The Little Blue Reasoning Book - Brandon Royal [0]
LITTLE BLUE
REASONING BOOK
50 Powerful Principles
for Clear and Effective
Thinking
Brandon Royal
Published by Maven Publishing
© 2010 by Brandon Royal
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical — including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system — without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
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Published by:
Maven Publishing
4520 Manilla Road
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2G 4B7
www.mavenpublishing.com
Correspondence Address in Asia:
GPO Box 440
Central, Hong Kong
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:
Royal, Brandon
The little blue reasoning book : 50 powerful principles of clear and effective thinking / by Brandon Royal.
ISBN 978-1-897393-62-8 (eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009909356 (paperback)
In addition to this eBook edition, this book is available in paperback and in the Adobe PDF file format.
Technical Credits:
Cover Design: George Foster, Fairfield, Iowa, USA
Editing: Jonathan K. Cohen, Irvine, California, USA
Illustrations: Ashley Vercekaites, Calgary, Canada
This book’s cover text was set in Minion. The interior text of the paperback edition was set in Scala and Scala Sans.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Quiz
Chapter 1: Perception & Mindset
Selective Perception
The Magic of Coincidence
The Four Classic Mindsets
Chapter 2: Creative Thinking
Overview
Lateral Thinking
Divergent vs. Convergent Thinking
Mind Maps
Devil’s Advocate Technique
Idea Killers and Idea Growers
Brainstorming
Reframing Problems
Selling Creative Ideas
Chapter 3: Decision Making
Overview
Pros-and-Cons Analysis
Matrixes
Decision-Event Trees
Probability Trees
Weighted Ranking
Utility Analysis
Sunk Costs
Hypothesis Testing
Prisoner’s Dilemma
Chapter 4: Analyzing Arguments
Overview
The ABCs of Argument Structure
Evaluating Arguments
The Five Common Reasoning Flaws
Testing Critical Reasoning
Putting It All Together
Chapter 5: Mastering Logic
Overview
“If … Then” Statements
“No-Some-Most-All” Statements
Mutual Inclusivity and Exclusively
Statements of Logical Equivalency
Testing Logic-based Reasoning
Appendix I – Summary of Reasoning Tips 1 to 50
Appendix II – Fallacious Reasoning
Appendix III – Avoiding Improper Inferences
Appendix IV – Analogies
Appendix V – The Ten Classic Trade-offs
Appendix VI – Critical Reading and Comprehension
Appendix VII – Tips for Taking Reading Tests
Answers and Explanations
Quiz – Answers
Selected Bibliography
About the Author
Preface
Henry Humidor purchased a box of very rare, very expensive cigars and insured them, among other things, against fire. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of cigars, he filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, Henry stated the cigars were lost “in a series of small fires.” The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason: he had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion.
Henry sued and won!
In delivering the ruling, the judge agreed that the claim was frivolous. He stated that the man nevertheless held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure against fire, without adequately defining what is considered to be an “unacceptable fire,” and was obligated to pay the claim.
Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeals process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid Henry $15,000 for the rare cigars he lost in the “fires.”
But …
After Henry cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on twenty-four counts