Rating: 
Summary: The Exclusion of Art From Thinking: A Guide to Critical BS
Review: As a Freshman in college enrolled in a critical reading and writing course, this book was one of my assigned readings. I found the book insulting to my intelligence, and totally unhelpful. The author tries to teach the reader how to use logic and facts and to throw out all emotions, to become a creative thinker. In my experience, emotions are the essence of creative thought, and excluding feelings from a person's work is detrimental to the final product.
Rating: 
Summary: Art of Thinking
Review: I am much taken with the approach to thinking as an activity with its own structure, a structure which once articulated can be effectively mapped onto its expressions in writing and speech. One of the things that concerns me very deeply about students, and it's perhaps just a cultural moment (but a long one, with no end in sight) is a presumption of determinism concerning their own ways of thinking. It's visible in the grammatical structures they use to describe current practices: "I'm not much of a reader;" "I need to be entertained to find a book worthwhile" -- they even extend it to the legibility of their handwriting. Ruggiero's assumption that one can modify the nature of one's thinking by a process of examination, insight and will, is bound to be liberating. In fact, it's a time honored principle of western intellectual and spiritual traditions, but not well suited to social constructivist models of cognition and composition in their cruder forms. The advice to "be creative" would be spectacularly useless without the quite accessible, though not at all reductive, inquiry into certain definable features of thought-processes which result in things we generally regard as pretty good creative thinking. The approach of the book overall has both conservative and innovative aspects, and as a totality it gains my respect. It assumes a reasonable tone of authority, and validates the claim by proceeding intelligibly through a jargon-free but theoretically sound account of the various processes we designate by "thinking," and distinguishing purposeful thinking from other kinds of mental activity. With the exception of a few unfortunate tics that have a certain unpleasant, 19th century tang to them ("bad habits" is not a phrase consistent with the overall tone of Ruggiero's book), the text communicates high expectations, and makes the attainment of them attractive to students.On the whole, the exercises provide a pedagogically useful range for leading students through issues in which their own interests are directly and obviously involved, through analogy and homology to issues of wider cultural import, where the need for their own policy input may seem less urgent, and their own interests less directly involved. A sort of school for citizenship, if it works, and that is certainly among the explicit objectives of my own writing pedagogy. It's a good book for students who need to become comfortable with the idea of themselves as intellectuals, and who are overcoming the sociology of high school, which tends to assign intellectual ambitions to authority and its lackeys, and to have a fairly muddy- headed notion that purposeless consumption is a kind of political expression. I think the book will work best with bright students who have been underchallenged in the past. The ethos of the book is competent, analytical (but not cold or sterile), not given to a lot of self-discourse. There are hints here and there that the author feels that the language of affect has come to overshadow patterns of reasoning in recent rhetorical history. The order of presentation is not inevitable -- nor does it claim to be -- but rational, and adaptable to a number of pedagogical purposes. It's not meant to be all things for all courses, and some instructors may find that they need compositional matters more explicitly and consistently frontloaded -- but then, they'll want a full-scale reader with a handbook of grammar and usage as well. Since this is the 6th edition, there must be a great many teaches who find this book useful, but I suppose I'm (pleasantly) surprised that a text this challenging finds a consistent niche.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Critical Thinking Book Ever Written
Review: I first read this marvelous book while doing the research for my book "Why Didn't I Think of That? - Think the Unthinkable and Achieve Creative Greatness." Anyone serious about improving their thinking capacities simply must read Ruggiero's book. Used as the primary text in many college level critical and creative thinking courses, "The Art of Thinking" covers both basic and advanced concepts using well designed examples and artfully crafted exercises helping readers to learn both easily and completely. At signing events, and after speaking engagements, when readers of my book ask me to recommend other related works, I always place Ruggiero's book at the top of the list.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Critical Thinking Primer Ever Written
Review: I first read this marvelous book while doing the research for my book "Why Didn't I Think of That? - Think the Unthinkable and Achieve Creative Greatness." Anyone serious about improving their thinking capacities simply must read Ruggiero's book. Used as the primary text in many college level critical and creative thinking courses, "The Art of Thinking" covers both basic and advanced concepts using well designed examples and artfully crafted exercises helping readers to learn both easily and completely. At signing events, and after speaking engagements, when readers of my book ask me to recommend other related works, I always place Ruggiero's book at the top of the list.
