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Book details

Critical Reasoning

A Practical Introduction

by Anne Thomson

Published 2008256 pagesISBN 978-0-4154-4587-0

Anne Thomson combines practical examples drawn from newspaper articles, such as the BSE controversy and reporting on crime statistics, with exercises designed to promote the students' ability to reason well. Her approach is valuable in four important ways: practising particular skills will improve readers' ability to evaluate longer passages of reasoning; the use of lively topics of general interest does not require readers to have specialist knowledge; model answers enable readers to check their progress throughout the book in the classroom or at home; and a final exercise allows readers to form their own opinions on longer passages. This stimulating new textbook encourages students to develop a range of transferable reasoning skills for any discipline, providing an invaluable foundation that will prove useful well beyond school, undergraduate or college studies.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy, Nonfiction, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.

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What the reading experience may hold

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Themes to notice

Philosophy · Nonfiction · Fiction

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Content notes

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Reading experience

Dark tone · Measured pace

A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.

Who it may suit

A good fit if…

Readers who want a thoughtful experience and enjoy noticing the connections beneath a book’s surface story.

At a glance

This book's DNA

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ToneDark
LuminousDark

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Spoiler-Free Emotional Arc

A broad estimate of the book’s emotional rhythm, shown without story events or outcomes.

Spoiler-free
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PeakRelative emotional intensity
Critical ReasoningAnne Thomson
Powerful4.5/5

This visualization is an interpretive estimate based on catalog description, categories, tone, pace, and content signals. It does not describe specific scenes.

Before you choose

A quick reading snapshot

Edition facts and catalog signals to help you decide whether this book fits what you want to read next.

Reading lengthA standard-length read256 pages in this edition
Publication eraModernFirst published or edition dated 2008
Primary categoryPhilosophyAlso cataloged under Nonfiction and Fiction
ISBN-13
978-0-4154-4587-0
Language
English
Edition record
OL10206962M
BookenDeX editorial lens

A more thoughtful way into this book

This guide uses the edition details and category signals above to help you choose deliberately. It does not replace the author's work or a full review.

Good to know

A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.

Begin with its place in Philosophy, then notice where the book resists that label.

Try this reading approach

Read for connection, not completion.

Mark one passage that sharpens the book's central concern and one that complicates it. That tension often reveals more than a quick summary.

Three questions to carry with you

  1. What question is the author really asking beneath the book’s main argument?
  2. Which claim challenges one of your familiar assumptions?
  3. What remains unresolved—and is that uncertainty useful?

Editorial framework by Wesley Bryan, BookenDeX Founder and Editor.