Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings

Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings promotes the essential critical-thinking skills needed for writing effective arguments. Using a logical yet flexible approach, authors John Bean and June Johnson present argument as a process of inquiry and a means of persuasion, not simply as a pro and con debate with winners and losers.

The 12th Edition promotes deeper listening to opposing views and more open-mindedness when conducting research. Two all-new chapters focus on strategies for responding to disturbing or threatening views. New readings and images keep the text’s content contemporary and engaging. And a new section offers principles for constructing effective memes.

1. Argument: An Introduction
2. The Core of an Argument: A Claim with Reasons
3. The Logical Structure of Arguments: Logos
4. Using Evidence Effectively
5. Moving Your Audience: Ethos, Pathos and Kairos
6. Responding to Objections and Alternate Views
7. Making Multimedia Arguments with Visuals and Text

1. Argument as Inquiry: Reading, Summarizing and Responding
2. A Closer Look at Rhetorical Reading: A Rhetorical Analysis Paper
3. A Closer Look at Open-Mindedness: An Exploratory Paper

1. An Introduction to the Types of Claims
2. Definition and Resemblance Arguments
3. Causal Arguments
4. Evaluation and Ethical Arguments
5. Proposal Arguments

1. Listening to Learn and Writing Reflexively
2. Alternatives to Argument: Collaborative Rhetoric and Invitational Rhetoric

1. Using Rhetorical Awareness to Find and Evaluate Sources
2. Incorporating Sources into Your Own Argument
3. Citing and Documenting Sources

1. Creating Field Research Sources: Observations, Interviews, and Questionnaires
2. Informal Fallacies

John C. Bean is an emeritus professor of English at Seattle University, where he held the title of “Consulting Professor of Writing and Assessment.” He has an undergraduate degree from Stanford (1965) and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington (1972). He is the author of an internationally used book on writing across the curriculum, Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom, 3rd Edition (Wiley, 2021). He is also the co-author of 2 other influential composition texts, Writing Arguments and Reading Rhetorically. He has published numerous articles on writing and on writing across the curriculum, as well as on literary subjects including Shakespeare and Spenser. His current research interests focus on pedagogical strategies for teaching undergraduate research including quantitative literacy, disciplinary methods of inquiry and argument, and the transfer of learning as students move through and across a curriculum. A concomitant research interest is the development of institutional assessment strategies that promote productive faculty conversations about teaching and learning. He has delivered lectures and conducted workshops on writing across the curriculum throughout the United States and Canada as well as for universities in Germany, Bangladesh, Ghana and Zambia. In 2010, his article “Messy Problems and Lay Audiences: Teaching Critical Thinking within the Finance Curriculum” (co-authored with colleagues from finance and economics) won the 2009 McGraw-Hill‒Magna Publications Award for the year’s best scholarly work on teaching and learning.

June Johnson is an associate professor of English, Director of Writing Studies, and Writing Consultant to the University Core at Seattle University. She has a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Education from Stanford and an M.A. in English from Mills College. After chairing the English department of a preparatory school in Los Angeles and working as a development editor in educational publishing, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of Washington. At Seattle University, she supervises the teaching of first-year academic writing seminars; she also teaches these courses and advanced argument and composition theory in the Writing Studies minor. Her research areas include global studies, reflective writing, first-year composition, writing transfer, argumentation, and Rogerian communication, subjects on which she conducts workshops at Seattle University and at institutions around the country. She has published articles in American Studies on women’s writing about the West in the nineteenth century. She is the co-author (with John Bean) of Writing Arguments and Thinking Rhetorically. She also authored Global Issues, Local Arguments, 3rd Edition (Pearson, 2014), an argument reader and rhetoric with a civic literacy focus that provides a cross-curricular introduction to global problems.