What’s in This Book?

Since the publication of my book, I have been asked by several students and teachers, “what’s in it?” “what parts of it would be helpful to my students in my critical reading (or rhetoric) class?” and the like. To answer these and similar questions, I am posting an annotated Table of Contents for the book.  In subsequent posts, I will discuss each of these chapters and sections in more detail.

Annotated Table of Contents

Preface

This book is an introduction to the tools that allow you to better analyze and understand the meaning of nonfiction texts that assert arguments.  These texts include newspaper editorials, speeches, sermons, and scholarly essays and books. 

This book will benefit anyone, of any age, who wants to better understand the meanings of nonfiction argumentative texts.  Its principal audience is students in late high school or early college writing, rhetoric, critical thinking, and critical reading courses. 

Chapter 1.  Introduction

A. Arguments and the Writings that Make Them

The discussion begins with a simple example — an eight-sentence smart-phone text.  We analyze its argumentative and non-argumentative elements.  We next analyze part of an essay on the decimation of bird populations.  The discussion of these examples introduces the concepts of practical arguments and theoretical arguments, and the difference between them.

In addition, these examples teach that the meaning of an argumentative text is to be found in not only in the statements that constitute the argument, but also in those statements in the text that are not part of the argument, and in the relations between the argumentative and non-argumentative parts.

B. Purpose and Method:  Where Are We Going and How Are We Going to Get There?

This is a general overview of the purpose of the book:  to provide practical and flexible tools to better analyze and understand the meaning of argumentative texts.  These tools include tips, concepts, and strategies by which to analyze a text.  These tools are practical and flexible, in contrast to a rules-based approach or a loose “any-reading-that feels-right” approach. 

The tools do not rely on or employ technical terms from theories of psychology, communication, or any other academic discipline.  The approach throughout is to engage the reader directly with the text, and not to interpose any academic theory (or theories) between the reader and the text. 

C. Meaning

The principal sources of meaning of an argumentative text that we will examine in this book are:  (a) the structure of the text, (b) key sentences, phrases, and words, (c) context, and (d) the logical connections between terms.  Other sources of meaning (e.g., the use of nondeclarative sentence forms such as imperatives) are also discussed to illuminate how they impart meaning to a text.

D. Hold On to This Thought

It is noteworthy that two very different Americans, from different racial, religious, and cultural backgrounds – Ralph Waldo Emerson and Malcolm X – have expressed very similar views of the benefits of reading.  If two people from such different backgrounds find reading of great value, that’s worth thinking about.

Chapter 2.  Reading Is Not a Spectator Sport

A. Watching the Game vs. Playing the Game

Reading is an activity, not a spectator sport.  Think of it as a dialogue between the reader and the author.

B. Reading As a Dialogue

The book employs a hypothetical dialogue on the death penalty to illustrate how reading an argumentative text to understand its meaning is similar to engaging in a dialogue with a friend, where the interlocutor’s questions cause the friend’s position to change or become more refined.  Reading for understanding is a matter of always asking the next question to refine one’s own understanding of the meaning of the text so as to pin down the author’s meaning as far as the text will permit. 

Chapter 3.  Why Are You Reading?

Every activity has a purpose.  We discuss three principal purposes of reading.  This book is about the first of these.

A. Reading to Understand

Understanding an argument means knowing the answers to two questions:  (1) what does the author know (what is his conclusion/thesis) and (2) how does he know it (what are his premises)?  Answering those questions typically involves analyzing the entire text and interpreting its parts.  Understanding the meaning of an argumentative text requires, in addition, knowing the meaning the author intends to communicate through those parts of the text that are not part of the argument and how those parts relate to the argument.

Because reading is an art, within a zone of reasonableness, there is no one, authoritative reading of a text, only better or worse readings.  I discuss ways a reading can be outside of the zone of reasonableness.

Use initial critical reactions to a text as a way of gaining greater understanding of the author’s meaning (“do not dictate to your author; try to become him”).  Understanding a text before reaching any final critical judgment of it is essential. 

B. Reading to Obtain Information

Reading to obtain factual information is distinguished from reading for understanding

C. Reading to Become Wise

Being wise, however that may be characterized, is the task of a lifetime.  Knowing how to analyze argumentative texts is different from reading to become wise, but it is one way to begin down that path. 

Chapter 4.   Arguments:  A Closer Look

This chapter takes a closer look at what arguments are and are not.

A. Two Myths About Arguments

Two myths are debunked in order to better clarify what can count as an argument. 

Myth 1: the conclusion of an argument must be a subjective opinion.

Myth 2: the conclusion of an argument must be a statement that can be proven true or false.

B. Deductive and Inductive Arguments

The distinction between deductive and inductive arguments is discussed through a series of examples. 

Four broad argument types are identified:  deductive-theoretical, deductive-practical; inductive-theoretical, inductive-practical.

C. Arguments:  Valid and Invalid, Strong and Weak

1. Deductive Arguments:  Valid or Invalid

This is a discussion of how deductive arguments are valid or invalid, illustrated through many examples.

