Jeff McLaughlin’s How to Think Critically begins with the premise that we are all, every day, engaged in critical thinking. But as we may develop bad habits in daily life if we don’t scrutinize our practices, so we are apt to develop bad habits in critical thinking if we are careless in our reasoning. This book exists to instill good thinking habits: attentiveness to word choice, avoidance of fallacies, and effective construction and assessment of arguments. With relatable and often amusing examples included throughout, the book adopts a degree of technical sophistication that is rigorous and yet still easily applied to ordinary situations. Readers are presented with a traditional step-by-step method for analysis that can be applied to all argument forms. Hundreds of exercises (with solutions) are included, as are several random statement generators which can be used to create thousands of additional examples. Venn diagrams, truth tables, and other essential concepts are presented not as definitions for academic study but as tools for better thinking and living.

THINK Currency. THINK Relevancy. THINK Critically. THINK Critically is a cutting-edge, self-reflective guide for improving critical thinking skills through careful analysis, reasoned inference, and thoughtful evaluation of contemporary culture and ideas. An engaging visual design developed with extensive student feedback and 15-page chapters makes THINK Critically the textbook your students will actually read. It delivers the core concepts of critical thinking in a way they can easily understand. Additionally, engaging examples and masterful exercises help students learn to clarify ideas, analyze arguments, and evaluate reasoning. A better teaching and learning experience This program will provide a better teaching and learning experience--for you and your students. Here's how: Improve Critical Thinking - "Think Critically" exercises are positioned throughout each chapter to help students build skills. Engage Students - In-text features include "Map It Out" sections, video clips, and Web-based multimedia examples. Support Instructors - Four new optional chapters are available through the Pearson Custom Library, and a comprehensive supplements package is available to be packaged with this text.

This is a book about thinking. Engaging and down-to-earth, it captures the habits and practices that are fundamental to clear thinking and effective study. In his warm and friendly style, Tom Chatfield shows you how to: Identify and examine your biases Engage in lively, curious skepticism See the value in emotion and use rhetoric persuasively Know when to say ′I don′t know′ Construct reasoned arguments and explanations Think critically about how you engage with technology. Short and punchy, the book views critical thinking as a skill to be continually practiced and developed. It equips you with a toolkit for clearer thinking, describing ten key concepts that help you to apply what you have learned. Including regular reflective exercises, key concepts, further readings, each chapter also offers recommendations for how to put the ideas it discusses into practice. This book is for undergraduate students and anyone looking to understand the core ideas behind critical thinking. Celebrating both self-reflection and collaboration, this book empowers you to pause, think twice and, above all, think well.

Previously Published as A Field Guide to Lies We’re surrounded by fringe theories, fake news, and pseudo-facts. These lies are getting repeated. New York Times bestselling author Daniel Levitin shows how to disarm these socially devastating inventions and get the American mind back on track. Here are the fundamental lessons in critical thinking that we need to know and share now. Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can give a grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions. Wordy arguments on the other hand can easily be persuasive as they drift away from the facts in an appealing yet misguided way. The steps we can take to better evaluate news, advertisements, and reports are clearly detailed. Ultimately, Levitin turns to what underlies our ability to determine if something is true or false: the scientific method. He grapples with the limits of what we can and cannot know. Case studies are offered to demonstrate the applications of logical thinking to quite varied settings, spanning courtroom testimony, medical decision making, magic, modern physics, and conspiracy theories. This urgently needed book enables us to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. As Levitin attests: Truth matters. A post-truth era is an era of willful irrationality, reversing all the great advances humankind has made. Euphemisms like “fringe theories,” “extreme views,” “alt truth,” and even “fake news” can literally be dangerous. Let's call lies what they are and catch those making them in the act.

Train your brain for better decisions, problem solving, andinnovation Think Smarter: Critical Thinking to Improve Problem-Solvingand Decision-Making Skills is the comprehensive guide totraining your brain to do more for you. Written by a criticalthinking trainer and coach, the book presents a pragmatic set oftools to apply critical thinking techniques to everyday businessissues. Think Smarter is filled with real world examplesthat demonstrate how the tools work in action, in addition todozens of practice exercises applicable across industries andfunctions, Think Smarter is a versatile resource forindividuals, managers, students, and corporate trainingprograms. Thinking is the foundation of everything you do, but we relylargely on automatic thinking to process information, oftenresulting in misunderstandings and errors. Shifting over tocritical thinking means thinking purposefully using a framework andtoolset, enabling thought processes that lead to better decisions,faster problem solving, and creative innovation. ThinkSmarter provides clear, actionable steps toward improving yourcritical thinking skills, plus exercises that clarify complexconcepts by putting theory into practice. Features include: A comprehensive critical thinking framework Over twenty-five "tools" to help you think more critically Critical thinking implementation for functions andactivities Examples of the real-world use of each tool Learn what questions to ask, how to uncover the real problem tosolve, and mistakes to avoid. Recognize assumptions your can relyon versus those without merit, and train your brain to tick throughyour mental toolbox to arrive at more innovative solutions.Critical thinking is the top skill on the wish list in the businessworld, and sharpening your ability can have profound affectsthroughout all facets of life. Think Smarter: Critical Thinkingto Improve Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills providesa roadmap to more effective and productive thought.

A much-needed guide to thinking critically for oneself and how to tell a good argument from a bad one. Includes topical examples from politics, sport, medicine, music, chapter summaries, glossary and exercises.