Methods of Argument An Anthology of Readings

Countering the current climate of "fake news" and "alternative facts," Methods of Argument: An Anthology of Readings showcases well-reasoned and well-supported arguments. The anthology's selections model an array of critical-thinking and writing techniques, covering both simple single-point and complex multi-point arguments.

Deborah H. Holdstein is former Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences and current Professor of English and Associate Chair of the Department of English and Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago.

Danielle Aquiline is Associate Professor of English at Oakton Community College.

Race and Identity
How to Tame a Wild Tongue, an excerpt Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldua
I Don't See Color: Then You Don't See Me!, Sam Louie
Two Ways to Belong in America, Bharati Mukherjee
A Black Man Ponders His Ability to Alter Public Space, Brent Staples
"Filipineza" Doesn't Mean "Servant", Melissa R Sipin
Dinosaurs in the Hood, a poem, Danez Smith
Killing Like They Do in the Movies, Justin Reed

Technology and Media
'Tiny House Hunters' and the Shrinking American Dream, Roxane Gay
Be a Gamer, Save the World, Jane McGonigal
How Technology Hijacks People's-from a Magician and Google's Design Ethicist, Tristan Harris
The Information: How the Internet Gets Inside Us, Adam Gopnik
Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?, Stephen Marche
Pornography, Margaret Atwood

Gender Roles
The Picture for Men: Superhero or Slacker, Sameer Pandya
Chase & Sanborn coffee ad, #13
A New England Nun, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
What I've Learned from Men, Barbara Ehrenreich
An American Girl in Italy, a photograph, Ruth Orkin
The Fundamental Principle of a Republic, Anna Howard Shaw
Vindication of the Rights of Women, an excerpt, Mary Wollstonecraft
Cruel and Barbarous Treatment, Mary McCarthy

Higher Ground
Inaugural Address, January 1961, John F Kennedy
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Four Freedoms, Franklin Roosevelt
Pappas v. Guiliani
Sonia Sotomayer, Shooting an Elephant
George Orwell
The Tyranny of the Majority, Lani Guinier

Ethics
The Perils of Indifference, Elie Wiesel
People Like Us, David Brooks
The Guest, Albert Camus
Doin' Time with a New Ticker, Steve Lopez
Lifeboat Ethics, Garrett Hardin
Ethics, a poem, Linda Pastan
The Cost of Public Humiliation, Joseph Telushkin
Banned Photograph, "The University of Arizona Class of 1898-1899"
The Birthmark, Nathanial Hawthorne

Propositions
The Recliner of Turin, photograph, Jay Boersma
A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift
U.S. Government to Discontinue Long-Term, Low-Yield Investment in Nation's Youth, The Onion
Commencement Speech, Stanford, 2015, Steve Jobs
Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau
Lungs, advertisement image from WWF
Dr. Seuss political cartoon
Disinformocracy, Howard Rheingold

Contemporary Issues
The Paranoid Style of American Policing, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Baby Boomers are Taking On Ageism-and Losing, Lydia Depillis
Islam in Two Americas, Ross Douthat
The Charmer, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
The Trouble with Fries, Malcolm Gladwell
The Busy Trap, Tim Kreider
The Heroism of Incremental Care, Atul Gawande
The Shawl, Cynthia Ozick
Your Brain on Poverty, Derek Thompson