Best rhetoric books according to redditors
We found 192 Reddit comments discussing the best rhetoric books. We ranked the 100 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 192 Reddit comments discussing the best rhetoric books. We ranked the 100 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Rhetoric professor here.
Aristotle said 2300 years ago that ethos (which includes how we define us versus them) tends to trump logos.
For a more recent view of how this works, see Patricia Roberts Miller's Demagogeury and Democracy, written for a non-academic audience.
> I am a borderline exmuslim who is doubting.
Op be safe. What is the penalty for leaving Islam (Apostasy)? [Hint - it is not a firm handshake and a goodbye wishing you health and long life].
> Would you believe in Islam if there were no scientific errors in the Quran?
> In Islam there are no scientific errors and all have basically been worked around as misinterpretations.
First, no I still would not believe that Islam represented credible and supportable trueness concerning the existence of the God YHWH/Allah, nor the claims of Allah's interventions/revelations.
Why?
For the same reason you (and I) [probably] do not accept the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and His Noodly Appendages just because "The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" is shown to be scientifically accurate; or of the Most Holy of Holy's, The Scared Narratives of Harry Potter, are shown to be completely accurate in the science presented.
Secondly, there are scientific errors within the Qur'an, and even though these errors have been apologized to death, a critical assessment of these apologetics... in accordance with the claimed revelation from Allah in The Heavenly Qur'an:
"Produce your proof, if you should be truthful" (Surat Al-Baqarah 2:111) to me; just as Islam requires that the claims of Judaism and Christianity have to be proved, then the same reasoning requires that the claims of Islam must be proved as well. After all, "Indeed, the worst of living creatures in the sight of Allah are the deaf and dumb who do not use reason" (Surat Al-'Anfāl 8:22).
shows that the errors are actually errors and/or non-credible post-hoc reinterpretation of vague and non-precise ayat/ayah. To wit, an example and commentary:
Now here is an actual example of that would be considered scientific
foreknowledge in the Qur'an, if supportable - a candidate for an actual prophetic
miracle.
Al-Mu'minun 23:14 Then We made the sperm-drop into a clinging clot, and
We made the clot into a lump [of flesh], and We made [from] the lump,
bones, and We covered the bones with flesh; then We developed him into
another creation. So blessed is Allah, the best of creators.
So the bones came before the covering flash. Interesting. And not
supported by contemporary medical knowledge.
Without going into the scientific miracle of where the sperm are
produced (i.e., The Qur'an states sperm is made/stored in the small of
the back near the kidneys - and not the testicles), as I do not care to
argue the mental gymnastics required to apologize this "Truth" of the
Qur'an, the embryonic development of the bone first followed by flesh is
completely falsified. Again, in order to spare myself the crapfest of
apologetics to justify this "Prophecy" I will ask the question - Did
this information concerning embryonic growth already exist prior to the
claimed revelation via the Book of the Mother, via the messenger Angel
Gabriel (Jibra'il), via some form of supernatural to natural
communication to the Prophet Muhammad, via spoken voice to various
followers of the Prophet, from various followers spoken to scribes
years/decades after the death of Muhammad?
Why look at that, Aristotle, in the 4th century BCE described embryonic
development (Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium, Book II,
739b20-739b30, as per Jonathan Barnes \(ed.\), The Complete Works of
Aristotle, \(Princeton, 1985\), Vol 1, p.
1148.),
and his treatise also contains the same erroneous idea that the embryo
developed from a formless mass.
Damn, when the Prophet plagiarizes already "known" information, he still
got it wrong by plagiarizing that which was incorrect.
The post-hoc interpretation of Qur'anic ayat/verses using highly
selective imaginative interpretations of the meaning of the various
words to claim support for a scientific miracle represents highly flawed
apologetics.
It is interesting that the claim of miracle of the prophecies of
"scientific miracles" or "scientific foreknowledge" in the Qur'an are
all post hoc interpretations to their discovery by mere mortal humans.
It would be more convincing if the scientific knowledge was identifiable
as usable knowledge prior to human knowledge based development or
confirmation of this knowledge - rather than a post hoc interpretation
of a verse/narrative such that this knowledge is only, somehow, found
after it already becomes known.
Look at these claimed Qur'an miracles and the date that there were
recognized and the claims made - the overwhelming majority were made
after science laid the foundation for interpretation. Rephrased - All of
the claims of scientific miracles are made in hindsight (post hoc) -
all are made following the advancement of knowledge from other sources
and the verbiage within the Qur'an is then interpreted to show that this
knowledge was, somehow, there all along. As a source of scientific
knowledge, then, at best, the Qur'an has little worth.
If you wish to demonstrate that there is value in the scientific
knowledge claimed to be within the Qur'an, please present a scientific
postulation/hypothesis/theory derived from a verse, or from verses, from
the Qur'an that was developed prior to the development of this
knowledge from other sources. Or make prediction(s) of future scientific
knowledge based upon the Qur'an and develop a method of inquiry based
on this claimed scientific knowledge and gathering observable and
measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning and
experimentation and show that this predicted scientific knowledge to be
true to a high level of reliability and confidence. I am willing to wait
a lifetime for a beforehand/foresight version of scientific knowledge
from the Qur'an to be demonstrated in any meaningful way. Otherwise,
post hoc interpretations holds no credibility of the Qur'an as a source
of scientific claims/foreknowledge.
