From Critical Thinking to Argument A Portable Guide

by Barnet, Sylvan; Bedau, Hugo; O'Hara, John

• ISBN13: 9781319035440
• ISBN10: 1319035442
• Edition: 5th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2016-12-22
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

A brief and affordable guide to critical thinking and crafting arguments, From Critical Thinking to Argument teaches the right skills to write persuasive arguments.

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 in the country. 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).

Table of Contents

Preface

Part One FROM CRITICAL THINKING TO ARGUMENT AND RESEARCH

1 Critical Thinking

*Thinking Through an Issue: Gay Marriage Licenses

*On Flying Spaghetti Monsters: Analyzing and Evaluating from Multiple Perspectives

*Critical Thinking at Work: A Student’s Essay, Developed From A Cluster And A List

*Stirred and Strained: Pastafarians Should Be Allowed to Practice in Prison (Student Essay)

*The Essay Analyzed

Generating Ideas: Writing as a Way of Thinking

*Confronting Unfamiliar Issues

*Topics

NINA FEDOROFF, The Genetically Engineered Salmon is a Boon for Consumers and Sustainability

*THINKING CRITICALLY: GENERATING TOPICS

A CHECKLIST FOR CRITICAL THINKING

*A Short Essay Calling for Critical Thinking

*LYNN STUART PARRAMORE, Fitbits for Bosses

Overall View of the Essay

Examining Assumptions

A CHECKLIST FOR EXAMINING ASSUMPTIONS

JENA McGREGOR, Military Women in Combat: Why Making It Official Matters

2 Critical Reading: Getting Started

Active Reading

Previewing

*A Short Essay for Previewing Practice

*SANJAY GUPTA, Why I Changed My Mind on Weed

*THINKING CRITICALLY: PREVIEWING

*The "First and Last" Rule

Reading with a Careful Eye: Underlining, Highlighting, Annotating

"This; Therefore, That"

*Defining Terms and Concepts

*THINKING CRITICALLY: DEFINING TERMS AND CONCEPTS

Summarizing and Paraphrasing

Paraphrase, Patchwriting, and Plagiarism

A CHECKLIST FOR A PARAPHRASE

Strategies for Summarizing

*Critical Summary

SUSAN JACOBY, A First Amendment Junkie

Summarizing Jacoby

A CHECKLIST FOR GETTING STARTED

Essays for Analysis

ZACHARY SHEMTOB AND DAVID LAT, Executions Should Be Televised

GWEN WILDE, Why the Pledge of Allegiance Should Be Revised (Student Essay)

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

Thinking Further: Freedom of Expression and Social Media

3 Critical Reading: Getting Deeper into Arguments

Persuasion, Argument, Dispute

*THINKING CRITICALLY: ESTABLISHING TRUSTWORTHINESS AND CREDIBILITY

Reason versus Rationalization

Some Procedures in Argument

Definition

*THINKING CRITICALLY: GIVING DEFINITIONS

Assumptions

Premises and Syllogisms

Deduction

Sound Arguments

Induction

Evidence: Experimentation, Examples, Authoritative Testimony, Statistics

A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING STATISTICAL EVIDENCE

Nonrational Appeals

Satire, Irony, Sarcasm, Humor

Emotional 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

GLORIA JIMÉNEZ, Against the Odds, and against the Common Good (Student Essay)

ANNA LISA RAYA, It’s Hard Enough Being Me (Student Essay)

RONALD TAKAKI, The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority

JAMES Q. WILSON, Just Take Away Their Guns

KAYLA WEBLEY, Is Forgiving Student Loan Debt a Good Idea?

ALFRED EDMOND JR., Why Asking for a Job Applicant’s Facebook Password Is Fair Game

SHERRY TURKLE, The Flight from Conversation

4 Visual Rhetoric: Thinking about Images as Arguments

Uses of Visual Images

Types of Emotional Appeals

*Seeing Vs. Looking: Reading Advertisements

A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING IMAGES (ESPECIALLY ADVERTISEMENTS)

*Other Aspects of Visual Appeals

Levels of Images

*Accommodating, Resisting, and Negotiating the Meaning of Images

Are Some Images Not Fit to Be Shown?

