Every moment of your life you have to make decisions: should you buy that car?
Who should you vote for?  What should you believe?  Which classes should you
enroll in?  To make things worse, the world is full of people who will offer reasons
for why you should do things their way or believe what they believe.  In fact, right
now I am trying to persuade you to take this course!  Now, sometimes the
reasons people offer will be good ones, and sometimes they won't.  The problem
is how to tell the difference.

In this class we will look at the nature of good reasoning and thinking.  The aim is
to give you the knowledge and confidence to recognize and avoid faulty
reasoning and to increase your capacity for critical thinking.  We will discuss,
practice, and apply so-called informal strategies for the recognition, analysis,
evaluation, and construction of arguments.  By looking critically at your own
reasoning, you will learn to avoid making stupid decisions, and once you have
reached the right decision, you will become better able to convince other people
that you are right.  Furthermore, you will be learning the standards of rationality
that apply throughout academia and business, so you will get better grades in all
of your classes as well!

Assessment for this course will be based on class participation, regular quizzes
and come combination of papers and exams.  Exact details along with text
information will be announced in the first class meeting.

So, if I have convinced you, then join the class.  If I haven't convinced you, then
you should definitely join the class to see why you should have been convinced!