Organized around common rhetorical situations that occur all around us, INVENTING ARGUMENTS shows you that argument is a living process rather than a form to be modeled. Through the text's prominent focus on invention, you will learn to recognize the rhetorical elements of any argumentative situation and apply the tools of argument effectively in your own writing. The basic layers of argument are introduced in early chapters, with material arranged into increasingly sophisticated topics beginning with the most obvious or explicit layers (claims) and moving to more implied or "hidden" layers (assumptions, values, beliefs, ideology). By the time you finish Part 1, you will have a thorough understanding of argument, which you can then apply not just to the invention projects in Chapters 7-12 but also to your writing for other college courses and beyond. Each student text is packaged with a free Cengage Essential Reference Card to the MLA HANDBOOK, Eighth Edition.