Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing

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Authors

Sylvan Barnet

Sylvan Barnet was a professor of English and former director of writing at Tufts University. His several texts on writing and his numerous anthologies for introductory composition and literature courses have remained leaders in their field through many editions. His titles, with Hugo Bedau, include Current Issues and Enduring Questions; Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing; and From Critical Thinking to Argument.

Hugo Bedau

Hugo Bedau was a professor of philosophy at Tufts University and 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 wrote or edited a number of books on these topics. He co-authored, with Sylvan Barnet, of Current Issues and Enduring Questions; Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing; and From Critical Thinking to Argument.

John O'Hara

John Fitzgerald O’Hara is an associate professor of Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing at Stockton University, where he is the coordinator of the first-year critical thinking program, and former Director of the Master of Arts in American Studies Program. He regularly teaches writing, critical thinking, and courses in American literature and history and is a nationally-recognized expert on the 1960s. He is the co-author of Current Issues and Enduring Questions; Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing; and From Critical Thinking to Argument.

*= new to this edition

Preface

PART ONE Critical Thinking and Reading
1 Critical Thinking
Thinking about Thinking
Thinking as a Citizen
Obstacles to Critical Thinking
An Essay on Types of Thinking (and Rethinking)
*Adam Grant, A Preacher, a Prosecutor, a Politician, and a Scientist
Thinking through an Issue
Evaluating a Proposal
Survey, Analyze, and Evaluate the Issue
VISUAL GUIDE: EVALUATING A PROPOSAL
Anticipating Counterarguments
Critical Thinking at Work: From a Cluster to a Short Essay
Alexa Cabrera, Stirred and Strained: Pastafarians Should Be Allowed to Practice in Prison (student essay)
Generating Ideas: Writing as a Way of Thinking
Confronting Unfamiliar Issues
Using Clustering to Discover Ideas
Approaching an Issue (or an Assignment)
Prompting Yourself: Classical Topics and Invention
An Essay for Generating Ideas
*Asao B. Inoue, Do Grades Help Students Learn in Classrooms?
THINKING CRITICALLY: Generating Ideas
Generating Ideas from Multiple Perspectives
A Checklist for Critical Thinking
A Short Essay Calling for Critical Thinking
*Anand Jayprakash Vaidya, The Inclusion Problem in Critical Thinking: The Case of Indian Philosophy
Assignment for Critical Thinking

2 Critical Reading: Getting Started
Framing Arguments
Active Reading
Previewing
A Checklist for Previewing and Skimming
A Short Essay for Previewing Practice
Thinking Critically: Previewing
Charles R. Lawrence III, On Racist Speech
Reading with a Careful Eye: Underlining, Highlighting, Annotating
Reading: Fast and Slow
Summarizing and Paraphrasing
A Checklist for a Paraphrase
Patchwriting and Plagiarism
Strategies for Summarizing
Critical Summary
A Short Essay for Summarizing Practice
VISUAL GUIDE: WRITING A CRITICAL SUMMARY
Susan Jacoby, A First Amendment Junkie
A Checklist for a Summary
Essays for Analysis
Gwen Wilde, Why the Pledge of Allegiance Should Be Revised (student essay)
*Sohrab Ahmari, Porn Isn’t Free Speech — on the Web or Anywhere
Suzanne Nossel, The Pro–Free Speech Way to Fight Fake News
Assignment for Critical Summary

*3 Understanding Rhetorical Appeals
Argument and Persuasion
Persuasive Appeals
THINKING CRITICALLY: Identifying Ethos
VISUAL GUIDE: EVALUATING PERSUASIVE APPEALS
Seeing the Appeals in Real-World Events
Unethical Uses of Rhetorical Appeals
Are Such Appeals Always Unethical?
Nonrational Appeals: Satire, Irony, Sarcasm
Does All Communication Contain Arguments?
THINKING CRITICALLY: Emotional Appeals
An Example Argument and a Look at the Writer’s Rhetorical Appeals
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Go Ahead, Speak for Yourself
Arguments for Analysis
*Afrika Afeni Mills, A Letter to White Teachers of My Children
*Dodai Stewart, The Case for a National One-Week Vacation
*Jeffrey T. Brown, The Yelling of the Lambs
Assignment for Rhetorical Analysis

