Critical Thinking and Communication: The Use of Reason in Argument, 7th edition

Stresses the importance of argumentation in everyday life

Critical Thinking and Communication, 7/e, encourages students to develop skills in constructing and refuting arguments in contexts ranging from informal conversations to structured debates. The authors stress the importance of argumentation in everyday life while building student competence and critical awareness. Through exercises and examples, students learn to create arguments and develop, understand, and interpret extended cases.

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• Blends New and Traditional Theories – The title focuses on traditional rhetorical perspectives and challenges readers to apply those principles and practices to contemporary situations.
• Emphasizes Informal Arguments and Reasoning – The text highlights the ways in which arguments are used every day, from informal conversations to formal venues such as debates or legislatures. New and revised case studies provide contemporary and real examples of how arguments and argumentation are used in such areas as law, politics, and public protest.
• Offers Flexibility for Instructors – After covering the basic concepts in Chapters 1 and 2, instructors can use the remaining chapters as appropriate to meet specific course objectives.
• Encourages Cultural Awareness – Students gain a comprehensive understanding of how arguments work in cultures with different assumptions and beliefs about the arguing process. Redesigned chapters in cultural argumentation explore how students can adapt arguments for diverse audiences.

• Redesigned chapters in cultural and collaborative argumentation consider how students can adapt arguments to better align with hearers from diverse audiences. Focusing on understanding cultural needs and expectations, the text guides students through ways of designing and framing arguments that are appropriate to specific argument situations and expectations.
• New chapters and approaches for building and refuting extended argument cases develop a “co-orientational” approach. Using the “co-orientational” model, the text explores strategies for conversational argumentation focusing on critical listening, analysis, and refutation.
• This edition integrates opportunities to “Apply the Theory” in each chapter.  It integrates process-based exercises with chapter discussions to provide students with opportunities to practice argumentation skills and critical thinking processes as they read the theories.
• New chapters in persuasion and responsibility explore how students can design messages, enhance credibility, and present arguments ethically. These are the final two chapters in the text and serve to focus student argument skills into a framework that stresses the audience and ethical requirements when an advocate seeks to change argument recipients.
• New and revised argument case studies provide contemporary and “real” examples of how arguments and argumentation are used in fields ranging from law to politics to public protest. Each chapter begins with a case study that is integrated into the theoretical discussion in a way that explores how everyday arguments can be understood and critically analyzed.
• New models, diagrams, and process illustrations were developed to better describe the flow and connections of theory to practice. These models provide a strong connection between the discussions in the text and ways of graphically understanding how argumentation theory can be applied.