Thinking Critically

Thinking Critically, 8/e, teaches the fundamental thinking, reasoning, reading, and writing abilities that students need for academic success. The text begins with basic skills related to personal experience and then carefully progresses to the more sophisticated reasoning skills required for abstract, academic contexts. Thinking Critically introduces students to the cognitive process while teaching them to develop their higher-order thinking and language abilities.

A number of distinctive characteristics make the text an effective tool for both instructors and students. Exercises, discussion topics, and writing assignments encourage active participation, stimulating students to critically examine their own and others' thinking.

• The enduring themes surrounding the events of September 11 have been infused throughout the text, encouraging students' (and faculty's) critical reflection and analysis. Themes and dilemmas explored include patriotism, individual freedom versus national security, and the ways in which different cultures perceive each other.
• Two portfolios of color images?"Thinking Critically About Images: Truth and Reality in Popular Culture" and "Thinking Critically About Images: Truth and Reality in the Media"?help students improve their ability to think critically about visual information. From advertising to current events to web sites, these sections provoke careful and creative analysis of the ways our values, beliefs, and perceptions are influenced (and, occasionally, manipulated) by visual information.
• Thinking Activities appear in the text and link students to the book's companion Web site. These activities encourage students to move seamlessly from the classroom to the world beyond, offering additional links and web-based activities to enhance their critical and creative engagement with the exercises.
• In-text readings?and dozens more on the companion web site?reflect the latest thinking on cross-disciplinary topics such as human cloning, globalization, the environment, and challenges to civil liberty, giving instructors choice and currency.

John Chaffee, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at The City University of New York, where he has developed a Philosophy and Critical Thinking program that annually involves 25 faculty and 3,000 students. He is a nationally recognized figure in the area of critical thinking, having authored leading textbooks and many professional articles. He also has conducted numerous conference presentations and workshops throughout the country. In developing programs to teach people to think more effectively in all academic subjects and areas of life, he has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He was selected as New York Educator of the Year and received the Distinguished Faculty Award for Diversity in Teaching in Higher Education.