*4      Identifying Procedures of Argument
The Power and Perils of Reason
Rationalization
Confirmation Bias
Types of Reasoning
Induction
Deduction
VISUAL GUIDE: DEDUCTION AND INDUCTION
Premises and Syllogisms
Testing Truth and Validity
A Checklist For Evaluating A Syllogism
THINKING CRITICALLY: Inductive and Deductive Reasoning
Some Procedures in Argument
Definitions
THINKING CRITICALLY: Analyzing Definitions
Evidence
THINKING CRITICALLY: Authoritative Testimony
A Checklist For Evaluating Statistical Evidence
Assumptions
A Checklist For Examining Assumptions
An Essay for Examining Assumptions
*Elizabeth Aura McClintock, Should Marriage Still Involve Changing a Woman’s Name?
An Example Argument and a Look at the Writer’s Strategies
John Tierney, The Reign of Recycling
Arguments for Analysis
*John E. Finn, The Constitution Doesn’t Have a Problem with Mask Mandates
*Loren Laomina, 13 Thoughts on Reparations, Afropessimism and White Supremacy
Assignment for Identifying Procedures in Argument

5 Visual Rhetoric: Thinking about Images as Arguments
Uses of Visual Images
Seeing versus Looking
VISUAL GUIDE: ANALYZING IMAGES
Reading Advertisements
A Checklist for Analyzing Images
Detecting Emotional Appeals in Visual Culture
Reading Photographs
Do Photographs Always Tell the Truth?
A Checklist for Inspecting Digital Photographs
Are Some Images Not Fit to Be Shown?
A Checklist for Publishing Controversial Images
Accommodating, Resisting, and Negotiating the Meaning of Images
Writing about Political Cartoons and Memes
THINKING CRITICALLY: Analyzing Memes and Political Cartoons
An Example: A Student’s Essay Analyzing Images
Ryan Kwon, The American Pipe Dream? (student essay)
Visuals as Aids to Clarity: Maps, Graphs, and Pie Charts
A Word on Misleading or Manipulative Visual Data
A Checklist for Charts And Graphs
Using Visuals in Your Own Paper
Visual Arguments for Analysis
Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother
Nora Ephron, The Boston Photographs
Assignment in Visual Rhetoric

PART TWO Critical Writing
6 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 the Author’s Audience
A Checklist for Analyzing an Author’s Intended Audience
Organizing Your Analysis
VISUAL GUIDE: ORGANIZING YOUR ANALYSIS
Summary versus Analysis
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: Examining Language to Analyze an Author’s Argument
The Essay Analyzed
Theresa Carcaldi, For Sound Argument, Drop the Jokes: How Kristof Falls Short in Convincing His Audience (student essay)
An Analysis of the Student’s Analysis
A Checklist for Writing an Analysis of an Argument
Arguments for Analysis
*Jennifer Bartlett, Disability and the Right to Choose
Matthew Walther, Sorry, Nerds: Video Games Are Not a Sport
Justin Cronin, Confessions of a Liberal Gun Owner
*Roxane Gay, The Price of Black Ambition
Assignment for Writing an Analysis of an Argument

7 Developing an Argument of Your Own
Planning an Argument
Getting Ideas: Argument as an Instrument of Inquiry
Brainstorming Strategies
Revision as Invention
The Thesis or Main Point
Raising the Stakes of Your Thesis
A Checklist For A Thesis Statement
THINKING CRITICALLY: “Walking the Tightrope”
Imagining an Audience
Addressing Opposition and Establishing Common Ground
A Checklist for Imagining an Audience
Drafting and Revising an Argument
The Title
The Opening Paragraphs
Organizing the Body of the Essay
VISUAL GUIDE: ORGANIZING YOUR ARGUMENT
Checking Transitions
The Ending
THINKING CRITICALLY: Using Transitions in Argument
Uses of an Outline
A Checklist for Organizing an Argument
Tone and the Writer’s Persona
THINKING CRITICALLY: Eliminating We, One, and I
A Checklist for Establishing Tone and Persona
Avoiding Sexist Language
Peer Review
A Checklist for Peer Review
A Student’s Essay, from Rough Notes to Final Version
Emily Andrews, Why I Don’t Spare “Spare Change” (student essay)
Assignment for Developing an Argument of Your Own