Finally, let us not overlook the numerous scientific errors, with or
without claims of prophecy/scientific foreknowledge, that are present in
the Qur'an:
1
Astronomy
1.1 Geocentricism
1.2 Setting and Rising Place of the Sun
1.3 Stars are Missiles Shot at Devils
1.4 Moon is Further from the Earth than the Stars
1.5 Moon Emits Light
1.6 Moon was Split in Two
1.7 Seven Planets in the Universe
1.8 Seven Heavens
1.9 Earth Created in Six Days
1.10 Earth Created before Stars
1.11 Sun is a Flat Disk
1.12 Sky is a Tent/Dome
1.13 Sky Guards the Earth
1.14 Sky is Made of Solid Material
1.15 Sky can Fall Down on People
1.16 Ignorance of the North and South Poles
2 Biology
2.1 Evolution
2.1.1 Human Creation from Clay
2.1.2 First Humans: Adam and Eve
2.1.3 Humans Created in Paradise and then Brought to Earth
2.2 Embryology
2.2.1 Sperm Originates Between the Backbone and Ribs
2.2.2 Embryo is Formed from Male and Female Fluids
2.2.3 No Mention of Female Ovum
2.2.4 Humans Created from a Clot of Blood
2.2.5 Only Allah Knows the Gender of a Fetus
2.3 All Organisms are Created in Pairs
2.4 Womb has Three Layers
2.5 Bones are Formed before Flesh
2.6 Source and Purity of Milk
3 Geology and Meteorology
3.1 The Earth is Flat
3.1.1 Facing Toward Mecca
3.1.2 Earth is Spread Out and Flat
3.1.3 Earth is Like a Couch
3.1.4 Earth is Like a Carpet
3.1.5 Earth is a Wide Plain
3.1.6 Earth is Level
3.2 Earth has Seven Atmospheric Layers
3.3 The Earth does not Rotate
3.4 Permanent Barrier between Fresh and Salt Water
3.5 Mountains Prevent Earthquakes
3.6 Mountains Cast into the Earth
3.7 Chest Contracts with Altitude
3.8 Earthquakes are a Punishment from God
3.9 Hurricanes and Blizzards are a Punishment from God
3.10 Rainwater is Pure
3.11 No Evaporation in Water Cycle
3.12 Hail Comes from Mountains in the Sky
3.13 Thunder is an Angel
4 Zoology
4.1 Bees Eat Fruit
4.2 Ants Recognize Humans and Speak with Each Other
4.3 Horses Created as Transportation
4.4 Bird Flight is a Miracle
4.5 Classification of Creatures
4.6 Only Eight Types of Cattle
4.7 Birth Defects and Imperfections
4.8 Poisonous Sea Life is Edible
4.9 Birds Fight Elephants
4.10 Sinful Animals
5 History
5.1 Wall of Iron between Two Mountains
5.2 Christians Worship Mary as Part of the Trinity
5.3 Noah's Ark holds Every Species
5.4 Pharaoh or Pharaohs
5.5 Jews call Ezra the Son of God
5.6 Supernatural Destruction of Cities
5.7 Humans can Sleep for Three Hundred Years
5.8 Humans can Live for a Thousand Years
5.9 Non-Existent Mosque in Jerusalem
6 Sociology
6.1 Fasting and Prayer Requirements at the Poles
6.2 People are Protected in Mecca
6.3 Non-Muslims are Deaf, Dumb, and Blind
6.4 All Animals Live in Communities
6.5 Requirement to Learn in Arabic
7 Myths and Legendary Tales
7.1 Humans Transformed into Apes
7.2 Tribe Trapped Behind a Wall
7.3 Supernatural Food
7.4 A Stick Transforms into a Serpent
7.5 Solomon's Army of Genies and Birds
7.6 Jonah Performs Repentance inside a Fish
7.7 Muhammad Flies on a Winged Horse to Heaven
7.8 Body Parts Speak
7.9 The Ocean Split in Half
7.10 Solomon can Control the Wind
7.11 A Dead Man Testified against his Killer
7.12 Animals Speak to Humans
7.13 Mountains and Birds can Sing Songs
8 Others
8.1 Mathematical Error in Hereditary Laws
8.2 People use the Forehead to Lie
8.3 Space Flight is Impossible
There's a distinct culture that we try to cultivate here. It looks like you haven't participated in it much. Hang around and get a sense of the place.
Install RES to help you keep track of people. There are all kinds of people. You'll learn who you like to talk with and who you don't. RES puts you on the path because you can take notes.
Read for a while and get a sense of who is who; take some time to learn your audience before you post. I hold back saying some things because I know they will trigger a portion of this sub, or any sub for that matter.
Short book recommendation:
https://www.amazon.com/Demagoguery-Democracy-Patricia-Roberts-Miller/dp/1615194088
Culturally, I think westerners are more conflict prone than might be healthy. I've come to expect that encampments of people who are culturally western have a hard time getting along with people they disagree with. I don't think it's just a trading thing. There's a real cultural shift.
> I'm terrible at keeping abreast of current events around the world
The Middle East is a shit-show, a thousand different fragmented religious groups that all hate each other. Putin is taking over the frozen North. Europe is an interesting mix of quite well-off, stable countries and countries that are collapsing like the economic version of a flan in a cupboard. South America and Africa - third world, dont go there.*
> I know nothing about politics in my own country
As an American: Rob Ford, and you still have a Queen.
> or any country for that matter
Pick a country, then google it.
