About the Book
Written by the authors of such successful composition titles as Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace (AWL) and The Craft of Research (Chicago UP), The Craft of Argument with Readings introduces a modified—more acessible, more pragmatic—Toulmin model to help students create incisive arguments.
Combining the rhetorical coverage of The Craft of Argument with an anthology of readings, this rhetoric/reader gives students insight into writing arguments and then inspires them with an intriguing collection of professional essays. “Cases” in each readings chapter bypass the usual argument issues in favor of more thoughtful topics like collective delusions, risk-taking behavior, and truthfulness and deception.
This practical text is a guide to three skills: 1) the critical thinking needed to reach a sound conclusion, 2) the imagination to generate the elements of an argument that would support that conclusion, and 3) the ability to plan, draft, and revise a written argument that readers judge to be persuasive. This text is, in fact, the first guide to seamlessly integrate the principles of critical thinking, argumentation, and the writing process by helping students understand how to use these principles of writing to help them think and argue.
Table of Contents:
A Topical Contents of the Writing Process Sections.
A Preface for Teachers.
A Message to Students.
How to Use This Book.
Acknowledgments.
I. THE NATURE OF ARGUMENT.
1. Argument and Rationality.
2. Argument as Civil Conversation.
3. Motivating Your Argument.
II. DEVELOPING YOUR ARGUMENT.
4. Articulating Claims.
5. Reasons and Evidence.
6. Reporting Evidence.
7. Warranting Claims and Reasons.
8. Acknowledgments and Responses.
A Checklist of Questions for Planning and Revising.
III. THINKING ABOUT THINKING IN ARGUMENTS.
9. The Aims of Reasoning.
10. Thinking About Meanings.
11. Thinking About Causes.
IV. THE LANGUAGES OF ARGUMENT.
12. Clear Language.
13. The Overt and Covert Force of Language.
Appendix 1. A Quick Guide to Citations.
Appendix 2. Fallacies.
V. READINGS.
Unit 1: Truthfulness and Deception.
Introduction.
Immanuel Kant, On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives.
Sissela Bok, from Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life.
Jonathan Rausch, Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics.
Allison Kornet, The Truth About Lying.
Charles V. Ford, Sociobiology of Deceit.
Jill Doner Kagle, Are We Lying to Ourselves About Deception?
Case 1: Private Lives, Public Lies.
Overview.
David Stoll, from Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans.
Hal Cohen, The Unmaking of Rigoberta Menchú.
David Horowitz, I, Rigoberta Menchú, Liar.
Robin Blackburn, Nothing but Innuendo and Weak Allegations.
Walter V. Robinson, Professor's Past in Doubt: Discrepancies Surface in Claim of Vietnam Duty.
Jack Beatty, Truth and Consequences.
Ann Coulter, Creative History: Joseph Ellis on Thomas Jefferson, Impeachment of Bill Clinton.
Case 2: Santa Claus.
Overview.
Francis Pharcellus Church, Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa.
Champe Ransom, Yes, Virginia, There Probably Is No Santa.
Cindy Dell Clark, Santa Claus.
Marjorie Taylor, Cultural Myths and Rituals.
Frances Chaput Waksler, Knowledge: The Case of Santa Claus.
Model Analysis of Formal Argument:
Jill Doner Kagle's Are We Lying to Ourselves About Deception?
Unit 2: Collective Delusion: Irrational Fears, Panicked Responses.
Introduction.
Elaine Showalter, Defining Hysteria.
Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Moral Panic.
Robert E. Bartholomew and Erich Goode, Mass Delusions and Hysterias: Highlights from the Past Millenium.
Case 1: Explaining the Salem Witch Trials.
Larry Gragg, Under an Evil Hand.
Arthur Miller, Annotations from The Crucible.
Linnda R. Caporael, Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem?
Alan Woolf, Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials.
Hans Sebald, America: The Devil in Salem and Masks of Mythomania and Demonopathy.
Phillips Stevens Jr., Children, Witches, Demons, and Cultural Reality.
Case 2: Contemporary Collective Delusion Arguments.
Steve Connor, We Are Facing a Deadly Enemy. Not Anthrax, but Hysteria.
Prasenjit Maiti, India's Monkey Man and the Politics of Mass Hysteria.
Robert H. Nelson, Salem Revisited.
Arianna Huffington, Is this a Drug War or a Witch-Hunt?
Rana Foroohar and Stefan Theil, The Dot-Com Witch Hunt.
Rael Jean Isaac, Abusive Justice.
