A Pocket Guide to Formal Logic is a succinct primer meant especially for those without any prior background in logic. Its brevity makes it well-suited to introductory courses in critical thinking or introductory philosophy with a formal logic component, and its friendly tone offers a welcoming introduction to this often-intimidating subject. The book provides a focused presentation of common methods used in statement logic, including translations, truth tables, and proofs. Supplemental materials—including more detailed treatments of select methods and concepts as well as additional sample questions and answers—are available on a companion website.

Karl Laderoute's profile page

Karl Laderoute holds a PhD in Philosophy from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He has taught philosophy at the University of Lethbridge and Trent University.

“A Pocket Guide to Formal Logic is an excellent and very affordable introduction to sentence logic. The text covers symbolization, truth-tables, and proofs in a lucid and non-technical manner. I highly recommend this text to any instructor who wants to add a symbolic logic component to a course on logic and critical thinking.” — René Jagnow, University of Georgia

“Karl Laderoute manages to pack a lot of formal propositional logic into a relatively small space, and yet his book is friendly, moves at a peaceful pace, leaves out nothing germane to an introductory course, and explains well all the traditional topics of propositional logic. A Pocket Guide gets to the point, but is not hurried, nor is the discussion over-simplified. This is quite an achievement.” — Eric Dietrich, Binghamton University

“A Pocket Guide to Formal Logic is a concise, affordable, and gentle introduction to propositional logic. The proof system uses intuitive rules, and includes many redundant rules, so constructing proofs is a breeze. This book would be a good choice for many critical thinking courses in philosophy departments.” — Thomas Donaldson, Simon Fraser University