This remarkable, inexpensive guide packs a comprehensive look at writing (and analyzing) arguments into 200 brief, accessible pages. Best-selling authors Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer offer clear, engaging chapters covering what argument is, how to read (and view) arguments critically, how to write a variety of persuasive arguments, and how to support your arguments with good reasons and appropriate documentation. This remarkable, inexpensive guide packs a comprehensive look at writing (and analyzing) arguments into 200 brief, accessible pages. Best-selling authors Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer offer clear, engaging chapters covering what argument is, how to read (and view) arguments critically, how to write a variety of persuasive arguments, and how to support your arguments with good reasons and appropriate documentation.

In the second edition of this witty and infectious book, Madsen Pirie builds upon his guide to using - and indeed abusing - logic in order to win arguments. By including new chapters on how to win arguments in writing, in the pub, with a friend, on Facebook and in 140 characters (on Twitter), Pirie provides the complete guide to triumphing in altercations ranging from the everyday to the downright serious. He identifies with devastating examples all the most common fallacies popularly used in argument. We all like to think of ourselves as clear-headed and logical - but all readers will find in this book fallacies of which they themselves are guilty. The author shows you how to simultaneously strengthen your own thinking and identify the weaknesses in other people arguments. And, more mischievously, Pirie also shows how to be deliberately illogical - and get away with it. This book will make you maddeningly smart: your family, friends and opponents will all wish that you had never read it. Publisher's warning: In the wrong hands this book is dangerous. We recommend that you arm yourself with it whilst keeping out of the hands of others. Only buy this book as a gift if you are sure that you can trust the recipient.

“This short book makes you smarter than 99% of the population. . . . The concepts within it will increase your company’s ‘organizational intelligence.’. . . It’s more than just a must-read, it’s a ‘have-to-read-or-you’re-fired’ book.”—Geoffrey James, INC.com From the author of An Illustrated Book of Loaded Language, here’s the antidote to fuzzy thinking, with furry animals! Have you read (or stumbled into) one too many irrational online debates? Ali Almossawi certainly had, so he wrote An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments! This handy guide is here to bring the internet age a much-needed dose of old-school logic (really old-school, a la Aristotle). Here are cogent explanations of the straw man fallacy, the slippery slope argument, the ad hominem attack, and other common attempts at reasoning that actually fall short—plus a beautifully drawn menagerie of animals who (adorably) commit every logical faux pas. Rabbit thinks a strange light in the sky must be a UFO because no one can prove otherwise (the appeal to ignorance). And Lion doesn’t believe that gas emissions harm the planet because, if that were true, he wouldn’t like the result (the argument from consequences). Once you learn to recognize these abuses of reason, they start to crop up everywhere from congressional debate to YouTube comments—which makes this geek-chic book a must for anyone in the habit of holding opinions.

A noted attorney gives detailed instructions on winning arguments, emphasizing such points as learning to speak with the body, avoiding being blinding by brilliance, and recognizing the power of words as a weapon.

Featuring the smallest trim size and page count of any comparable anthology, this appealing new three-genre collection encourages students to experience the pleasures of reading literature. A Little Literature: Reading, Writing, and Argument offers a compact and economical alternative to bulky anthologies. Despite the brevity of this compilation, a judicious mix of classic and contemporary selections--from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Amy Tan and Tobias Wolff--offers ample reading choices for instructors and students. Concise, yet complete, editorial apparatus provides guidance on reading, writing, and, most particularly, developing arguments about literature. All elements come together to create an engaging and accessible anthology that students will truly enjoy.

Everything’s an Argument teaches students to analyze the arguments that surround them every day and to create their own. This best-selling text offers proven instructional content by composition luminaries Andrea Lunsford and John Ruszkiewicz, covering five core types of arguments. Revised based on feedback from its large and devoted community of users, the seventh edition offers a new chapter on multimedia argument and dozens of current arguments across perspectives and genres, from academic essays and newspaper editorials to tweets and infographics.

This collection of over 100 provocative readings, advertisements, and illustrations emphasizes real-world issues and topics for students to read and use in writing their own argumentative essays. The hotly debated issues are sure to create excitement.