Becoming a Critical Thinker

Becoming a Critical Thinker stresses concrete and practical applications of critical thinking in everyday situations. The concise structure makes the text a useful supplement to any student success course, and its use of timely examples—from advertising, television, music, and the Internet—help students connect the skills outlined to their own lives.

The text is divided into a series of cumulative activities and includes exercises linked to further activities on the Web.

• Chapter 4, Solving Problems, provides critical-thinking techniques that students can apply to school and life.
• Thinking Critically About Research offers methods for assessing information.
• Thinking Critically About Movies illustrates how the cinema is used as a tool for persuasion, and how students can analyze the messages within the context of a film.

Vincent Ryan Ruggiero is an internationally known writer, lecturer, and consultant whose areas of special interest and expertise are critical and creative thinking, ethics, educational reform, and social criticism. A pioneer in the movement to make thinking skills instruction an important emphasis at every level of education, he holds the rank of professor emeritus, State University of New York at Delhi, and resides in Dunedin, Florida. Professor Ruggiero's 22 books include Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking, Thinking Critically about Ethical Issues, The Art of Thinking, Teaching Thinking across the Curriculum, A Guide to Thinking Sociologically, Warning: Nonsense Is Destroying America, Making Your Mind Matter, The Practice of Loving Kindness, and Corrupted Culture.