Full Description
This brief edition of a groundbreaking textbook addresses the need for college students to develop critical reading, writing, and thinking skills for self-defense in the contentious arena of American civic rhetoric. Designed for first-year or more advanced composition and critical thinking courses, it is one-third shorter than the original edition, more affordable for students, and easier for teachers to cover in a semester or quarter. It incorporates up-to-date new readings and analysis of controversies like the growing inequality of wealth in America and the debates in the 2008 presidential campaign, expressed in opposing viewpoints from the political left and right. Exercises help students understand the ideological positions and rhetorical patterns that underlie such opposing views. Widely debated issues of whether objectivity is possible and whether there is a liberal or conservative bias in news and entertainment media, as well as in education itself, are foregrounded as topics for rhetorical analysis.
Contents
Preface for Teachers (and Curious Students) to the Brief Edition Acknowledgments PART I: INTRODUCTION Chapter 1: An Appeal to Students Chapter 2: What Is an Argument? What Is a Good Argument? Chapter 3: Definitions and Criteria of Critical Thinking Chapter 4: Semantics in Rhetoric and Critical Thinking Chapter 5: Writing Argumentative Papers CRITICAL THINKING Chapter 6: From Cocksure Ignorance to Thoughtful Uncertainty: Viewpoint, Bias, and Fairness--Culturally Conditioned Assumptions and Centrisms Chapter 7: Overgeneralization, Stereotyping, and Prejudice Chapter 8: Authoritarianism and Conformity, Rationalization, and 9: Some Key Terms in Logic and Argumentation Chapter 10: Logical and Rhetorical Fallacies Chapter 11: Causal Analysis Chapter 12: Uses and Misuses of Emotional Appeal PART IV: THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT THE Political Rhetoric Chapter 14: Thinking Critically About Mass Media Chapter 15: Deception Detection: Varieties of Special Interests and Propaganda Rhetoric and the Wealth Gap Chapter 17: Collecting and Evaluating Opposing Sources: Writing the Research Paper Chapter 18: Documentation and Research Resources Index Credits