Rating:
Summary: Useful textbook; Popular with students
Review: I have been using Mr. Ruggiero's text, The Art of Thinking, in college writing classes for several years. It has been very useful in introducing ideas about thinking and organization to my students. I use the text and provide several exercises based on readings and real life situations. Many students have told me at the end of the semester that this book is a "keeper." In other words they were not going to sell the book back to the bookstore, but instead were going to keep it for further use in their lives. They particularly liked the section on the creative process as an organizational process, and the section on habits that hinder thinking. They said they found these sections helpful both in their college tasks and in their own personal lives. I plan to continue using this fine book.
Rating:
Summary: Useful textbook; Popular with students
Review: I have been using Mr. Ruggiero's text, The Art of Thinking, in college writing classes for several years. It has been very useful in introducing ideas about thinking and organization to my students. I use the text and provide several exercises based on readings and real life situations. Many students have told me at the end of the semester that this book is a "keeper." In other words they were not going to sell the book back to the bookstore, but instead were going to keep it for further use in their lives. They particularly liked the section on the creative process as an organizational process, and the section on habits that hinder thinking. They said they found these sections helpful both in their college tasks and in their own personal lives. I plan to continue using this fine book.
Rating:
Summary: Truly an outstanding introduction....not for the experienced
Review: I've used this book for 5 years with technical students who are studying business. Their basic academic skills are weak for some, and this book open their eyes to see things from a new perspective. Many have said they wish they had the book in their first year, rather than in their second, when I teach a course on creativity. Most interesting, however, are those with some experience in thinking critically. They appreciate the text for what it is, and find it illuminating, too.
Rating:
Summary: The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Though
Review: Ruggiero's text is about thinking and writing. For me as a composition instructor in community college, its three major strengths are its promotion of critical reading, its promotion of reflection, and its emphasis on learning by doing. It makes me think of a saying I copied down so long ago I've forgotten its origin: "Better writers make better thinkers." Actually, I think this text is more about "better thinkers make better writers." The book is conversational, respectful, helpful, and kind. I like the scenarios presented as examples of thinking principles at the beginning of each chapter. In addition to providing concrete examples of the principles presented in the chapter, they illustrate the principle "Show, don't tell," providing a useful model of effective writing for the students. The sample problems and issues elsewhere in the text are realistic, believable and engaging. They encourage students to think for themselves. The book attempts to move readers from passive thinking to reflective critical thinking. Its neutral, distant but kindly voice works well to invite students into a world of academic discourse without intimidating them.
Rating:
Summary: The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Though
Review: Ruggiero's text is about thinking and writing. For me as a composition instructor in community college, its three major strengths are its promotion of critical reading, its promotion of reflection, and its emphasis on learning by doing. It makes me think of a saying I copied down so long ago I've forgotten its origin: "Better writers make better thinkers." Actually, I think this text is more about "better thinkers make better writers." The book is conversational, respectful, helpful, and kind. I like the scenarios presented as examples of thinking principles at the beginning of each chapter. In addition to providing concrete examples of the principles presented in the chapter, they illustrate the principle "Show, don't tell," providing a useful model of effective writing for the students. The sample problems and issues elsewhere in the text are realistic, believable and engaging. They encourage students to think for themselves. The book attempts to move readers from passive thinking to reflective critical thinking. Its neutral, distant but kindly voice works well to invite students into a world of academic discourse without intimidating them.
Rating:
Summary: Introduction to Critical Thinking & Creative Problem Solving
Review: Thinking is a very big topic. I have used this book for 10 years in a course that introduces freshmen and sophomores to use their minds to think. The book is easy to read and does not demand a lot of study time from readers. Consequently, students have more time to think about the problems at the end of each chapter. My students rate the book highly for the purpose of serving as an introduction.
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