2. Inductive Arguments:  Strong or Weak

This is a discussion of how inductive arguments are strong or weak, illustrated through many examples.

D. Enthymatic Arguments:  Meaning What He Did Not Write

“Enthymeme” is defined.  Sometimes we can understand what an author wrote only by assuming premises in her argument that she did not actually write.

E. Argumentative Texts and Other Nonfiction Texts

Argumentative texts are distinguished from four other types of nonfiction texts through examples.  Each of these four types are discussed through examples.

1. Expository Writing
2. Descriptive Writing
3. Explanatory Writing
4. Rhetorical Writing

Chapter 5.   Every Person Has a Skeleton, Every Argument Has a Structure

Every argumentative text has a beginning (an introduction), a middle, and an end.  This chapter discusses six types of introductions.  Many examples from the mass media and scholarly works are used to illustrate the points made in this chapter.

A. Introductions – They Come in Various Shapes and Forms

1. Here’s the Destination and the Road Map to Get There
2. The Subject Variation on the Road Map
3. Asking a Question (Stating a Problem)
4. The Anecdotal Introduction
5. Let’s Get Right to the Point
6. Just the Facts, Ma’am, Just the Facts

Chapter 6.  What Does the Skeleton Look Like?  Outlines and Summaries

The structure of a text is one source of its meaning.  Outlines are an important aid to understanding the meaning of an argumentative text because they reveal structure.  Specifically, outlines reveal the relationship of the principal premises to each other, the relation of those premises to supporting evidence, the relation of the parts of the text that constitute the argument and those that are not part of the argument, and the reasons why those non-argumentative parts may be included within the text. 

A. Outlines

This section undertakes detailed analyses of two complete argumentative texts written for mass audiences.  The discussions of these texts include:  (a) stating the thesis, (b) an outline of the text, and (c) restatements of the argument of the text, which are not the same as the outline. 

1. An Opinion Piece on Studying Latin

This is an essay from the PBS NewsHour encouraging listeners (readers) to study Latin.

2. An Opinion Piece on Voting Rights

This is an essay from Newsweek online favoring lowering the voting age to 16 years old.

B. Summaries:  The Big Picture in a Nutshell

This is a discussion of what should be included in a good summary and the point of doing a summary.

C. What’s the Point?

Further remarks on why two outlines or two summaries may differ from each other, and why that is not a problem but an opportunity.  Use those differences as a starting point for further inquiry into the meaning of an argumentative text.

Chapter 7.  Ambiguity and Nonliteral Uses of Language

Outlines and summaries are analyses of the meaning of a text from 20,000 feet.  With this chapter we turn to the analysis of particular words, phrases, and sentences to extract the meaning of a text. 

A. Two Kinds of Ambiguity

Semantic ambiguity (arising from the meanings of a word or phrase) is distinguished from syntactic ambiguity (arising from sentence structure).

  B. Three Nonliteral (i.e., non-factual) Uses of Language.  

1. Normative Statements: Values Are Not Facts

The distinction between factual and normative statements is discussed through the examination of passages of a book addressing the justness of punishment and a brief argumentative essay on surrogacy.   

2. Irony:  Saying What You Do Not Mean

Irony is common and yet sometimes not well understood or not readily recognized by readers.  Many examples illustrate irony.

3. Rhetoric

The book approaches rhetoric as the use of words to persuade the reader (or listener) to act or to have a certain belief, not through logical arguments (or not principally through these), but through appeals to emotions, feelings, or shared values (pathos), or to the character or reputation of the writer (or speaker) (ethos). 

Chapter 8.  Context Imparts Meaning

Context is an important source of the meaning of an argumentative text.  This chapter discusses how five types of context do this.  

A. Intellectual Context

Most argumentative texts are responses to arguments made by other authors on a question or subject matter.  They are part of an ongoing, multi-person dialogue, which is the intellectual context of the text you are reading.

B. Social, Political, and Cultural Context

Social, political, and cultural contexts tend to be more diffuse and more amorphous than intellectual context.  The author may be:  (a) addressing a perceived social, political, or cultural issue without expressly addressing the arguments of any other author or school of thought or (b) echoing his readers’ understanding of their social, political, or cultural environment to give deeper meaning to his arguments.

C. Physical Environment as Context

An author’s beliefs about the physical environment (e.g., the environment of generals on a battlefield) may be a source of meaning for a text.

Chapter 9.  The ABC’s of Logic

This chapter presents a minimal introduction to common fallacies and necessary and sufficient conditions.  The chapter is intended to give students some more formal tools for analyzing arguments and to point them to further tools available from other sources. 

A. Informal Logic:  Common Fallacies

Five common fallacies are discussed and illustrated through examples:  (a) equivocation, (b) begging the question, (c) non sequitur, (d) ad hominem attacks, and (e) ignorance.

B. Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

Many errors and/or ambiguity in argumentation are the result of the failure to understand these concepts.  They are discussed and illustrated through many examples.

Chapter 10.  Conclusion        

            Here I offer a few concluding remarks on what this book has covered and some thoughts for further reflection.