Description
Book SynopsisCritical Thinking: An Introduction to Analytical Reading and Reasoning, Second Edition, provides a nontechnical vocabulary and analytic apparatus that guide students in identifying and articulating the central patterns found in reasoning and in expository writing more generally. Understanding these patterns of reasoning helps students to better analyze, evaluate, and construct arguments and to more easily comprehend the full range of everyday arguments found in ordinary journalism. Critical Thinking, Second Edition, distinguishes itself from other texts in the field by emphasizing analytical reading as an essential skill. It also provides detailed coverage of argument analysis, diagnostic arguments, diagnostic patterns, and fallacies. Opening with two chapters on analytical reading that help students recognize what makes reasoning explicitly different from other expository activities, the text then presents an interrogative model of argument to guide them in the analysis and ev
Trade ReviewThis is the best critical-thinking book on the market. Its strengths are its originality, thoughtfulness, attention to scholarship in informal logic/critical thinking, focus on the importance of critical-reading skills, and practical application to the kinds of reasoning we do every day through a remarkably careful discussion of inference to the best explanation. * Dale Turner, Cal Poly Pomona *
I have seen students understand what they are reading and evaluate arguments in a meaningful way in classes where this text is being used. This in itself motivates me to use it. * Sharon Crasnow, Norco College, Riverside Community College District *
Critical Thinking constitutes a unified approach to a whole trajectory of intellectual development; that is, it can take someone from 'able to read' all the way to 'able to think analytically and creatively about reasoning.' * Chris Campolo, Hendrix College *
Table of ContentsCHAPTERS 1 AND 4-8 OPEN WITH AN INTRODUCTION; EACH CHAPTER ENDS WITH SUPPLEMENTAL EXERCISES AND ANSWERS; PART ONE. PARAPHRASING; 1. THE BARE-BONES PARAPHRASE; 2. READING FOR STRUCTURE: DEPENDENCY AND SUBORDINATION; 3. READING FOR REASONING: PARAPHRASING ARGUMENTS; PART TWO. ANALYZING REASONING; 4. ARGUMENT ANALYSIS: ANSWERING QUESTIONS; 5. DIAGNOSTIC ARGUMENTS: REASONING BY EXPLAINING; 6. DIAGNOSTIC PATTERNS; 7. FURTHER APPLICATIONS: PREDICTION AND RECOMMENDATION; 8. FALLACIES; APPENDIX. DEDUCTION
