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

Title Page
Copyright
Preface
Brief Contents
Contents
PART ONE CRITICAL THINKING AND READING
	1 CRITICAL THINKING
		Thinking Through an Issue: Gay Marriage Licenses
		On Flying Spaghetti Monsters: Analyzing and Evaluating from Multiple Perspectives
			Critical Thinking at Work: From Jottings to a Short Essay
			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
			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. Will’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 versus 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
		Using Visuals in Your Own Paper
		Additional Images for Analysis
			NORA EPHRON, The Boston Photographs
PART TWO 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
			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
			Further Invention Strategies: Asking Good Questions
			The Thesis or Main Point
		A CHECKLIST FOR A THESIS STATEMENT
			Imagining an Audience
		THINKING CRITICALLY: “WALKING THE TIGHTROPE”
			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 CHECKLIST FOR PEER REVIEW OF 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
		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
		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 CRITICAL 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 THREE 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
	11 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” (Student Paper)
			FELICIA ALONSO, The Debate in Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” (Student Paper)
			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
	12 A DEBATER’S VIEW: INDIVIDUAL ORAL PRESENTATIONS AND DEBATE
		Individual Oral Presentations
			Methods of Delivery
		A CHECKLIST FOR AN ORAL PRESENTATION
		The Audience
		Delivery
		The Talk
		Formal Debates
			Standard Debate Format
		A CHECKLIST FOR PREPARING FOR A DEBATE
PART FOUR A CASEBOOK ON THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL
	13 HOW FREE IS THE WILL OF THE INDIVIDUAL WITHIN SOCIETY?
		Thoughts about Free Will
			PLATO, Crito
			GEORGE ORWELL, Shooting an Elephant
			WALTER T. STACE, Is Determinism Inconsistent with Free Will?
			MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., A Call for Unity and Letter from Birmingham Jail
			PETER CAVE, Man or Sheep?
			THOMAS HARDY, The Man He Killed
			T. S. ELIOT, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
			SUSAN GLASPELL, Trifles
			MITSUYE YAMADA, To the Lady
Index of Authors and Titles
Index of Terms