8 Using Sources
Why Use Sources?
Entering a Discourse
Understanding Information Literacy
Choosing a Topic
A Checklist for Approaching a Topic
Finding Sources
Finding Quality Information Online
VISUAL GUIDE: FINDING DISCOURSE ON YOUR TOPIC
Finding Articles Using Library Databases
THINKING CRITICALLY: Using Search Terms
Locating Books
Evaluating Sources
Scholarly, Popular, and Trade Sources
Evaluating Online Sources
A Checklist for Identifying Fake News
A Checklist for Identifying Reliable Websites
Considering How Current Sources Are
A Checklist for Evaluating Sources
Performing Your Own Primary Research
Interviewing Peers and Local Authorities
Conducting Observations
Conducting Surveys
Research in Archives and Special Collections
Synthesizing Sources
Taking Notes
A Note on Plagiarizing
A Checklist for Avoiding Plagiarism
Compiling an Annotated Bibliography
Quoting from Sources
VISUAL GUIDE: INTEGRATING QUOTATIONS
Thinking Critically: Using Signal Phrases
Documentation
A Note on Footnotes (and Endnotes)
MLA Format: Citations within the Text
MLA Format: The List of Works Cited
An Annotated Student Research Paper in MLA Format
Lesley Timmerman, An Argument for Corporate Responsibility (student essay)
APA Format: Citations within the Text
APA Format: The List of References
A Checklist for Critical Papers Using Sources
An Annotated Student Research Paper in APA Format
Hannah Smith Brooks, Does Ability Determine Expertise? (student essay)
Assignment for Using Sources

PART THREE Further Views on Argument
9 A Philosopher’s View: The Toulmin Model
Understanding the Toulmin Model
VISUAL GUIDE: THE TOULMIN METHOD
Components of 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
*Jonathan Safran Foer, Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast
Thinking with the Toulmin Method
A Checklist for Using the Toulmin Method

10 A Logician’s View: Deduction, Induction, and Fallacies
Using Formal Logic for Critical Thinking
Deduction
Examples of Deduction
Induction
Observation and Inference
Probability
Mill’s Methods
Fallacies
VISUAL GUIDE: COMMON FALLACIES
Fallacies of Ambiguity
Fallacies of Presumption
Fallacies of Irrelevance
A Checklist for Evaluating an Argument with Logic
Additional Fallacies
THINKING CRITICALLY: Identifying Fallacies
Max Shulman, Love Is a Fallacy

11 A Psychologist’s View: Rogerian Argument
Rogerian Argument: An Introduction
VISUAL GUIDE: ROGERIAN ARGUMENT
A Checklist for Analyzing Rogerian Argument
Carl R. Rogers, Communication: Its Blocking and Its Facilitation
*Lewis Oakley, Is It Time to Retire the Word “Privileged”?

12 A Literary Critic’s View: Arguing about Literature
Why Is Literature Important?
Interpreting
Judging (or Evaluating)
Theorizing
A Checklist for Arguing about Literature
Example: A Student Interprets Richard Blanco’s “One Today”
Richard Blanco, One Today
*Jackson DiPiero, Unity in Times of Division: An Analysis of Richard Blanco’s “One Today” (student essay)
A Short Story for Analysis
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour
Thinking about the Effects of Literature

13 A Debater’s View: Oral Presentations and Debate
Oral Presentations
Methods of Delivery
Audience
A Checklist for an Oral Presentation
Delivery
Content
Formal Debates
Standard Debate Format
A Checklist for Preparing for a Debate

PART FOUR Current Issues and An Enduring Question
A Checklist for Analyzing a Debate

*14 Artificial Intelligence: Should We Let Computers Decide?
*Safiya Umoja Noble, Missed Connections: What Search Engines Say about Women
Analyzing a Visual: Predictive Search
*Mark Manson, I, for One, Welcome Our AI Overlords

