Thinking for Yourself

by Marlys Mayfield

THINKING FOR DEVELOPING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS THROUGH READING AND WRITING offers a unique integration of composition, reading, and critical thinking. As you complete the book's writing assignments, you'll see how your writing reflects your thinking and how self-directed improvement in thinking also improves your writing. The book offers step-by-step instruction, humor, cartoons, and up-to-date social and political examples as a foundation for lifelong improvement in thinking and writing. Available with InfoTrac Student Collections

Genres: Writing

400 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1987

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have decided to improve my critical thinking skills so I purchased this book, and I have to say that this is a rare gem. The author managed to explain in a detailed fashion the basics of critical thinking, its problems and its forms. She also gives us the little perks of arguing, analysing discourses... I believe that I will need to go back to the book regularly though. I would recommend it to anyone interested in becoming better critical thinkers.

[Jules]

don’t judge me i had to read this for school it counts!!!

[Asa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fallacy examples come from more than one side, and the student is allowed to argue with the author's labels:

The reader's own bias comes first. The chapter opens by asking, "Does this statement appeal to your own bias or not?" (p. 289).

Right-coded claims are tested. These include "America. Love it or leave it", "When we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns", Buckley, the Roe v. Wade "missing 40 million citizens" line, the gun-rights poll questions, and a refinery biologist.

Left-coded claims are tested too. "Only the wealthy can… make it into the medical profession" is marked hasty because "there is no data about the financial status of the students". The rape-reporting statistic and the contraceptives comparison are also examined.

Both sides of one dispute: "Who is the endangered species? The spotted owl or the loggers of the Northwest?"

The labels are open to challenge. Students are told to "offer reasons for your agreement or disagreement with designating them as such," and to rate analogies "good or false… and tell why." Paris, the Oakland rap artist, makes a structural argument about having no opportunities, and the book leaves the student to judge it rather than filing it as a fallacy.

On record, but not counted against it:

-The right-coded examples are more numerous in the gun-related clusters.
-The horseshoe figure is still the one place where a category settles a judgement.

Neither undoes the condition, because both sides are tested and the labels stay open.

LQ 3, on my own reading. The prose is clear and well organised, with examples that are sourced and dated. There are slips ("aircrafts"), and in places it moralises flatly ("the irrationality of such claims is self-evident").

Testing both sides and keeping the labels open.

[Nan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the first textbook I used as composition teacher. As a newbie teacher, I had a difficult time using it, and my students found it often inaccessible. I was pleased when our department chose another book.

[Ashleigh Spicy Geek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has to be the first and only school textbook I started reading before the semester started and I was always ahead in my reading. This is the perfect read to help you notice how people try to deceit using words (falacies) and to make you begin to think more critically.

[Horeya Elgardouh · Rating 3 out of 5]

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