pt.1. Writing for a purpose
pt.2. Reporting the facts: Dawn over zero (first atomic bomb exploded) / William L. Laurence
Alabama's bus boycott / Thomas R. Thrasher.
pt.3. Defining and classifying: Cybernetics / Norbert Wiener
pt.4. Explaining a complex unit: Jet muffler (The New York Times)
The gun that protects your home (Popular Science Monthly)
Ship's company / Jan De Hartog
The polar path, where every direction is south / Wolfgang Langewiesche
pt.5. Analyzing a problem: How Americans choose their heroes / Dixon Wecter
Science-fiction and the opinion of the universe / John W. Campbell, Jr.
Poetics / Aristotle
The Ten Commandments.
The fourteen points / Woodrow Wilson
pt.6. Toward sound judgment; using logic
pt.7. Toward sound judgment; the evidence: How good is an FBI report / Alan Barth
Getting at the truth / Marchette Chute
Was Stalin a Czarist spy? Three letters to Life magazine
pt.8. Defending a judgment: Fluoridation (Consumer Reports)
Fenimore Cooper's literary offenses / Mark Twain
Review of The grapes of wrath / Peter Monro Jack
Review of The horse soldiers / Earl Schenck Miers
Education by books / Mark Van Doren
The usefulness of useless knowledge / Abraham Felxner
Controlling floods / William C. Reifsnyder
Unwritten rules of American politics / John Fischer
Can we afford to keep open minds? / Bertrand Russell
The southern dilemma / Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.