> my vocabulary and knowledge/use of grammar is subpar,
http://thesaurus.com/
http://dictionary.reference.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Brown-Handbook-12th-Edition/dp/0205213073
> I don't know how to change a tire,
> it doesn't occur to me to notify the government when my mailing address changes
http://www.wikihow.com/Change-Address-when-Moving
> I sometimes need to check recipes for stuff like making rice (seriously),
Measure twice, cut once. Theres no shame in needing to check, and theres no need to waste brain space on things that can easily be checked.
> and I don't know what the letters in a lot of important acronyms stand for (NASA, ATM, NATO, etc.)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Automated Teller Machine
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
> HoW dO I bEcoMe LesS StOopiD?
Pretty much everything you listed can be solved by spending 5 minutes on google. Except the political stuff - people spend their entire lives studying politics and I bet most of them are still largely ignorant.
*(Note: This is meant to be a comedic, very significantly oversimplification of complex and intricate international issues.)
[An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments] (http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Bad-Arguments/dp/1615192255/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462815567&sr=8-1&keywords=illustrated+fallacies)
I got asked to teach Sunday school in early December when the lady running it was on vacation...... I couldn't help myself and did a lesson on logic. Used this book http://www.amazon.com/An-Illustrated-Book-Bad-Arguments/dp/1615192255. Had 8 13 year olds going home talking about logical fallacies.... I was removed from the class before the next service.... Grin.
It was [The Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments] (https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Bad-Arguments/dp/1615192255/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1520019165&sr=8-2&keywords=illustrated+logical+fallacies). It doesn't cover every fallacy out there, but it's a great beginning. Good for teenagers and college kids, too.
I started with this illustrated book of bad arguments from Amazon. http://amzn.com/1615192255
I just let them read it and give them real life examples on the way to school. My wife rolled her eyes hard and laughed the first time our son told me my goofy comment was a poorly formed argument and illogical. Kids are smart as hell, they just need to be cut loose. I also used a book called raising freethinkers for ideas.
I don't think there are many "one-line slams" that wouldn't draw attention. Focus on teaching your kids critical thinking, and be a kind, loving parent. IDK the situation with your spouse, but if you can, be honest (and respectful) when your kids ask what you believe. Show them that you and spouse can have different beliefs and still love each other.
Depending on their ages, the [Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments] (https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Bad-Arguments/dp/1615192255/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541178668&sr=8-1&keywords=illustrated+book+of+bad+arguments) could be a fun way to help them recognize logical fallacies. It's not directly about the church, but that helps keep your efforts under-the-radar, and the concepts can help them in many areas of life.
Perhaps in some it is ignorance or hatred, but for many it is simply the most basic of human psychological reactions to such atrocity: denial. This is backed up with tons of logical fallacies.
I think if we approach Holocaust deniers - or other conspiratorially minded folks with compassion to help them cope with the magnitude of their internal fears, and continually redirect their impulse to utilize flawed logic, it may be a path to improving the current state of affairs.
Formal training in logic really ought to be mandatory. This is a good place to start. Kahane's book is great resource to help educate the ignorant.
First, you will have to convince me to release my secrets.
Okay I am kidding. But a while back I wanted to get really good at winning arguments. I bought books and learned the logical fallacies. When I tried to go into debates and the person I was debating would say "I believe god because no one has proved he doesn't exist" nobody was impressed when I would respond by saying "Oh that's the negative proof fallacy" Nobody cared if it was fallacy or not, the argument satisfied their need to believe in god. Study and application of formal fallacies work better in academic situations.
This taught me one important thing. People will not give up a position until they are emotionally ready to. No amount of logic in the world can overcome an emotionally committed believer. Ask anyone who converted from theism to atheism and I bet you the first traces of their atheism came with some sort of emotional realization or question ("Why does god allow suffering to exist?"). This means if you want to convince someone, you need to have what I might call "emotional foreplay" which does not need to be strictly logical, but opens the other persons mind to your position.
Once you have the person warmed up, you can start to present logic arguments. People love to be "logically correct", it makes them feel smart. Emotional readiness makes them feel righteous, logical correctness makes them feel intelligent. But remember that during your logical presentation you should still have an eye on their emotional readiness to accept your argument. Sometimes people go back to being emotionally not ready.
Also you have to know when to give up. Sometimes there are true believers who you could never convince in any worthwhile amount of time. It is useless to try and convince in private, but public debate can be good if you have an audience. With true believers, the goal is not to convince them (you wont, and if you try you will just be frustrated) it is to publicly shame them, and by extension shame what they represent. Don't make it too blatant, or the observer will see what you are doing and chose the other person out of pity. Pretend to come off as someone willing to compromise, someone reasonable. If you can walk the fine line between "too far" and "not enough" you will get to a point where the crowd sees you making perfect arguments, but your opponent will be unconvinced and become extremely frustrated, making them lash out. At that point, you win. Be careful when you do public shaming because it makes bitter enemies.
Also be aware of context. If you use shaming privately, you are doing it wrong. The right type of debate tactic for the right situation is needed.
EDIT: If you still want to learn about logical fallacies, I recommend this book for everyday arguments.
English Grammar for Students of Latin
Warriner's English Grammar and Composition, complete course. Stephen King recommends this in his On Writing. This is the one I have been self-teaching from. It has served me well.