Politics and Pictures

Writing about a Political Cartoon

A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING AN ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL CARTOONS

*THINKING CRITICALLY: ANALYSIS OF A POLITICAL CARTOON

JACKSON SMITH, Pledging Nothing? (Student Essay)

Visuals as Aids to Clarity: Maps, Graphs, and Pie Charts

A CHECKLIST FOR CHARTS AND GRAPHS

A Note on Using Visuals in Your Own Paper

Additional Images for Analysis

NORA EPHRON, The Boston Photographs

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

Examining Persona and Intended Audience

A CHECKLIST FOR ANALYZING AN AUTHOR’S INTENDED AUDIENCE

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

*THINKING CRITICALLY: DRAWING CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLYING PROOF

The Essay Analyzed

BETSY SWINTON, Tracking Kristof (Student Essay)

An Analysis of the Student’s Analysis

A CHECKLIST FOR WRITING AN ANALYSIS OF AN ARGUMENT

Arguments for Analysis

JEFF JACOBY, Bring Back Flogging

GERARD JONES, Violent Media Is Good for Kids

JUSTIN CRONIN, Confessions of a Liberal Gun Owner

PETER SINGER, Animal Liberation

*JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, Let Them Eat Dog: A Modest Proposal for Tossing Fido in the Oven

6 Developing an Argument of Your Own

Planning, Drafting, and Revising an Argument

Getting Ideas: Argument as an Instrument of Inquiry

*Three Brainstorming Strategies: Freewriting, Listing, and Diagramming

The Thesis or Main Point

*THINKING CRITICALLY: "WALKING THE TIGHTROPE"

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

*THINKING CRITICALLY: USING TRANSITIONS IN ARGUMENT

Two Uses of an Outline

A Last Word about Outlines

A CHECKLIST FOR ORGANIZING AN ARGUMENT

Tone and the Writer’s Persona

*THINKING CRITICALLY: VARYING TONE

We, One, or I?

*THINKING CRITICALLY: ELIMINATING WE, ONE, AND I

A CHECKLIST FOR ATTENDING TO THE NEEDS OF THE AUDIENCE

Avoiding Sexist Language

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" (Student Essay)

The Essay Analyzed

7 Using Sources

Why Use Sources?

Choosing a Topic

Finding Material

Finding Quality Information Online

Finding Articles Using Library Databases

Locating Books

Interviewing Peers and Local Authorities

Evaluating Your Sources

Taking Notes

A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING PRINT SOURCES

A CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING ELECTRONIC SOURCES

A Note on Plagiarizing, Paraphrasing, and Using Common Knowledge

A CHECKLIST FOR AVOIDING PLAGIARISM

Compiling an Annotated Bibliography

A Rule for Writers: Citation Generators

Writing the Paper

Organizing Your Notes

The First Draft

Later Drafts

A Few More Words about Organization

Choosing a Tentative Title

The Final Draft

Quoting from Sources

Incorporating Your Reading into Your Thinking: The Art and Science of Synthesis

The Use and Abuse of Quotations

How to Quote

*THINKING CRITICALLY: USING SIGNAL PHRASES

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

LESLEY TIMMERMAN, An Argument for Corporate Responsibility (Student Essay)

An Annotated Student Research Paper in APA Format

LAURA DeVEAU, The Role of Spirituality and Religion in Mental Health (Student Essay)

Part Two FURTHER VIEWS ON ARGUMENT

8 A Philosopher’s View: 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

JAMES E. McWILLIAMS, The Locavore Myth: Why Buying from Nearby Farmers Won’t Save the Planet

A CHECKLIST FOR USING THE TOULMIN METHOD

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 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

Index of Authors and Titles

Index of Terms

* = New to this edition