Customer Reviews

Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking, Seventh Edition

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

The issue is that we don't ask the right questions to understand a piece of information and form our independent opinion consistently.

The conclusion is to form your own independent opinion by asking the following questions and evaluating the answers objectively:
1. What are the issues and the conclusion?
2. What are the reasons?
3. What words or phrases are ambiguous?
4. What are the value conflicts and assumptions?
5. Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?
6. How good is the evidence?
7. Are there rival causes?
8. Are the statistics deceptive?
9. What significant information is omitted?
10. What reasonable conclusions are possible?

It is a good book because it gives a very good framework along with a lot of examples and practice work. There is also a companion website www.prenhall.com/browne.

You need to get a copy of this from a library and practice the basic premise of the book. After that, you need to practice.

This slim volume is a textbook on "critical thinking," which seems to be the art of argumentative analysis. You read an argument, ask a series of questions, and thereby test the worth of the argument.

A chapter is devoted to each question, and there are exercises at the end for students to hone their skills. Most of the questions are common sense, but some might not be so obvious if you have your mind in neutral as you skim over an editorial or a brief.

All in all the book is an excellent exercise in deconstructing deception and ferreting out fuzzy thinking. It give little guidance, however, in how to construct a sound argument. It seems to me that recognizing poor argumentation is only half of critical thinking. sound argumentation is the other half.

Currently I am studying for the LSAT (Law School Aptitude Test) The major section on the test is logical reasoning. I have read many books from LSAT books to books on critical reasoning. This book has finally made everything clear to me. It presents topics in understandable language, with excellent questions to ask as you read or hear an argument. If you are preparing for any test such as LSAT or GMAT or just want to be able to understand arguments that you hear on TV or editorials in newspapers or political speaches, get this book.

This is the best book I've read about argumentation so far. The book doesn't waste your time describing the history of argumentation or going through ancient Greek terms as so many other books or courses on the subject do. If you want to improve your argumentation skills in a short time, this is the book to read. It also gives fresh ideas and new angles to more advanced readers. The book contains lots of practice exercises where you can test the skills you've just learned. The chapters about good evidence should be required reading for anyone involved in decision making in organizations. However, this book falls short of teaching how to captivate the audience. If that's what you need, you'd better read a good book on giving presentations first.

I believe that this book will have great impact on my research for Doctorial degree.One reason is this. In Chapter 9 "How Good is the Evidence: Personal Observation, Research Studies, Case Examples, and Analogies?", many problems with research findings are clearly explained. This makes me be wary of fallacies which might cause my research findings to become unreliable evidence, and result in poor research work.

Although this book will probably tell you that personal testimony is not very effective as an evidence since you do not know me, I still want to contribute here to say that this book is terrific. Throughout the book, the author guides you what questions to ask when you look at an argument. This book provides me with insights to how to approach arguments and opinions. More importantly, it helps me understand how to revisit my own opinions and positions and how to contruct my argument more effectively.

This book brilliantly explains how to provide structure to your thinking. I've made it mandatory reading for all employees in my strategy consulting firm.

I bought a lot of books in amazon. In the beginning, I just was a sponge, the worse way this book pointed out. After reading this, I was happy and sad. The happy one is this book exactly addresses what I need in my career including self study and work. The sad is I need to re-read all the books I've read, which may take me about 1 to 2 years.

It's the most important book I've bought until now. Thank you.