Rhetoric is an entire genre of literature on the subject. I'm not up on the best contemporary introductions to rhetoric, which I'm sure there are many of good quality, but both literally and figuratively, Aristotle wrote the book on it.
I would say a single book addressing the topics you are integrating would be difficult to find but either multiple books or a collection of essays and book chapters would be a good approach.
I don't know that any one of these texts would be necessary for students to purchase but a smattering of readings from them may be worth pulling into the course. Additionally, essays from significant scholars or journals (similar to what Miller's book has) that are reasonably up-to-date would probably go further than any textbook can. Although for understanding the Greek tradition or classical rhetoric, some of the tried-and-true texts such as Crowley and Hawhee's are a good place to turn.
edit: added links to make it easier for me to find these things when I return to this post.
I asked the AP language and Rhetoric teacher across the hall, this is what he suggested.
Couple of books:
Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric; Kahane and Cavendar
Everyday Use; Roskelly and Joliffe
Actually, those two are the best, really, as far as short primers go.
A nice supplemental website is BYU’s rhetoric page, Sylva Rhetoricae.
Also, for some good examples, even though it doesn't have a lot in the way of definitions, you can use American Rhetoric
Edit: Sorry, just noticed the double post :(
The Rhetorical Tradition
Standard Intro Textbook for my Master's Program in Rhet/Comp
Well, the gold standard is the 2 volume Oxford translation:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works-Aristotle-Vol-1/dp/069101650X
But the logical works are in a separate volume from the ethics and metaphysics.
Hackett is generally good too - this volume seems to have exactly what you're looking for:
http://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Introductory-Readings-Hackett-Classics/dp/0872203395/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418606074&sr=1-1&keywords=hackett+aristotle
EDIT: Based on the Amazon reviews, these might be better alternatives to the Hackett edition:
http://www.amazon.com/Aristotle-Selections/dp/0915145677/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_i
http://www.amazon.com/New-Aristotle-Reader-J-Ackrill/dp/0691020434/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418606837&sr=1-2&keywords=ackrill+aristotle
Here you are!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1615192255/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526416437&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=an+illustrated+book+of+bad+arguments&dpPl=1&dpID=61-3bJwurUL&ref=plSrch
Hmmm... depends on exactly what you are looking for... (you may also want to pose this question in /r/writing).
Start with these if you're looking for fiction writing help: The 10% Solution by Ken Rand
The Elements of Fiction series (I personally liked Nancy Kress's: Beginnings, middles & ends.
Immediate Fiction I haven't read it yet, but it looks pretty good.
There are a hundreds of other books out there, and a couple that focus more specifically on style, but Elements covers the majority of the subject fairly well. This one might be a little closer to what you're wanting.
Hope this helped.
If you're looking to get them into general critical thinking (which would help in the long run surely), I've always held that having this book lying around can get some juice flowing.
An excellent first introduction to Aristotle is Lear's Aristotle: The Desire to Understand. An excellent introduction that goes beyond the basics is Giovanni's A History of Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 2: Plato and Aristotle.
The standard English translations of Aristotle are in two volumes of Barnes' The Complete Works of Aristotle.
The traditional order to read the key texts would be to read the first volume of the Barnes edition in order up to and including On the Soul (skipping the spurious On the Universe), then from the second volume read Nicomachean Ethics then Metaphysics.
Alternately, you could start with what seems interesting and not too daunting. Nicomachean Ethics is a good place to start. Politics, Rhetoric, and Poetics are good choices, especially if you're interested in the subject matter. If the logic bores you, you could start with the physical and psychological works in the first volume.
How to win every argument is a short enough book that's easy to comprehend. It also explains in which cases the fallacy actually applies, and what makes it fallacious. Some of the examples are quite hilarious.
Don't know how old your kids are. Maybe try these?
Style by Joseph Williams changed how I write. I don't stick to it strictly, but I keep the rules in mind thoroughly.
Online resources.
Iron chariots wiki
Talk origins index to creationist claims
Atheist gems
As far as actual books on logic?
Demon Haunted World
How to win every argument
Books on atheism? Apart from the obvious ones by the four horsemen (Dawkins, Dennit, Harris, Hitchens).
Nuke the pope keeps a list.
Hope that helps
Excellent list. I'd add:
Willing Accomplices: How KGB Covert Influence Agents Created Political Correctness and Destroyed America, where for simplification the author generally used "KGB" for the organization that started out as the Cheka and was the NKVD for a good part of what the book covers. He's an ex-counterintelligence officer, and uses analysis techniques from that field to go from the known operative Willi Münzenberg to known or likely "Willing Accomplices" his effort recruited before he was (inevitably) liquidated by Stalin (the effort was of course restarted later, but the lethal payload had already been delivered, in the US especially after the #1 goal of diplomatic recognition of the USSR was achieved early in FDR's administration).
I'd like to emphasize that anything relevant written or edited by Samuel Francis is going to be great, but you'll likely want to read some of his freely available or cheaper works before buying his $48 magnum opus Leviathan and Its Enemies. He's the guy who came up with the critical concept of anarcho-tyranny, which in classic Wikipedia fashion has been purged from his page, but they forgot to remove the redirect of that to it. (In short, it's a new version of the ancient pattern of top and bottom classes conspiring against the middle, criminals in particular are enabled to prey on us, rules and laws are enforced against us but not them and e.g. immigrants in California, native farmer Victor Davis Hansen has a lot of first hand observations about this.)