Model Analysis of Informal Argument:
Steve Connor's We Are Facing a Deadly Enemy. Not Anthrax, but Hysteria.
Unit 3: Romantic Love.
Introduction.
Barbara Graham, The Future of Love.
Cheshire Calhoun, Making Up Emotional People: The Case of Romantic Love.
David Knox, LaKisha Sturdivant, Marty E. Zusman, College Student Attitudes Toward Sexual Intimacy.
Case 1: Love Online.
Adam Rogers and Kevin Platt, Love Online.
B. Cornwell and D. C. Lundgren, Love on the Internet: Involvement and Misrepresentation in Romantic Relationships in Cyberspace vs. Realspace.
Katherine Milewski, Mark Nicholas Hatala, and Daniel W. Baack, Downloading Love: A Content Analysis of Internet Personal Advertisements Placed by College Students.
Bill Hancock, Spying at Home: A New Pastime to Detect Online Romance.
Case 2: Love in the Movies.
Wes Gehring, Love and Laughter: A Cinematic Valentine's Day Bouquet.
Kathrina Glitre, The Same, but Different.
James J. Dowd and Nicole R. Pallotta, The End of Romance: The Demystification of Love in the Postmodern Age.
Karen Schoemer, Kiss Kiss, Sob, Sob.
Thomas E. Wartenberg, The Subversive Potential of the Unlikely Couple Film.
Model Analysis of Formal Argument:
David Knox, La Kisha Sturdivant, and Marty E. Zusman's College Student Attitudes Toward Sexual Intimacy.
Unit 4: Life on the Edge: Our Love/Hate Relationship with Risk.
Introduction.
K.C. Cole, Calculated Risks: What Are the Chances?
The Economist, A Busted Flush: How America's Love Affair with Gambling Turned to Disillusionment.
Paul Roberts, Risk.
Case 1: Getting There in One Piece: Personal Choice and Public Safety.
Jan Goehring, Taming the Road Warrior.
Paul Rauber, Arms Race on the Highway.
Mark Rosenberg and Ricardo Martinez, Graduated Licensure: A Win-Win Proposition for Teen Drivers and Parents.
Thomas et al., How Safe Can We Get?
Case 2: Binge Drinking and Student Health.
Henry Wechsler, Andrea Davenport, George Dowdall, Barbara Moeykens, and Sonia Castillo, Health and Behavioral Consequences of Binge Drinking in College: A National Survey of Students at 140 Campuses.
Ed Carson, Purging Bingeing.
Kenneth Brufee, Binge Drinking as a Substitute for a 'Community of Learning.'
Camille Paglia, Wisdom in a Bottle: 'Binge Drinking' and the New Campus Nannyism.
Model Analysis of Formal Argument:
Paul Roberts' Risk.
Unit 5: A New You: Beauty, Identity, and Consumerism.
Introduction.
Brad Lemley, Isn't She Lovely?
Natalie Angier, Nothing Becomes a Man More Than a Woman's Face
Freya Johnson, Frat-Boy Fetishism: When the Goods Get Together.
Case 1: Body Image/Body Art.
Natalie Kusz, Ring Leader.
Andres Martin, On Teenagers and Tattoos.
Susan Lundine, Beauty or the Beast?
Richard Paddock, Santa Cruz Grants Anti-Bias Protection to the Ugly.
Martha Groves, Looks Won't Mean a Lot if Anti-Bias Law Is Approved.
Washington Times, Santa Cruz Weirdocracy.
Case 2: School Uniforms.
Pat Wingert, Uniforms Rule.
Sabrina Walters, Study Suggests School Uniforms Have Not Had the Impact Proponents Hoped For.
Keith A. King, Should School Uniforms Be Mandated in Elementary Schools?
Julia Wilkins, School Uniforms: The Answer to Violence in American Schools or a Cheap Educational Reform?
Unit 6: A Full House: American Family Values.
Introduction.
Paul Cantor, The Simpsons: Atomistic Politics and the Nuclear Family.
Susan Caba, She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not.
Barbara Whitehead and David Popenoe, Defining Daddy Down.
Case 1: Child Care.
Cathy Young, The Mommy Wars.
Deborah Blum, More Work, More Play.
Margaret Talbot, Dial-A-Wife.
Wilson Quarterly, The Battle over Child Care.
Case 2: “Non-Traditional” Families.
The Economist, Anti-Nuclear Reaction.
Steve Sailer, Is Love Colorblind?
Stephanie Brill, Overseas Adoptions: The Secret Everyone Is Talking About.
Vern Bullough, Why There Is No “Crisis of Families:” They're Different, But Better.
