Practical Argument: A Text and Anthology

by Laurie G. Kirszner, Stephen R. Mandell

No one writes for the introductory composition student like Kirszner and Mandell—the best-selling authors of the most successful reader in America, Patterns for College Writing. Their most recent success, Practical Argument, Second Edition, simplifies the study of argument. A straightforward, full-color, accessible introduction to argumentative writing, it employs an exercise-driven, thematically focused, step-by-step approach to get to the heart of what students need to understand argument. Practical Argument focuses on basic principles of classical argument and includes alternative approaches. Practical Argument forgoes the technical terminology that confuses students and instead explains concepts in understandable, everyday language, with examples that are immediately relevant to students’ lives. Thoroughly updated with exciting new topics and readings, Practical Argument now features e-Pages that take advantage of the Web by providing more than 200 online quizzes on the readings and argument instruction.

Genres: Textbooks, Nonfiction, School

784 pages, Unbound

First published July 30, 2010

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This textbook is a very good guide to argumentative writing. It has a good summary for students of the rhetorical triangle, ethical arguments, and common logical fallacies. Some of the readings they offer in the essays I find questionable. One example that comes to mind is that in place of an essay the editors have put in a transcript of a speech that one of their students gave with slides from the speech. And not in a section dedicated to student examples. Um... why? I applaud good students, but in a textbook I like real essays from writers with some real ethos. Just sayin'.

[Nikki Cochran · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is well organized both informationally and artistically. My students really appreciated it's formatting and how much information it contained. I highly recommend!

[J.I. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another semester as an adjunct, another completely new rhet/comp textbook thrown my way. No matter, this one is actually good! This isn't as advanced a book as I would like for it to be, but it is still quite solid, which is really all you can ask for. It breaks down all of the major rhetorical concepts in an understandable way and gives lots and lots (and lots) of essays as examples. This includes a sample essay that has its component parts labeled to illustrate exactly what's going on. VERY useful for students. In addition to this, there are student essays, professional essays, discussion topics with lots and lots and lots of opposing views to really dig into a subject, etc.

I haven't had a chance to teach with this yet, and I tend not to rely that heavily on textbooks anyways, as I prefer more digital media in my classroom, but I'm happy to have something like this. Too many books are entirely textbook or entirely reader, so for the price the student pays here, they're getting something pretty good, and for those that need a reader, you could certainly do worse, by a long shot.

[Avid Reader and Geek Girl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay textbook

[Marguerite · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for school.

[Professor Ratigon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for school and despite of some details are too blurred to understand and a little bit confusing me, I still enjoy this one anw.

[Kat McMullen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is fine. For some of the topics they featured, all of the arguments they gave as examples were on the same side.