Good Reasons: The Best Argument Textbook for Freshman Composition

by Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer
Allyn and Bacon, 2000, 334 pp.
ISBN: 0-205-28586-4     $26.00

Review by Ellen Strenski
University of California, Irvine		 [a picture of the cover]
Do you think of Aristotle or Habermas or Sandra Stotsky as an inspiration? Do you believe with Faigley and Selzer that "a basic course in writing arguments is foundational for an undergraduate education"? Do you agree that arguments are constructed "in different genres and different media"-- increasingly electronic, and that "People write arguments because they want something to change" (xiii)? If so, this textbook is for you. If not, or if you believe instead that your primary responsibility as a composition instructor is encouraging your students to be aspiring artisans of well- wrought urns, or getting them to develop a readerly appreciation of literature or popular culture, or offering them a therapeutic opportunity to use writing to complain about various sorts of victimization, then you probably won't like this book. If you agree with Faigley and Selzer in general, but you are a fan of Stephen Toulmin's method of analyzing arguments, you won't like Good Reasons either. The rest of us can rejoice that such a good book is now available. 

The publisher's page describes Good Reasons in considerable detail. At first glance, the book's features and table of contents look familiar--for instance, the general arrangement of chapters (types of argument, style, revision, research, documentation). Where Good Reasons differs from other comparable texts is in its reliance on the principles of classical rhetoric to account for the ways in which effective persuasion appeals to the heart (ethos, pathos) as well as to the mind (logos) and in its emphasis on the visual nature of writing. Hence its chapter on "Thinking More about Your Audience" with a crucial section on "Why People Reach Different Conclusions from the Same Evidence" and its chapters on "Effective Visual Design" and "Effective Web Design." What this review aims to do, in the rhetorical spirit of Good Reasons' own Aristotelian distinctions and applying some of its advice, is to offer some good reasons why you should consider using this book with your freshman composition students. You can also click on the review's own FAQ pages below. Among other tips about designing online information, Faigley and Selzer recommend such a rhetorical resource where writers of web arguments can anticipate and respond to readers' questions and objections.