Critical Thinking Essay

The Assignment
Write an essay that evaluates the success or failure of your chosen reading selection on the basis of how well it deploys specific argument strategies in its writing. The fundamental critical reading question you’re asking here of your text and then trying to answer in the form of a clear, subjective thesis formulation focused on strategy and form is this:
What are the key arguments that are being made in the piece? AND Are those arguments persuasive enough to make the piece of writing a successful argument construction?
These are the core questions you must ask and answer in this essay. Again, please use the questions on the Additional Question Sets tab on the Critical Questioning Strategies sheet in the unit (and in the Resource Center) to help you develop additional lines of inquiry to focus your thesis and analysis work – that’s why I’ve given them to you. Use whole questions or parts of several, whatever works with your source text. The idea is to find questions that are useful to you in helping to tease out patterns of argument strategy and form in your selected piece which you can then critique in a more focused manner for the essay.
The purpose of this essay is to give you some practice identifying key argument strategies and forms in a classic argument text (drawn from Chapter 25 of Practical Argument), strategies and forms that are instrumental, or not, in helping to establish the success and effectiveness of the piece. You should be drawing on the critical thinking and reading strategies as well as the key argument terminology you’ve learned from Practical Argument and the other support resources provided in the unit to help you focus your short rhetorical analysis here.
When you are finished, upload your completed essay here as a document attachment.
Starter Questions
Please use the critical reading checklist below from Practical Argument to help you begin asking more complex critical questions of the text that will yield a clear thesis position about the relative success or failure of the argument in the reading you’ve chosen based on a few key strategies you’ll isolate for us at the very start.
Questions for Critical Reading
What is the writer’s general subject?
What purpose does the writer have for presenting this argument?
What is the writer’s position?
Does the writer support ideas mainly with facts or with opinion?
What evidence does the writer present to support her or his position?
Is the evidence convincing? Is there enough evidence?
Does the writer present opposing ideas and refute them effectively?
What kind of audience does the writer seem to be addressing?
Does the writer see the audience as hostile, friendly, or neutral?
Does the writer establish himself or herself as well informed? As a fair and reasonable person?
Does the writer seem to exhibit bias? If so, how does this bias affect the argument?
Additional Considerations & Samples
Please understand what you are NOT being asked to do in this essay: the assignment is specifically not asking you to argue for or against a given position or idea in the reading you’re examining, or even take a position in any way on the ideas in the work. You’re not here to argue about the ideas – you’re here to make your own critical assessment of how well the author has composed her/his argument. You’re here to look at form and strategy, not idea. Please don’t try to refute or defend, agree or disagree with the author’s positions – that will trigger a return of your ungraded essay with a directive from me to write a different essay that mounts a clear critique of how well the arguments in the work are put together instead.
Here are a few additional question sets you might also choose to ask in your reading and then answer in your thesis work:
What kind(s) of evidence is used to support the positions the author is taking, and is it effective? Could it be more effective?
What are the main arguments in the piece? Is the reading’s thesis clear and logically laid out? Could it be more nuanced or made more complex?
Are certain kinds of appeals made (e.g. logos, ethos, pathos) and do they work well to communicate the messages of the piece to the reader? Why?
Does the author offer any alternate positions or opposing arguments to his/her own? Does the argument need that? Are opposing arguments refuted effectively?
Below are two sample argument analyses of other texts that will give you some idea of the kind of critical writing I’m looking for. Please note that these samples are shorter versions of an essay similar to the one I’ve assigned to you. You’re creating a 5 page essay, not a 3 page essay.
Paragraph Patterns
Notice the patterns in both of the samples above:
The introduction attempts to contextualize the evaluation of argument to follow by introducing the source text along with summarizing its primary focus for the reader
The thesis formulation at the end of the opening paragraph lays out a clear subjective evaluation of argument strategy and form in the source text, but not an evaluation of the ideas or positions themselves in the source text
The internal body paragraphs all follow the same pattern:
Open with a subjective argument claim that’s linked to the thesis, not a summary description of the text
Illustrate and support that subjective claim about the success or failure of the argument strategies in the work with direct textual references (that are correctly parenthetically cited) and explanation to tie the example back to the paragraph’s topic argument as well as the essay’s primary thesis
Close with a concluding statement that reiterates the main positions explored in the paragraph and transitions us to the next paragraph discussion after it
Your essay should follow these same structural patterns.
Length and Document Requirements
5 full pages (minimum) and/or 1700 words (minimum) *not including the required works cited list
12 pt double spaced text
Times font only
1″ margins on all four sides
Page numbers in the bottom right corner of each page (using the auto pagination tool in your word processing application)
Required works cited list (should be on its own page after the conclusion of the essay text and is not included in the 5 full pages and/or 1700 words minimum of essay text)
File type: DOC/DOCX only
Write in 3rd person only (she, he, it, the text, the author, etc.) and present tense throughout the essay
Cite your source text(s) with a parenthetically referenced paraphrase or direct quote at least once in every body paragraph
File Formatting
Incorrectly named files won’t receive credit, so please name them thusly:
(YOUR last name only) + (a shortened version of the assignment name), like this: SmithCritThink.docx.
Remember not to type in “doc” or “docx” manually, as your word processing application will automatically append that file type designator to your title when you save the file. Only .doc or .docx files will be accepted – please do not attach any other file types (PDF, RTF, WPS, TXT, Pages, GoogleDocs, etc.), as I will not be able to read or assign credit to them.
Works Cited List
A fully formatted works cited list is required with your final essay submission. See below for several sheets I’ve linked you to in the Resource Center module that are designed to help you construct your own correctly formatted works cited list. The full list citation for our Practical Argument text is also provided below for you to copy/paste into your own lists. Remember to fix the tabbing and spacing when you place the entry into your own list: lists should be double-spaced and all subsequent lines after the first of each new entry on the list must be tabbed in once from the left margin, not run flush left like the first line of the entry.
Note that you’ll also need to include a second full citation for the specific reading you are discussing, also from Practical Argument. The second list entry below is an example of what that second citation will look like. Note that the placement of information in the citation is somewhat different from the first entry, and it includes additional material in order to correctly cite the specific reading from the book. Please use this model to help you construct your own second citation with your self-selected reading from Practical Argument.
Works Cited
Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. Practical Argument – A Text and Anthology. Third ed. Boston &
New York, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2017.
Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Proposal.” Practical Argument – A Text and Anthology. Third ed. Ed. Laurie G.
Kirszner, Stephen R. Mandell. Boston & New York, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2017. 757-763.
The Bottom Line
Poorly proofread, incorrectly formatted, off topic, short or otherwise incomplete essays will be returned ungraded and assessed a late penalty for not being complete by the original assignment deadline. Late essays are accepted but are assessed a full letter grade reduction each new week they’re past due and are ineligible for the rewrite option after grading. See the Course Syllabus and Course Orientation sheets for additional details about my essay submission policies.

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