15 A College Education: What Is Its Purpose?
Andrew Delbanco, 3 Reasons College Still Matters
Edward Conard, We Don’t Need More Humanities Majors
Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel B. Rasmussen, We Need More Humanities Majors
*John Sailer, Is Our Obsession with College Fueling a Mental Health Crisis?
Caroline Harper, HBCUs, Black Women, and STEM Success

*16 How and Why Do We Construct the “Other”?
*Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew
*Hans Massaquoi, Destined to Witness
*W. E. B. Du Bois, Of Our Spiritual Strivings
*Bridget Anderson, The Politics of Pests: Immigration and the Invasive Other
*John Barth, Us/Them
*Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (photographs)
*Simone De Beauvoir, The Woman as Other
*Rudyard Kipling, We and They
*Emari DiGiorgio, When You Are the Brownest White Girl

Index of Authors, Titles, and Terms

Product Updates

A new debate and enduring question foreground issues that matter to students. Feedback from instructors teaching argument inspired new readings chapters on artificial intelligence and the construction of the other.

Fresh and Timely New Readings. More than a third of the total featured essays are new, as are topics such as diversity in critical thinking, mask mandates, artificial intelligence, teaching systemic racism in classrooms, gender roles, and more. Existing topics such as free speech and racial injustice have been updated to reflect contemporary discourse.

Activities that make critical thinking relevant to students’ lives. A new Consider This activity provides metacognitive opportunities and encourages students to think critically about their own decision-making and the ways argument concepts impact their lived experiences.

Focused chapters on rhetorical analysis and logical argument. To support how instructors teach Current Issues and Enduring Questions, we have separated “Critical Reading: Getting Deeper into Arguments” into two focused chapters — “Understanding Rhetorical Appeals” (Chapter 3) and “Identifying Procedures of Argument” (Chapter 4).

Interactive Tutorials in Achieve. Five new highly visual and dynamic tutorials, available in Achieve with Current Issues and Enduring Questions, engage students with important critical thinking and reading concepts: critical thinking, rhetorical analysis, identifying claims and support, evaluating sources, and identifying bias.

Authors

Sylvan Barnet

Sylvan Barnet was a professor of English and former director of writing at Tufts University. His several texts on writing and his numerous anthologies for introductory composition and literature courses have remained leaders in their field through many editions. His titles, with Hugo Bedau, include Current Issues and Enduring Questions; Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing; and From Critical Thinking to Argument.

Hugo Bedau

Hugo Bedau was a professor of philosophy at Tufts University and 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 wrote or edited a number of books on these topics. He co-authored, with Sylvan Barnet, of Current Issues and Enduring Questions; Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing; and From Critical Thinking to Argument.

John O'Hara

John Fitzgerald O’Hara is an associate professor of Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing at Stockton University, where he is the coordinator of the first-year critical thinking program, and former Director of the Master of Arts in American Studies Program. He regularly teaches writing, critical thinking, and courses in American literature and history and is a nationally-recognized expert on the 1960s. He is the co-author of Current Issues and Enduring Questions; Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing; and From Critical Thinking to Argument.

*= new to this edition

Preface

PART FOUR Current Issues and An Enduring Question
A Checklist for Analyzing a Debate

Index of Authors, Titles, and Terms

Product Updates

Affordable strategies for critical thinking and academic argument.

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing is a brief yet versatile resource for teaching argument, persuasive writing, and research. It makes argument concepts clear and gives students strategies to move from critical thinking and analysis to crafting effective arguments. Comprehensive coverage of classic and contemporary approaches to argument — Aristotelian, Toulmin, Rogerian, visual argument, and more — provides a foundation for readings on current issues that students will want to engage with. A new Consider This activity encourages students to think critically about their own decision-making and the ways argument concepts impact their experiences. This affordable guide can stand alone or supplement a larger anthology of readings. Paired with Achieve, an engaging and powerful digital platform (see Related Titles for more details).

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Related Titles

Current Issues and Enduring Questions

Sylvan Barnet; Hugo Bedau; John O'Hara

From Critical Thinking to Argument

Sylvan Barnet; Hugo Bedau; John O'Hara

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