The Power of Critical Thinking: Effective Reasoning About Ordinary and Extraordinary Claims

About this book

The Power of Critical Thinking: Effective Reasoning About Ordinary and Extraordinary Claims explores the essentials of critical reasoning argumentation logic and argumentative essay writing while also incorporating important topics that most other texts leave out such as "inference to the best explanation " scientific reasoning evidence and authority visual reasoning and obstacles to critical thinking. The text integrates many pedagogical features including hundreds of diverse exercises examples and illustrations; text boxes that apply critical thinking to student experience; step-by-step guidelines for evaluating claims arguments and explanations; a glossary of important terms; and many reminders summaries and review notes. SUPPORT PACKAGE: The text is supplemented by an Instructors Manual and Test Bank in print and an Instructors Manual with Computerized Test Bank on CD. The Computerized Test Bank is a completely customizable bank of questions to aid in the creation of exams and quizzes. Both versions of the Instructors Manual feature notes on using the text effectively sample syllabi links to websites of interest lectures in PowerPoint format chapter summaries and answers to the exercises in the text. A Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/criticalthinking includes all of the information found in the Instructors Manual. It also offers a student study guide featuring a summary of the main points of each chapter study questions short review quizzes flashcards web links and additional chapter exercises. Course Cartridges for a variety of e-learning environments allow instructors to create their own course websites with the interactive material from the instructor and student companion websites.