Falsehood and Fallacy: How to Think, Read, and Write in the Twenty-First Century

192 Pages·2021·9.261 MB·English

by  Bethany Kilcrease

FALSEHOOD AND FALLACY

FA L S E H O O D
A N D FA L L AC Y
How to Think, Read,
and Write in the
Twenty-First Century
Bethany Kilcrease
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2021
Toronto Bufalo London
utorontopress.com
Printed in Canada
ISBN 978-1-4875-8862-5 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4875-8863-2 (EPUB)
ISBN 978-1-4875-8861-8 (paper) ISBN 978-1-4875-8864-9 (PDF)
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Falsehood and fallacy : how to think, read, and write in the twenty-frst century /
Bethany Kilcrease.
Names: Kilcrease, Bethany, author.
Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifers: Canadiana (print) 20200412310 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200412388 |
ISBN 9781487588625 (cloth) | ISBN 9781487588618 (paper) | ISBN 9781487588632
(EPUB) | ISBN 9781487588649 (PDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Critical thinking. | LCSH: Reading. | LCSH: Academic writing. |
LCSH: Research – Methodology. | LCSH: Fallacies (Logic) | LCSH: Truthfulness
and falsehood. | LCSH: Information literacy. | LCSH: Electronic information
resource literacy.
Classifcation: LCC BF441 .K55 2021 | DDC 153.4/2—dc23
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sion, please notify the publisher.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the fnancial assistance to its publishing pro-
gram of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the
Government of Ontario.
an Ontario government agency
un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario
Funded by the Financé par le
Government gouvernement
of Canada du Canada
In memory of Dr. Brent Chesley and Dr. Mark Hoolihan

CONTENTS
PREFACE ......................................................................................................................... ix
1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................1
Part I: Falsehoods ................................................................................................ 9
2 YOU’RE IN COLLEGE, BUT YOU DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING .................11
3 EVALUATING STATEMENTS AND IDENTIFYING SOURCES ................... 27
4 EVALUATING SOURCES WITH THE CRAAP TEST ............................... 47
5 READING YOUR SOURCES .............................................................. 75
Part II: Fallacies .................................................................................................. 97
6 EVALUATING THE CONTENT OF SOURCES – FALLACIES OF
CAUSATION .................................................................................. 99
7 FALLACIES OF NARRATION, GENERALIZATION, AND EVIDENCE .........111
8 FALLACIES OF DIVERSION ............................................................ 123
Part III: Bringing It Together.....................................................................151
9 WRITING ABOUT ANYTHING .......................................................... 153
NOTES ............................................................................................................................165
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY .....................................................................................179
INDEX ...................................................................................................................183

PREFACE
I have now been teaching undergraduate students for over a decade.
One consistent thing that I – and I imagine pretty much all instructors –
have noticed in my classes is the need for teaching careful attention to
source evaluation, reading, and writing. The book you are now holding
in your hands began as a now defunct blog that I designed to partially
meet this need. In its short life span, my blog, entitled History Writing
Demystifed for the Undergraduate Scholar, included short posts ofering
advice on topics such as taking notes in class, writing summaries of
secondary sources, and recognizing informal logical fallacies. I’m not
sure how many students ever read my blog, but University of Toronto
Press acquisitions editor Natalie Fingerhut discovered it and asked me to
submit a book proposal based on some of its content. From there, writ-
ing fresh content commenced, and I’d like to thank several individuals
for reading (sometimes very) rough drafts of chapters. These include
Julie Bevins, writing center coordinator; Shellie Jefries, co-director of
the Grace Hauenstein Library; Nalana La Framboise, writing consul-
tant; Sarah K. Nytroe, associate professor of history; Molly Patterson,
associate professor of political science; Gretchen Rumohr, associate
professor of English; Holly Scheer, senior contributor to the Feder-
alist; and Daniel Wagner, assistant professor of philosophy. I would
also like to thank my husband, Dr. Jack Kilcrease, for reading several
chapters; my daughters, Miriam and Ruth, for not keeping Mommy
too busy to write; and the rest of my family.