For a laser focused analysis of the current SJW phenomena and how to deal with them, you can't beat Vox Day's SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police, the genesis of which started with an unremitting out of the blue attack a decade and a half ago by some SF SJWs for really mild and unrelated to their domain badthink. He's a fighter, so it has a lot of good advice as to how to attack and counterattack them. /u/sciencemile recommends Mill's On Liberty, and per Vox Day, Mill would be relevant if for no other reason than his "defining [a] new idea of justice in a form that is still recognizable in the demands of today's SJWs" in his Utilitarianism. (On the other hand, view anything Vox Day writes about economics with extreme skepticism, and I note he's not fundamentally honest, he's quite willing to lie for tactical reasons.)
To get a taste of it, he's written a short SJW_Attack_Survival_Guide PDF that's [currently being discussed on KiA]
(https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/6gx2tl/in_light_of_recent_events_sjw_attack_survival/).
If you want to fight and are not equally adept at rhetoric as well as dialectic and know when to use each, he highly recommend's Aristotle's On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse (that seems to be the best English translation, but I've not read it yet, for better or worse my upbringing made me good at both).
Martin van Creveld's recent Equality: The Impossible Quest ought to be very important as well, but I've not read anything by him.
If you're really brave, check out The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements, although I only sampled that before starting with the two previous books in his trilogy, in the middle of the third now.
It is unfortunate, and of course this goes for republicans too who demonize democrats in general.
Have you read Demagoguery and Democracy? It discusses this topic at length in the context of our current political environment. (Came out in 2017) I highly recommend and it’s a very fast read.
https://www.amazon.com/Demagoguery-Democracy-Patricia-Roberts-Miller/dp/1615194088/ref=nodl_
Read, read, then write a bunch. Write with a plan, but without too much regard to grammar. Then, when you revise, follow Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace... helped a bunch for me.
I'm an English teacher.
If you want to learn on your own, I promise you, following this book from front to back will give you what you want.
This used to be the "gold standard" English grammar book used in schools across the US, until companies like Pearson got into the for-profit education business.
This book goes into ALL of the grammatical rules, including subject verb agreement, number agreement, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, gerunds, when to use "whom," all of the tenses and moods of words, how to format a letter, how to properly abbreviate certain words, and so much more.
An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi, Alejandro Giraldo (Hardcover) becuase it's frickin hilarious and the art is awesome xD
"Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing."
While the emphasis is on rhetoric and writing, the book is informative and gives many definitions of the important terms of rhetoric. It does talk a good deal about argument and persuasion. I like to use scans of chapters most pertinent to the class' learning outcomes.
For future reference.
I think this book is one of the better catalogs of fallacies. It is just a big catalog. It is extensive and it is written to be accessible. Students like it.
Of course, there is no shortage of resources out there. I do think this is a valuable one.
I would recommend the book Sense of Structure I'm a Ph D in Comp Sci and we use it as our writing guidebook. I suffer from the same types of stress. The stress is rooted in a desire to succeed and perform at the highest level. Something you have already achieved! You have run successful experiments, forging a new path for your life. Continue to do so, in the grand scheme of life a few weeks is a mere moment.
Intuitively, practice is the key.
I don't know shit but here are some resources you might be interested in:
Online Berkeley Rhetoric 10 course:
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978535
Book:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Every-Argument-Abuse/dp/0826498949
The book that immediately comes to mind is How to Win Every Argument by Madsen Pirie. It's quite witty and really covers all of the fallacies well. The title is a bit cliche but that's how you sell books I guess. It's solid content
My other books are unfortunately in storage right now so I can't go to the shelf, but if I get a chance I will update this post with the titles, I need to review some of them anyway..
We're reading it in my senior seminar (ENGL 418 Argumentation). It does a fantastic job of relating current issues such as abortion, gun control, social media (Sarah Palin tweets to Barack Obama in previous elections or speeches in congress), television, etc., to core principles of ancient rhetoric such as stasis theory, etc.
It's really great, because it is generally easy to read and really helps you create your own heuristics. Another good book, but more difficult and more over the history of rhetoric is rhetorical traditions. It's not necessarily hard to read, but is very information dense. http://www.amazon.com/The-Rhetorical-Tradition-Readings-Classical/dp/0312148399
I would suggest you look up George Gopen's work, e.g. The Sense of Structure. Part of what his books cover is also available in The Science of Scientific Writing, an American Scientist article that's readily viewable online. I attended one of his workshops, and it did a lot for my writing. It also explained in clear terms things I'd innately recognized but always had trouble conveying to others when I proofread their work.
Despite the title referring to "scientific writing", the takeaways are applicable to any English writing. Namely, rather than focusing on the 'rules' of English, he focuses on how readers parse English sentences and paragraphs, and thus how writers should structure their ideas in order to convey the message they intend readers to receive.
This is a great workbook for critical thinking:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/162466427X/
>A Workbook for Arguments, Second Edition: A Complete Course in Critical Thinking
A Workbook for Arguments, Second... https://www.amazon.com/dp/162466427X?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
> There is no "correct"
I dare you to say that to an English teacher, while they're clutching their copy of "The Little Brown Handbook."
I read Language in Thought and Action a very long time ago, when I was doing my studies.
