Book Abstracts 
Missimer, Connie (1994). Good Arguments: 
An Introduction to Critical Thinking, 3rd 
edt Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 
ISBN 0-13360322-9. 

Although simple in approach, this text ena-
bles the reader to deal with complex arguments. 
Critical thinking is defined as the comparison 
of alternative arguments, theories, or solutions 
in light of their evidence. The language of 
analysis appears throughout in boldface type; 
argument is represented visually as a house. 
The first three chapters show how to identify 
the parts of an argument. The next four chap-
ters explain the major types of evidence: sin-
gle observation, speculation, correlation, con-
trolled experiment. The final chapters deal with 
complex arguments, and problem-solving as 
critical thinking. Readings offer unusual theo-
ries across disciplines, from a historian's argu-
ment why we use forks rather than our fingers, 
to controlled experiments suggesting that smil-
ing creates a good mood. The book is a lively, 
practical guide. 

Moore, Brooke N. & Parker, Richard (1992). 
Critical Thinking, 3rd ed. Mountain View, CA: 
Mayfield. ISBN 1-55934-072-X. 

Critical Thinking, now in its third edition, 
is a textbook designed for introductory 
courses in critical thinking, practical reason-
ing, and elementary logic. The major divi-
sion in the book is between claims (five chap-
ters) and arguments (seven chapters), with 
attention given to understanding and evalu-
ation in both areas. A sample from the wide 
variety of material covered might include is-
sue-clarification, slanted language, assessing 
credibility, pseudoreasoning (including infor-
mal fallacies), categorical and truth-func-
tionallogic, inductive and causal arguments, 
and reasoning about moral, legal, and aes-
thetic matters. The book uses "real world" 
examples and includes over 1,100 exercises. 
The importance of (and guidance in) writing 
is emphasized throughout. The book is de-
signed to be flexible in both teaching method 
and content coverage. 

Waller, Bruce N. (1994). Critical Thinking: 
Consider the Verdict, 2nd edt Englewood 
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-177635-5. 

Critical Thinking: Consider the Verdict, 2nd 
ed. mines a rich lode of fascinating court cases, 
and challenges students to take the role of ju-
rors and analyze, evaluate and construct argu-
ments. Students leam to appreciate cogent ar-
guments - "What is the District Attorney's 
strongest argument for conviction?" - while 
developing the necessary skills of fallacy de-
tection. The jury room lessons are extended and 
reinforced through extensive real life exercises 
from advertising, contemporary social and p0-
litical issues, appeals court cases, science and 
pseudoscience, and bioethics. The courtroom 
setting is ideal for examining ad hominem ar-
guments, legitimate and fallacious appeal to 
authority, and the burden of proof; and the ob-
vious importance and inherent interest of crimi-
nal trials eliminates student doubts about the 
relevance of critical thinking to their lives. 

Wright, Larry (1989). Practical Reasoning. 
San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 
ISBN 0-15-571041-9. 

This text treats basic critical thinking themes 
as systematic features of the way we exploit 
our general understanding of things in our rea-
soning. It begins with the very general notion 
of argument as "reasons offered in support of a 
statement", and develops the following appa-
ratus: a) the schematic argument paraphrase, 
b) the question it implicitly addresses, c) the 
different answers we need to consider (rival 
conclusions), d) slightly technical notions of 
relevance and plausibility, and e} the distinc-
tion between two different kinds of support 
(what gets explained and what merely helps) 
when what we infer are explanations. Specific 
topics thus addressed include: cause, testimony, 
sampling, enumeration, theorizing and experi-
ment in science, prediction, good-consequence 
arguments, the induction/deduction distinction, 
some conversational fallacies, and a number 
of reasoning issues related to the practical use 
of language. 

Book abstracts as provided by authors.