Thinking books · Logic & argumentation · Brooke Moore & Richard Parker, 1986

Critical Thinking — the big ideas

A standard university text on argument analysis, credibility and fallacies.

Free — no account needed to read

The big ideas

It treats credibility of sources as a systematic question — interest, expertise, and whether the claim is the kind of thing this source could know — rather than a matter of impression.

It distinguishes rhetorical devices that persuade without arguing (loaded language, euphemism, innuendo) from arguments proper, and shows how often they carry the whole weight.

It covers causal reasoning carefully: how to tell a genuine causal claim from a correlation dressed as one.

Practise it — no need to have read it

Take a persuasive piece of writing. Strike out every emotionally loaded word and reread it. What argument is left?

A hint: Sometimes a strong one. Often less than there appeared to be.

Where it shows up in real life

• Marketing copy, including your own
• News analysis
• Assessing a source

Described in our own words with the source named — never quoted, and not a substitute for reading the book.