Instead of suggesting specific authors, I recommend "The Rhetorical Tradition" by Bizzell and Herzberg as a very solid overview of the themes/theories/big names in the history of Rhetoric. http://www.amazon.com/The-Rhetorical-Tradition-Readings-Classical/dp/0312148399/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331674353&sr=1-1
This book doesn't include any of Aristotle's works - it's a companion piece that contains essays about Aristotle. If you want Aristotle's works, there is a Complete Works of Aristotle in two volumes.
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works-Aristotle-Vol-1/dp/069101650X
EDIT: Google is enjoying enforcing copyright restrictions, but said reference looks like it begins here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Jzd7Uh5Zco0C&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=arcadia
http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Rhetorics-Contemporary-Students-Edition/dp/0205175481
Preemptive thanks for the gold!
Soooooooo a Front Row Motorsports driver losing his entire ride because he was racing for the win and his move happened to fuck over your Penske driver as well as himself? I've got a book for you to read.
See, the thing is, repeating what I say doesn't do anything. Learning to argue will make you a much more interesting person. I strongly suggest Thank You for Arguing and This gem of a book.
The latter requires a good deal of reading comprehension to truly gain anything from it, so good luck.
>Why the "?" ?
You said "why not?" and I'm like "why not what?"
What I would do to start is pickup this and other such books. Understanding the structure of arguments and basic logic from those books. Then I recommend signing up for 7Sage and proceeding through the course. Do all this at a moderate pace and take notes. Develop a habit of reading like The Economist or Foreign Affairs, law reviews, stuff like that. Don't take a diagnostic, that's fucking dumb.
After completing the 7Sage course, break a PT into its sections and do them one at a time untimed. Then do the same thing timed. Then slowly start taking a couple PTs, blind review them (7Sage will explain what this is). See how you feel about the various sections after ~3 PTs. If you feel particularly weak in a section, seek other sources of information from books, like PowerScore, Manhattan Prep, Blueprint. I don't recommend LSAT Trainer, I don't know why everyone else on here likes it.
Once you gain an understanding of the logic you need to employ, alternate between PTing and doing untimed sections to hone your process. I don't believe in question type drilling unless you develop a new method/process for handling one of the questions and you need to ingrain it.
Also, once you're decent at LG (like, averaging -2 or -3 per LG section), check out Manhattan Prep's LG challenge and buy Ace Logic games book. These are semi-secret weapons to really help bolster your LG skills. Ace Logic games will raise your threshold for what you consider difficult for LG, and after doing a few of its sections, the LG sections of most actual LSATs will seem fairly easy.
That's a broad overview of my advice, as someone whose average on their last ~13 PTs is ~178.
https://www.amazon.com/Fallacy-Detective-Thirty-Eight-Recognize-Reasoning/dp/097453157X/ref=nodl_
Of course, reporting to the police is good too. There is also a line for what to report. If you witness a drug deal or are offered drugs, it might be something to report. If you just see some guy who looks sketchy, that's not the best use of a police's time.
But, the problems you state is the reason it's good to get politicians involved.
When police forces aren't under the watch of political leaders, and consequently, the public, you can get degradation of their services. Complacency, thoughtlessness, filing away tips into black holes; these are all symptoms of an out-of-touch police centre with no outside stimulus. When they understand that political leaders are getting involved, it makes them more self-concious and will also weed out bad officers.
You also say that police reporting for smaller things is a resource hog, but it's not really the case. It doesn't really take much more work time to get officers to record tips. In fact, that work can be passed off to cheaper office secretaries.
The idea that small details and reports don't become useful until after the crime doesn't hold much water either, because of the steady rate in which criminals raise the stakes. Almost all the big crimes happen after a string of lesser crimes. It's also a big win to catch a criminal before he commits too many crimes, because they can be dealt with before they become pathological.
And even after the crime, more information gives the courts more to go on, so they can more accurately asses what should happen after a charge.
Also, 9/11 is a bad example. They're such different scenarios that you can't really apply one to the other confidently. When you make comparisons, look for the most similar examples you can find, like another city's statistics. Using vastly different events to shed light on municipal problems is inaccurate and can lead to wrong conclusions.
Also, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you haven't had a lot of research into critical thinking. I'd highly recommend you read a few books on it. You can rent both of these at the public library.
There's even a kickstarter on a college level book on it. I can send you a copy when it's done.
Chances are I could go through my own history and find them just as well. Honestly you're more likely to find a bunch of stupid typos like probable instead of probably unless we're evaluating things from a formal writing perspective. But as I said before, this isn't really a formal writing sort of setting. The only reason I said anything was that I find it irksome when someone attempts to point out grammatical imperfections in someone's writing but then they're flatly wrong in doing so and then proceeds to argue the most rudimentary form of sentence construction as a defense. Methinks you would be truly shocked to see what actually constitutes a grammatically correct sentence. For example one can construct a sentence using only the word buffulo. If you're going to snark back and someone you should at least be right. And if it's grammar you're after you should probably grab a copy of the Little Brown Handbook at a minimum.
EDIT: mixed up link formatting :|
At this point I have told you at least 5 times that I made no comparison, I spoke in rhetoric. And yea since you thought saying Im a "big baby man" was somehow offensive, there isn't any point in pretending to be nice. You are obviously a brain damaged troll.
You STILL fail to understand what the word rhetoric is. How dense are YOU? I have repeated myself over and over and over and over.... I just cannot fathom how people willfully choose to be ignorant like that.
This isn't an insult. You NEED to work on your reading comprehension, seriously. If someone has to repeat themselves more than two times and you still don't understand, you need help. That's on YOU not me. I can't FORCE you to understand english.
