Evaluating Arguments About Animals

Evaluating Arguments About Animals is part of Crabtree’s new series “State Your Case”. This series teaches readers how to construct an effective argument using six steps.

1. Identify your core argument, where you stand on an issue.
2. State your claims that support the core argument.
3. Give detailed reasons to support your claims.
4. Support your reasons with credible evidence.
5. Counter claims from the opposite point of view.
6. Finish with a strong restatement of your main argument.

Students are then guided to evaluate three current high-interest topics to determine whether each side of a topic has presented a strong argument considering the core arguments, claims, reasons, evidence, counterclaims, and conclusion.

Evaluating Arguments About Animals follows the standard format for nonfiction: table of contents, text and photographs, glossary, additional resources, an index, and a short biography about the author. Also included is an extensive bibliography.

The three topics that students evaluate in Evaluating Arguments About Animals are “Should Animals Be Used in Rodeo Sports?”, “Should Animals Be Kept as Pets?”, and “Should Animals Be Kept in Captivity?” Arguments for and against each topic are presented and then summarized. Students are reminded, “When it comes to any issue, you have to look at arguments on both sides before you decide where you stand”. Students are then asked to “state your own case”.

Following the format of the book, I am going to present my reasons for and against purchasing Evaluating Arguments About Animals.

For:

Information on what makes a good argument and how to critically evaluate an argument is clear and age-appropriate.

Information on the three forms of rhetoric is clear and includes an example for students to use to practice identifying the forms of rhetoric.

Photos show a diversity of people engaged in animal-related activities.

Topics for discussion are high-interest and should engage students.

A few Canadian statistics are used.

The information in the Introduction and the organization used in Evaluating Arguments About Animals are consistent with the information and organization in the other books in the “State Your Case” series, making these books well-suited to use in small groups.

Against:

Photos are sometimes blurry or poorly chosen to illustrate the text. For example, a photo of a bison and calf blocking traffic on a road poorly illustrates the caption, “Tourism can cause problems in national parks. People often get dangerously close to wild animals to try to take photographs of them.”

Research cited and examples are frequently from US sources.

The information in the Introduction and the organization used in Evaluating Arguments About Animals is so consistent with the other books in the “State Your Case” series that you may only want to purchase one book from the series.

Note: The text in the first two chapters of each book in the series is almost word for word identical, with different examples inserted to demonstrate the points made in the content. It is hard to understand how two different authors could claim to have written these books.

Conclusion:

Overall, the information about creating and critically evaluating arguments is very important and timely in this age of social media and instant ‘information’. Evaluating Arguments About Animals gives you the tools to judge what you hear and read, but the presentation has too many shortcomings to be highly recommended. Buy it only if you can’t find something better.