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| Preface | |
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| The Benefit and Manner of Asking the Right Questions | |
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| Introduction | |
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| Critical Thinking to the Rescue | |
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| The Sponge and Panning for Gold: Alternative Thinking Styles | |
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| An Example of the Panning-for-Gold Approach | |
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| The Myth of the "Right Answer" | |
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| The Usefulness of Asking the Question: "Who Cares?" | |
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| Weak-Sense and Strong-Sense Critical Thinking | |
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| The Satisfaction of Panning for Gold | |
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| The Importance of Practice | |
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| The Right Questions | |
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| Critical Thinking Is a Social Activity | |
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| Values and Other People | |
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| Primary Values of a Critical Thinker | |
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| Thinking and Feelings | |
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| Keeping the Conversation Going | |
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| Creating a Friendly Environment for Communication | |
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| Wishful Thinking: Perhaps the Biggest Single Obstacle to Critical Thinking | |
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| What Are the Issue and the Conclusion? | |
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| Kinds of Issues | |
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| Searching for the Issue | |
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| Searching for the Author's or Speaker's Conclusion | |
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| Using This Critical Question | |
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| Clues to Discovery: How to Find the Conclusion | |
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| Critical Thinking and Your Own Writing and Speaking | |
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| Narrowing Your Issue Prior to Writing | |
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| Cluing Your Reader into Your Conclusion | |
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| Practice Exercises | |
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| Sample Responses | |
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| What Are the Reasons? | |
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| Initiating the Questioning Process | |
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| Words That Identify Reasons | |
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| Kinds of Reasons | |
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| Keeping the Reasons and Conclusions Straight | |
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| Using This Critical Question | |
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| Reasons First, Then Conclusions | |
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| Critical Thinking and Your Own Writing and Speaking | |
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| Exploring Possible Reasons before Reaching a Conclusion | |
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| Identify Major Publications That Cover Your Issue | |
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| Helping Your Readers Identify Your Reasons | |
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| Practice Exercises | |
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| Sample Responses | |
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| What Words or Phrases Are Ambiguous? | |
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| The Confusing Flexibility of Words | |
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| Locating Key Terms and Phrases | |
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| Checking for Ambiguity | |
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| Using This Critical Question | |
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| Determining Ambiguity | |
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| Context and Ambiguity | |
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| Using This Critical Question | |
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| Ambiguity, Definitions, and the Dictionary | |
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| Ambiguity and Loaded Language | |
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| Limits of Your Responsibility to Clarify Ambiguity | |
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| Ambiguity and Your Own Writing and Speaking | |
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| Keeping Your Eye Out for Ambiguity | |
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| Practice Exercises | |
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| Sample Responses | |
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| What Are the Value and Descriptive Assumptions? | |
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| General Guide for Identifying Assumptions | |
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| Value Conflicts and Assumptions | |
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| From Values to Value Assumptions | |
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| Typical Value Conflicts | |
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| The Communicator's Background as a Clue to Value Assumptions | |
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| Consequences as Clues to Value Assumptions | |
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| More Hints for Finding Value Assumptions | |
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| Finding Value Assumptions on Your Own | |
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| Using This Critical Question | |
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| Values and Relativism | |
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| Identifying and Evaluating Descriptive Assumptions | |
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| Illustrating Descriptive Assumptions | |
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| Clues for Locating Assumptions | |
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| Avoiding Analysis of Trivial Assumptions | |
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| Assumptions and Your Own Writing and Speaking | |
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| Practice Exercises | |
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| Sample Responses | |
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| Are There Any Fallacies in the Reasoning? | |
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| A Questioning Approach to Finding Reasoning Fallacies | |
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| Evaluating Assumptions as a Starting Point | |
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| Discovering Other Common Reasoning Fallacies | |
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| Looking for Diversions | |
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| Sleight of Hand: Begging the Question | |
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| Using This Critical Question | |
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| Summary of Reasoning Errors | |
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| Expanding Your Knowledge of Fallacies | |
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| Fallacies and Your Own Writing and Speaking | |
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| Practice Exercises | |
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| Sample Responses | |
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| How Good Is the Evidence: Intuition, Personal Experience, Case Examples, Testimonials, and Appeals to Authority? | |
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| The Need for Evidence | |
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| Locating Factual Claims | |
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| Sources of Evidence | |
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| Intuition as Evidence | |
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| Personal Experience as Evidence | |
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| Case Examples as Evidence | |
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| Testimonials as Evidence | |
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| Appeals to Authority as Evidence | |
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| Problems with Citers Citing Other Citers | |
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| Using This Critical Question | |
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| Evidence and Your Writing and Speaking | |
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| Anticipating Critical Readers | |
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| Determining Whether You Need More Evidence | |
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| Your Academic Writing and Evidence | |
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| Practice Exercises | |
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| Sample Responses | |
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| How Good Is the Evidence: Personal Observation, Research Studies, and Analogies? | |
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| Personal Observation as Evidence | |
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| Research Studies as Evidence | |
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| Problems with Research Findings | |
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| Generalizing from the Research Sample | |
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| Biased Surveys and Questionnaires | |
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| Critical Evaluation of a Research-Based Argument | |
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| Analogies as Evidence | |
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| Identifying ahd Comprehending Analogies | |
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| Evaluating Analogies | |
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| Using Evidence in Your Own Writing | |
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| Research and the Internet | |
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| Practice Exercises | |
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| Sample Responses | |
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| Are There Rival Causes? | |
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| When to Look for Rival Causes | |
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| The Pervasiveness of Rival Causes | |
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| Detecting Rival Causes | |
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| The Cause or A Cause | |
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| Rival Causes for Differences between Groups | |
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| Confusing Causation with Association | |
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| Confusing "After This" with "Because of This" | |
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| Explaining Individual Events or Acts | |
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| Evaluating Rival Causes | |
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| Rival Causes and Your Own Communication | |
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| Exploring Potential Causes | |
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| Narrowing Down Your List of Potential Causes | |
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| Practice Exercises | |
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| Sample Responses | |
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| Are the Statistics Deceptive? | |
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| Unknowable and Biased Statistics | |
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| Confusing Averages | |
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| Concluding One Thing, Proving Another | |
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| Deceiving by Omitting Information | |
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| Risk Statistics and Omitted Information | |
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| Using Statistics in Your Writing | |
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| Practice Exercises | |
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| Sample Responses | |
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| What Significant Information is Omitted? | |
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| The Benefits of Detecting Omitted Information | |
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| The Certainty of Incomplete Reasoning | |
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| Questions That Identify Omitted Information | |
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| The Importance of the Negative View | |
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| Omitted Information That Remains Missing | |
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| Missing Information in Your Own Arguments | |
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| Using This Critical Question | |
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| Practice Exercises | |
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| Sample Responses | |
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| What Reasonable Conclusions Are Possible? | |
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| Assumptions and Multiple Conclusions | |
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| Dichotomous Thinking: Impediment to Considering Multiple Conclusions | |
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| Two Sides or Many? | |
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| Searching for Multiple Conclusions | |
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| Productivity of If-Clauses | |
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| Alternative Solutions as Conclusions | |
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| The Liberating Effect of Recognizing Alternative Conclusions | |
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| All Conclusions Are Not Created Equal | |
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| Summary | |
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| Practice Exercises | |
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| Sample Responses | |
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| Final Word | |
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| Index | |