Practical Argument: Short Edition

by Laurie G. Kirszner, Stephen R. Mandell

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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. Now available as a briefer and lower-cost version of their groundbreaking and highly successful argument book, Practical Argument, Short 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, Short Second Edition focuses on basic principles of classical argument and includes alternative approaches. It forgoes the technical terminology that confuses students and instead explains concepts in understandable, everyday language, with examples that are immediately relevant to students’ lives. Practical Argument, Short Second Edition is available in e-book formats for about half the price of the print book. And now with the new edition, you can meet students where they are: online. Our newest set of online materials, LaunchPad Solo, provides all the key tools and course-specific content that you need to teach your class. To package LaunchPad Solo free with Practical Argument Short Second Edition, use ISBN 978-1-319-01311-0.

464 pages, Unbound

First published January 6, 2015

Reviews

[Meltha · Rating 3 out of 5]

The problem I have with this book is one I have with a large number of composition texts: the structure is faulty. Students are asked to write a research paper early on in the book, yet aren't taught how to research, document, or even structure an essay until later. The process of writing a research paper is not something that anyone just naturally knows, particularly when it comes to avoiding plagiarism or knowing what to document and how. The entire book needs to be read before a single paper could be attempted, at least in a perfect world, but there is no way to do that in a typical semester. It has to be done simultaneously. Consequently, I was pulling the text to pieces, adding information, creating my own guidelines and giving them to students, and generally treating the book like a deck of playing cards to shuffle at will, which honestly did not work very well because there was no distinct, logical skeleton to follow and build on. Added to this, there seemed to be a conservative bent to the majority of the essays, which felt off to me. Finally, the section on MLA documentation practically sent me into a heart attack. Since when have rules changed for capitalizing the titles of newspaper articles? When did MLA drop the city of publication from book citations? When did they start using the abbreviation pp. for multiple pages like APA on the Works Cited page and keep the original format for parenthetical citations? What happened to using print or web after physical or electronic sources? Actually, what happened to web-based citations in general as they've changed the rules so many times that trying to figure out what to put in a citation is almost ridiculous. At least the price isn't horrible, but this book requires a tremendous mental workout and a lot of time to become usable.