Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life (3rd Edition)

For Student Success and Career Development, or Critical Thinking courses. Written by two of the leading experts in the field, this book's approach to critical thinking is as a process for taking charge of and responsibility for one’s thinking.

Critical Thinking is based in theory developed over the last 30 years, it focuses on an integrated, comprehensive concept of critical thinking that is both substantive and practical; it fosters the development of basic intellectual skills students need to think through content in any class, subject, or discipline, as well as through any problem or issue they face. Simply stated, this text offers students the intellectual tools they need for lifelong learning, and rational, conscientious living. In this edition, several advanced chapters were eliminated, many diagrams have been added or enhanced, and the glossary of critical thinking terms has been more strongly developed. The authors’ website provides valuable resources to enhance students' development as thinkers www.criticalthinking.org

Dr. Richard W. Paul is Director of Research and Professional Development at the Center for Critical Thinking and Chair of the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking.  Dr. Paul is an internationally recognized authority on critical thinking, with eight books and over 200 articles on the subject.  Dr. Paul has given lectures on critical thinking at many universities in both the United States and abroad, including Harvard, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, and the universities of Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, British Columbia, Toronto, and Amsterdam. He taught beginning and advanced courses in critical thinking at the university level for over 20 years.  He has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including Distinguished Philosopher (by the Council for Philosophical Studies, 1987), O.C. Tanner Lecturer in Humanities (by Utah State University, 1986), Lansdown Visiting Scholar (by the University of Victoria, 1987), and the Alfred Korsybski Memorial Lecturer (by the Institute for General Semantics, 1987).

Dr. Linda Elder is an educational psychologist and a prominent authority on critical thinking. She is President of the Foundation for Critical Thinking and Executive Director of the Center for Critical Thinking. Dr. Elder has taught psychology and critical thinking at the college level and has given presentations to more than 20,000 educators at all levels. She has co-authored four books, including Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life, Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life and Twenty-Five Days to Better Thinking and Better Living.  She has co-authored twenty thinker’s guides on critical thinking and co-authors a quarterly column on critical thinking in the Journal of Developmental Education.  Dr. Elder has also developed an original stage theory of critical thinking development.  Concerned with understanding and illuminating the relationship between thinking and affect, and the barriers to critical thinking, Dr. Elder has placed these issues at the center of her thinking and her work.