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| Preface | p. x |
| Good and Bad Reasoning | p. 1 |
| Reasoning and Arguments | p. 2 |
| Exposition and Argument | p. 4 |
| Cogent Reasoning | p. 6 |
| Two Basic Kinds of Valid Argument | p. 9 |
| Some Wrong Ideas about Cogent Reasoning | p. 12 |
| Background Beliefs | p. 15 |
| Kinds of Background Beliefs | p. 15 |
| Worldviews or Philosophies | p. 16 | ... MORE
| Insufficiently Grounded Beliefs | p. 18 |
| Two Vital Kinds of Background Beliefs | p. 23 |
| Science to the Rescue | p. 24 |
| Summary of Chapter 1 | p. 27 |
| More on Deduction and Induction | p. 31 |
| Deductive Validity | p. 31 |
| Deductive Invalidity | p. 34 |
| Syllogisms | p. 35 |
| Indirect Proofs | p. 37 |
| Tautologies, Contradictions, and Contingent Statements | p. 37 |
| Inductive Validity (Correctness) and Invalidity (Incorrectness) | p. 38 |
| A Misconception about Deduction and Induction | p. 42 |
| Reasoning Cogently Versus Being Right in Fact | p. 42 |
| Summary of Chapter 2 | p. 43 |
| Fallacious Reasoning-1 | p. 47 |
| Appeal to Authority | p. 48 |
| Inconsistency | p. 52 |
| Straw Man | p. 57 |
| False Dilemma and the Either-Or Fallacy | p. 57 |
| Begging the Question | p. 59 |
| Questionable Premise-Questionable Statement | p. 61 |
| Suppressed (Overlooked) Evidence | p. 61 |
| Tokenism | p. 64 |
| Summary of Chapter 3 | p. 64 |
| Fallacious Reasoning-2 | p. 73 |
| Ad Hominem Argument | p. 73 |
| Two Wrongs Make a Right | p. 75 |
| Irrelevant Reason (Non Sequitur) | p. 79 |
| Equivocation | p. 80 |
| Appeal to Ignorance | p. 83 |
| Composition and Division | p. 84 |
| Slippery Slope | p. 84 |
| Summary of Chapter 4 | p. 85 |
| Fallacious Reasoning-3 | p. 93 |
| Hasty Conclusion | p. 93 |
| Small Sample | p. 94 |
| Unrepresentative Sample | p. 94 |
| Questionable Cause | p. 95 |
| Questionable Analogy | p. 99 |
| Questionable Statistics | p. 101 |
| Questionable Uses of Good Statistics | p. 103 |
| Polls: An Important Special Case | p. 105 |
| False Charge of Fallacy | p. 108 |
| Summary of Chapter 5 | p. 110 |
| Psychological Impediments to Cogent Reasoning: Shooting Ourselves in the Foot | p. 123 |
| Loyalty, Provincialism, and the Herd Instinct | p. 124 |
| Prejudice, Stereotypes, Scapegoats, and Partisan Mind-Sets | p. 126 |
| Superstitious Beliefs | p. 129 |
| Wishful Thinking and Self-Deception | p. 130 |
| Rationalization and Procrastination | p. 132 |
| Other Defense Mechanisms | p. 136 |
| The Benefits of Self-Deception, Wishful Thinking, and Denial | p. 138 |
| The Pull of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal | p. 140 |
| Lack of a Good Sense of Proportion | p. 143 |
| Summary of Chapter 6 | p. 145 |
| Language | p. 151 |
| Cognitive and Emotive Meanings | p. 151 |
| Emotive Meanings and Persuasive Uses of Language | p. 152 |
| Other Common Rhetorical Devices | p. 159 |
| Language Manipulators | p. 165 |
| Language Revision | p. 170 |
| Summary of Chapter 7 | p. 175 |
| Evaluating Extended Arguments | p. 181 |
| The Basic Tasks of Essay Evaluation | p. 182 |
| The Margin Note and Summary Method | p. 190 |
| Extended Evaluation of an Argument | p. 190 |
| Dealing with Value Claims | p. 195 |
| Evaluating Ironic Works | p. 201 |
| Summary of Chapter 8 | p. 204 |
| Writing Cogent (and Persuasive) Essays | p. 207 |
| The Writing Process | p. 207 |
| Preparing to Write | p. 208 |
| Writing the Essay | p. 209 |
| Supporting Reasons Effectively | p. 213 |
| Summary of Chapter 9 | p. 231 |
| Advertising: Selling the Product | p. 233 |
| Promise and Identification Advertisements | p. 234 |
| Things to Watch Out for in Advertisements | p. 236 |
| The Upside of Ads | p. 246 |
| Marketing Strategies | p. 247 |
| Political Advertising | p. 254 |
| Summary of Chapter 10 | p. 265 |
| Managing the News | p. 271 |
| The Media and the Power of Money | p. 272 |
| News-Gathering Methods Are Designed to Save Money | p. 286 |
| Misdirection and Lack of Proportion | p. 288 |
| News Reporting: Theory and Practice | p. 289 |
| Devices Used to Slant the News | p. 299 |
| Television, Film, and Electronic Information Sources | p. 305 |
| The Non-Mass Media to the Rescue | p. 310 |
| Recent Developments | p. 312 |
| Summary of Chapter 11 | p. 317 |
| Textbooks: Managing Worldviews | p. 323 |
| High School History Textbooks | p. 324 |
| Social Studies (Civics) Textbooks Minimize the Great Gulf between Theory and Practice | p. 331 |
| Textbooks and Indoctrination | p. 333 |
| Textbooks and Politics | p. 335 |
| Censorship | p. 341 |
| Textbooks Fail to Give Students Genuine Understanding | p. 350 |
| Postscript on College Texts | p. 351 |
| Summary of Chapter 12 | p. 353 |
| p. 359 | |
| More on Cause and Effect | p. 359 |
| Scientific Method | p. 360 |
| Calculating Probabilities and Fair Odds | p. 363 |
| Answers to Starred Exercise Items | p. 368 |
| Bibliography | p. 375 |
| Glossary | p. 385 |
| Indexes | p. 391 |
| Credits | p. 411 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |