Book excerpt: ‘Anthem Critical Thinking and Writing Skills: An Introductory Guide’ helps readers in the process of critical thinking and persuasive speaking and writing. The concepts of critical thinking and evaluation are presented in a clear, easy-to-understand format. Students learn how to form a proposition, identify issues, gather evidence, and process an argument. Logic games, puzzles, and real life examples ask students to evaluate how we evaluate, analyze, and decide. Then a more formal look at induction and deduction challenges students to practice higher-level thinking skills, such as the use of analogies for evaluation, and working through syllogisms to process ideas. Instruction is included on processing a formal persuasive paper. Readers can have some literary logic fun by analyzing old standards like ‘Love is a Fallacy’ and the persuasive love poem ‘The Passionate Shepherd’. Short chapters and clear practice exercises make the book easy to use as a basic or supplemental text.