Edit: you need this https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Rhetoric-Graphic-Guide-Writing/dp/1319042139
Lol I tried to summarize modern markets and how tech giants are formed. I don't reply for you, but anyone who wants to develop their understanding of it. If it's beyond something you choose to understand, no problemo homie, it ain't for everyone. You do you.
If you want to hear my life story, you're gonna have to at least buy me dinner at a truck stop and let me draw you naked.
This is also one that might interest you.
Looking for 2 ebooks:
Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum 13th Edition
by Laurence Behrens, Leonard J. Rosen
amazon; https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Reading-Curriculum-Laurence-Behrens-ebook/dp/B00XIH469S/
Critical Thinking, Reading and Writing: A Brief Guide to Argument Ninth Edition
amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Thinking-Reading-Writing-Argument/dp/1319035450/
Logical Self Defense.There is simply no point in reading any other book with out getting your head around this first.
~~Need Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum 13th Edition - Has to be the 13th edition.
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Reading-Curriculum-Laurence-Behrens-ebook/dp/B00XIH469S/~~
[Closed]
>Not that reddit needs to be anymore hostile and argumentative. But hey, you know that saying "Some men just want to watch the world burn."?
>
>I did some magic with the google and came up with these results:
>
>-
Google Books>
>-
Amazon>
>- Free domain PDF - Thanks /u/mybalzich and /u/8bitsince86
>
>-
Super Special Google Search>
>- Review
>
>Edit: Fixed links
>
>Edit 2: You guys should check out this small and struggling independent radio station that is trying to make a difference in the evil, corrupt, and greedy mess that is the music industry by starting from the bottom up to find talent. Radio Rebel Independent Music
The Elements of Style by Strunk and White is a classic. It's useful for rote memorization of grammar rules and fundaments. Once you've got a decent grasp of those rules, pick up Williams and Bizup's Style, which is better for practical use.
Edit: Silly me — I didn't actually address your request, OP. You probably want a book on sentence diagramming. I haven't read any, but you might check out the top results on Amazon.
Read this book. I'm not kidding, it's excellent, and will prevent you from making really bad posts like this again.
This book does a great job defining and showing examples of logical fallacies. There are also lots of questions and problems you can solve at the end of the chapters. http://www.amazon.com/Logical-Self-Defense-Rhetoric-Argumentation-Debates/dp/1932716181/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1374442692&sr=8-3&keywords=informal+logic+johnson
I’ve used these before:
SO WHAT?: The Writer's Argument
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0190297409/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_0YBNBbERJH4FQ
And
Everything's an Argument with Readings with 2016 MLA Update
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1319085741/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_tZBNBbKZWFF69
“So What?” is by far the cheapest. However, students can rent Everything’s an Argument for $40.
Hope this helps.
Have you read any of the more recent books on rhetoric and debate? I am referring to books such as Thank You for Arguing and How to Win Every Argument. What do you think of such books? Do you have any texts which you would recommend?
Rhetoric- I'd pick up a copy of The Rhetorical Tradition. It's kind a textbook, in a way, but mostly it's a huge collection of primary texts from the entire history of rhetoric with some decent editorial content that helps to tie everything together. Grammar? Start with everything Chomsky has written.
This is a wonderful book on writing. Find an older edition for cheap or get it online. It goes in depth into exactly what differentiates good prose from bad. The section on grammar clarifies what a lot of other classic style books (Strunk & White) get wrong.
Also check out Sense of Style by Steven Pinker for a recent scientific approach to writing. He has a few lectures on it online if you want something more podcast-y.
https://www.amazon.com/Style-Lessons-Clarity-Grace-12th/dp/0134080416/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=joseph+williams+ten+lessons+in+clarity+and+grace&qid=1559123839&s=gateway&sprefix=Joseph+Williams+&sr=8-1
> first, they start by reframing the discussion so that A) it looks like a moderate position (public repentance of a wrong is a good thing) is the equivalent of an extreme view (racial violence is encouraged) and B) the other party in the discussion is insincere.
First, I started by pointing out your contradictory words.
>then they introduce the Gish Gallop. The Gish Gallop takes advantage of the fact that the time/effort/difficulty of spewing bullshit is lower than the refutation of said bullshit. for more information check out wikipedia.
Then, since you're not against judgement, I asked which specific judgement you're judging, which you are unable to address except by misusing the term "gish gallop".
>It is helpful to the troll to ignore the fact that multiple things can be true at the same time (in this case, that racism is bad and that acknowledging racist thoughts/actions in ourselves can help fight it).
Then you randomly suggest two unstated things could, maybe, be true, without actually saying either is true - or what you think might be true.
>This is where the "concern" part of "concern trolling" comes in. here /u/redroguetech is saying that /u/Whatsthedealwithit11 (and others who agree) are making problems worse by not dealing with the real problem and that his(?) view is both strategically, and morally, wrong.
Then, in pointing out that you're judging PC warriors judging someone somehow makes some unstated problem somehow worse (despite that two things could be true).
>More Gish Gallop.
More random misuse of a term.
>more misrepresentation. Clearly, the issue /u/whatsthedealwithit11 was disgusted by was "shaming people for admitting to becoming a better person" but out troll twisted that into "poor Neeson"
And lastly, deflection and vague denial that you had a point to begin with.
