This book is part of an effective, evidence based method to teach critical thinking and essay writing skills: Critical Thinking with Rationale. This distinctive method was developed at the University of Melbourne in the beginning of this century through 5 years of research and is used now by thousands of students worldwide. This method emphasises deliberate practice of reasoning skills by argument mapping, a technique to visualise the underlying logical structure of argumentation. Empirical evidence suggests that practice with argument mapping results in improved critical thinking skills. Rationale - available in English, Spanish, Dutch, German - is an online program at ReasoningLab.com that enables students to structure their thinking and writing by organizing information and making argument maps (individually or simultaneously together) and export them as text. As such, Rationale is especially developed for implementing critical thinking training in classroom environments. Rationale is used all over the world in different levels of education. Individual users can develop their critical thinking skills by using the Self Study Guide out of the book in combination with Rationale. This book focuses on the basic concepts of critical thinking, as they are used in this method.