Critical Thinking and Communication: The Use of Reason in Argument

Relating common theoretical models to true-to-life examples from law, ethics, education, and business, Inch and Warnick stress the importance of argumentation in everyday life as they build reader competence and critical awareness.  Critical Thinking and Communication encourages readers to develop skills in both constructing and refuting arguments. Through exercises and examples, readers learn how to create individual arguments, extend argument cases, and understand how arguments are designed and how to interpret them. The text allow readers to conceptualize argumentation in the larger framework of verbal and written interaction, from public speaking and debating to interpersonal, intercultural, and small group communication.

Updated material includes:

• The new edition has been extensively reorganized to make it even easier to use. The new organization provides a broad conceptual framework for understanding argument before examining the elements of arguments.
• Each chapter begins with an extended case study to illustrate key concepts discussed in the chapter. The case students are drawn from contemporary issues ranging from politics to economics to personal interest issues, showing students how issues that affect them are argued in the public arena regularly.
• The text features an updated and extended treatment of argument theory. There is more coverage on how argumentation is placed in the field of critical thinking and how it works in a critical context for inquiry and advocacy.
• The discussion about how cultures and languages affect our ability to produce and understand argument has been enhanced, to help students employ strategies for working cooperatively with diverse audiences.

The materials are covered effectively but succinctly, and, I would say, clearly and unambiguously. There is always a tightrope for any author to walk in the balance between thoroughness and brevity. This book strikes that balance quite gracefully.
C. Thomas Preston, Jr., University of Texas – Brownsville