>Now, the issue is "why would someone do this?" There are 2 answers, either A) /u/redroguetech wants to sew discord into the discourse and generally spread the idea of bad-faith arguments being the norm [lots of international soft-power to be gained by doing this on a largely American and European social media website] or B) /u/redroguetech is an alt-righter trying to show the "problems" with PC-culture and earn cool-points while "owning the libs at their own game." (yes, I know I said Russian at the start, but it could be someone furthering their goals unwittingly.)
Now, the issue is "why would someone do this"? There are two answers, either A) They really are that incapable of basic rationality, and B) They're racist and hate anyone judging people for wanting to murder black people.
The best way for the troll to have a world in which dull racist people are welcome is to make arguments that consist of blah blah whaaa bu-bu-but ad hominem word making.
EDIT: for more information about how this works check out the child's book An Illustrated Guide to Bad Arguments.
NOTE (consperacy theory rant): The russian government and alt-right media has made people so accepting of irrationality and racism to the point where people actually openly support murdering black people, and literally aren't able to see why that might be a problem. This issue is so beyond the ken of right-minded people, it's clear the best we can fight for is to delay the ultimate slide into facism and rampant genocide.
Smart to wait until you moved out and become independent!
As far as a good way to explain it, check out this book. It explains it in plain language with illustrations.
Looking for this book:
Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing Second Edition
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Rhetoric-Graphic-Guide-Writing/dp/1319042139
EDIT: Got it
Am offering $4 Paypal
In the US.
I'm not american.
When my brother moved out, he gave me An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi. It’s a really interesting short book of the different kinds of logical fallacies and false argument strategies. It’s a really cool book that’s perfect for a coffee table with all of these plus more.
http://www.amazon.com/EPZ-How-Win-Every-Argument/dp/0826498949
That's all you need baby.
I'd check out Warriner's. It's a good continuing textbook style grammar book. I used the Warriner's series through middle and high school. It's a little old, but the grammar hasn't changed.
You can probably find a pdf on the internet somewhere.Haven't found it on a non-torrenting site yet. Definitely worth the investment.Amazon Link of Book I Had in Middle School
Amazon Link for the Complete Guide
Edit: More links
PDF for some overview and practice
Punctuation and Such Guide
There are always books like Creative Writing for Dummies...
"of" and "the" in those examples aren't capitalized because they're small and common.
To get more explicit about it, this convention is called "Title Case", and comes from titles of books. The convention is this: most are words capitalized, except articles (a/an/the), short prepositions (of, on), and short conjunctions (and, or, but)—except when they're the first word in the phrase.
So, "The Bible", "God the Father", "Of Mice and Men", "On the Origin of Soecies", etc.
If you've got a decent enough grasp of the language (which it seems you do), something like The Little, Brown Handbook might be a good reference (or read) for questions like this.
Classics. I just picked up this book, but I've been reading through a lot of the resources from /r/rhetoric.
Not only do I love me some classical learnin', my goal is to rhetoric to help my standup, and my standup to help my rhetoric.
This should be at your grade level. It's got pictures too!
You're confusing a strawman with a non-sequitur. Start here: http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Contemporary-Rhetoric-Reason-Everyday/dp/0495804118
Now you're beating the strawman. I never said that we should be okay with inherited or unearned wealth (in fact I explicitly argued against it, especially arena subsidies). Nor did I argue against a progressive tax regime or taxes on wealth, especially capital. What I did argue is that professional sports, especially players, create wealth by making a product that scales. One that people all over the world are willing to pay for without coercion. Unless you're arguing that we should somehow pick winners and losers and maximum profit (sort of like how the salary cap works today) then you haven't really said anything.
The onus is on to prove your point. You made an assertion (that large disparities are bad) and you've yet to back any of that up.
Why argue fairly? Unless you are in debate class, your opponent is not going to argue fairly. Learn all those debate no-nos, logical falisies, and red harrings and use them. To a trained debator you will sound like an idiot and your points will be proven invalid, but then you you also learned how to debate while learning the dirty tricks. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0826490069/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/189-7902275-7606404 this book was excellent.
True, not sure the comment above me embodies that. Whataboutism is more difficult to identify since it's often easy to fall into as kneejerk reaction to any comparison, though it is very real and happens frequently.
OPs comment was just a classic no true scotsman and that needed to be pointed out.
I strongly recommend the little book of bad arguments.
An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments https://www.amazon.com/dp/1615192255/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_e.KZBb4XGNVP2
Archives for the links in comments:
----
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https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Book-Bad-Arguments/dp/1615192255
Almost everything happens, except for this.
Check this out though, for next time. https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Writing-Dummies-Maggie-Hamand/dp/0470742917
I noticed you use the appeal to hypocrisy also known as Tu quoque. Very smart move yet stupid move, in the future I would recommend not using it. I will recommend you a book called "An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments"
This book is written in a way an elementary student will understand it, hopefully it will help you with your critical thinking skills.
Hoo Lee fuck. Dude like seriously you need to take some logic classes particle man, it's incredible I had to reread your shit like 40 times because there's enough misunderstandings, logical fallacies, and just a large of amount of dum dum in one sentence. I generally don't attack people on reddit but... wow.
Also I tried to grab an age related logic book for you https://www.amazon.com/Fallacy-Detective-Thirty-Eight-Recognize-Reasoning/dp/097453157X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473298778&sr=8-1&keywords=fallacy
Whoever upvoted you also needs a copy so grab a couple.
I'd start here and work your way from there.