Making Sense: exploring semantics and critical thinking

Description

Globe Book Company, 1974. — viii, 245 pages. — ISBN: 0-87065-263-X.Effective communication is rarely a simple two-way process. It involves a puzzling assortment of signals both within and without the individual human mind. It demands near-total awareness of all important factors in a given situation. For these reasons, Making Sense tries to break out of the familiar author-to-reader textbook pattern. The book contains sixteen sections entitled “Thinking It Through.” These sections offer a variety of activities to help you explore your own world of words, find your own facts, and reach your own conclusions. Some of these exercises are easy, others difficult. Some will take a few minutes, others days. But don’t worry—no one is expected to do them all. Your teacher may assign certain activities or give you a choice.This book differs from most other English texts in other ways as well. It will ask you not only to learn certain facts but also to learn just how you learn. It will ask you to think about how you think. It will stress knowing what it means to know. Simply “knowing” what this book says will be a waste of time. You might get 100% on all quizzes and tests, yet still be a failure.If all this is confusing . . . it is intended to be. Wait a few chapters; the making of sense often comes slowly. For now, just remember that the real subject of the book is not words at all. The real subject is you. And tell yourself that this is not really a book “to read.” Instead, it is a book “to do.”General Semantics: Mapping the TerritoryUp to Trouble: The Words Around UsThinking It Through: Verbal PollutionDown to Reality: What is Semantics? Thinking It Through: Mental MapsLevels of Knowledge: Two Key UnderstandingsFrom Electrons to Ideas: the Structural DifferentialThinking It Through: The Structure of Knowledge Chopping Up the Verbal World: ElementalismThinking It Through: Ecology, Etc. Looking Outward, Looking in: Propaganda and PersonalityThe Power of PropagandaThinking It Through: Spotting the TechniquesOurselves and Others: Programming the Blushing ComputerThinking It Through: Your Semantic CoolCritical Thinking: Some Thoughts about ThoughtAlmost Alike: Metaphor and AnalogyThinking It Through: Working with AnalogiesThinking Straight— And Even StraighterThinking It Through: Reasoning about Reason The Last Word: Semantics and a Sane FutureFinding the Significant Terms