reading Advertisements

A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING IMAGES (ESPECIALLY ADVERTISEMENTS)

]Writing About 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 Note on Using Visuals In Your Own Paper

]A CHECKLIST FOR CHARTS AND GRAPHS

Additional Images for Analysis

Nora Ephron, The Boston Photographs

PART II. CRITICAL WRITING

5. 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


Summary

]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

]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


John Irving, Wrestling With Title IX


Peter Singer, Animal Liberation


Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal

6. Developing An Argument of Your Own

Planning, Drafting, and Revising an Argument


Getting Ideas


The Thesis

]A CHECKLIST FOR A THESIS STATEMENT


Imagining an Audience

The Audience as Collaborator

]A CHECKLIST FOR IMAGINING AN AUDIENCE


The Title


The Opening Paragraphs


Organizing and Revising The Body of the Essay


The Ending


Two Uses of an Outline


Tone and the Writer's Persona


We, One, Or I?


Avoiding Sexist Language

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 ÒSpare ChangeÓ


The Essay Analyzed

Exercise

7. Using Sources

Why Use Sources?

Choosing a Topic

Finding Material

Interviewing Peers and Local Authorities

Finding Quality Information on the Web

Finding Articles Using Library Databases

]Locating Books

Evaluating Sources

A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING PRINT SOURCES

A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING ELECTRONIC SOURCES

Taking Notes

A Note on Plagiarizing, Paraphrasing, and Using Common Knowledge

A CHECKLIST FOR AVOIDING PLAGIARISM

Compiling an Annotated Bibliography

Writing The Paper


Organizing Your Notes


The First Draft

Later Drafts


Choosing a Tentative Title


The Final Draft


Quoting From Sources


The Use and Abuse of Quotations How to Quote

]A CHECKLIST FOR USING QUOTATIONS RATHER THAN SUMMARIES


Documentation


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 III. 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

Observation and Inference


Probability


Mill's Methods


Confirmation, Mechanism, and Theory

Fallacies


]Fallacies of Ambiguity


]Fallacies of Presumption


]Fallacies of Relevance

A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING AN ARGUMENT FROM A LOGICAL POINT OF VIEW

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?


William J. Brennan Jr. and William H. Rehnquist, Texas V. Johnson


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


]Jane Willy (Student Essay), Is the College Use of American Indian Mascots Racist?

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 ÒMending WallÓ

Felicia Alonso, The Debate In Robert Frost's "Mending Wall"

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 Forensic View: Oral Presentation and Debate

Standard Debate Format

The Audience

Delivery

The Talk

A CHECKLIST FOR PREPARING FOR A DEBATE

 

PART IV. A CASEBOOK ON THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL

15. What Is the Ideal Society?

Thomas More, From Utopia

Niccol˜ 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

Index of Authors and Titles

Index of Terms

 

 

] new to this edition