Further Discussion

This coarse would packed full of information that we have gone over, but the one thing I felt that should be further discussed would be misleading claims with numbers. When doing test 4 this came up and I was like “huh,” I was not sure what it meant at first, but good thing its open book, so I looked it up and it made more sense to me. Numbers can be in fact misleading when dealing with claims because when numbers are used it looks exact, but a vague or meaningless comparison gets no better by having a few numbers in it. So it does not matter if there are numbers. It may look exact and accurate, but do not let that deceive you because it is not always true. Numbers do not mean it is exact, they can be extremely misleading.  Having numbers in a claim may make it seem important, but when looking deep into the claim itself, you can see that that is not always true.

Most and Least Favorite

My most favorite thing about the class would have to be the group work. I felt that this was nice to actually see other classmates and interact with them. This was a great way to use our new communicating skills and to communicate with one another on what we have learned. However I wished that there would have been different groups each time because it would have been nice to meet most of the class as well.  My least favorite thing about this class would be the blogging. Don’t get me wrong blogging was extremely useful, but I wish that there was not time limit between each blog because this semester I had a really tight schedule and it was hard to keep them 12 hours apart, but I managed to do so. Also the one thing that was not my favorite would be the timed test because I felt rushed when I am taking it. It would be awesome to have had more time on the test. But overall I enjoyed this class a lot.

What i learned

This semester have been packed with tons of concepts that where helpful and knowledgeable. The one concept that stuck with me through the whole semester would have to be claims and arguments.  In everyone’s everyday life they use claims and arguments, but not all the claims or arguments will be strong or valid. Why in fact some are extremely misleading and to vague.  To determine whether or not the argument or claim is strong or valid, the fallacies and the conclusion must be determined. I feel that I use this concept in my everyday life when it comes to debating and mainly speaking at all.  Everyone uses this concept whether or not they realize it or not. This is the most commonly used method when communicating with others.  This concept will be the one thing everyone will use even after this course because in order to speak your mind and disagree with someone, then a claim or argument must be said.

cause and effect concept

The concept I thought was the most interesting would have to be the cause and effect in the Epstein text.  To determine a cause and effect first you need to be able to determine the cause of the problem. Like for example: I trip on a bark and broke my leg. The cause would be tripping on a bark and the effect would then be a broken leg.  To determine that this is a clam we must find the relationship between them. Because I tripped on the bark it, I broke my leg. If I did not trip I would not have broken my leg.  The relationship is that the premises and conclusion are valid and strong arguments.  Cause and effect is used quite often in today’s worlds. When something happens there is always something affected. This is a great concept to learn when writing any type of argument or claim because there will always be a cause and effect.

Mission Critical Website

            What was useful in the Mission Critical website was it gave explanations for parts of an argument like statements, vagueness and ambiguity, inference identifiers, and more.  It even gave details about arguments that we have discussed in our last participation. The explanations are extremely easy to understand.  It also showed the different types of arguments and provided explanations when clicked on.  There were also explanations on fallacies.  The explanation I liked the most would be the appeal to pity. They called it a sob story, which made it easy to understand. It also stated that it is used to replace logic, rather than to support it.  The example they gave was actually easy to relate to: ‘gosh, officer, I know I made an illegal left turn, but please don’t give me a ticket. I’ve had a hard day and I was just trying to get over to my aged mother’s hospital room and spend few minutes with her before I report to my second full0time minimum-wage job, which I have to have as the sole support of the seventeen members of the family.” This is funny because when ever I get pulled over I try to get a sense of pity from the officer to not give me a ticket.  I think everyone does that hoping to get away without a ticket.

Cause and Effect Webiste

            What I found useful in the cause and effect website is that inductive reasoning is based on observation or experience.  It gives us an example that would make sense. The argument that the lawyers could make to help there clients besides the truck driver would be as stated in the website “Normally the bicyclist would have continued in the bike lane, but in this instance h swerved into the lane of traffic. The only significant difference between normally and in this case is the presence of the illegally parked truck. Therefore, the truck caused the bicyclist to swerve. “  This is a inductive reasoning because it shows observations that were made during the accident.  Then the website gives us two rules that are useful when dealing with causation. As stated in the website:

1.The cause must precede the event in time. On one hand, arguments that have the effect before the cause are examples of the relatively rare fallacy of reverse causation.

2. Even a strong correlation is insufficient to prove causation. Other possible explanations for such a strong correlation include coincidence, reversed causation, and missing something that is the cause of both the original “cause” and its purported effect.

Judging Analogies

The one thing I thought was interesting in this weeks reading would be judging analogies. The book states seven steps in evaluating analogy and they are

            1. Is this an argument? What is the conclusion?

            2. What is the comparison?

            3. What are the premises? (one both sides of the comparison)

            4. What are the similarities?

            5. Can we state the similarities as premises and find a general principle that

            covers the two sides.

            6. Does the general principle really apple to both sides? Do the differences   

            matter?

            7. Is the argument strong or valid? Is it good?

An analogy stated in the Epstein text is “a comparison becomes reasoning by analogy when it is part of an argument: on one side of the comparison we draw a conclusion, so on the other side we should conclude the same.”  Writing an analogy we must look over the important general principle that applies to what we are comparing to. And then you must look for any differences to see if one side of the argument is not applied.  

inductive reasoning

The reasoning that was most difficult for me to understand would have to be inductive reasoning.  So I did some research online to understand it more and this is what I learned. Inductive reasoning is a more broader generalizations and theories.  It is a major kind of reasoning process in which a conclusion is drawn from particular cases. Here is always a possibility that the premises may be true while the conclusion may be false, since there is not a necessarily a logical relationship between premises and conclusion.  It is mainly uses when generating hypothesis.

 An example would be Look at how those people are behaving. They look angry. This is a huge generalization because they might not be mad but who knows unless you ask.  Another good example of inductive reasoning is all swans are white, so the next swan we will see if white. This is an inductive reasoning because not all swans are white, the conclusion is false. This is a general fact.

REASONING

The types of reasoning listing in the instructor's blog are Reasoning by Analogy, Sign Reasoning, Causal Reasoning, Reasoning by Criteria, Reasoning by Example, Inductive Reasoning, and Deductive Reasoning.   Examples of each reasoning are:

-Reasoning by Analogy: Having everything thing you desire like clothes, money, toys, game, and ect. Does not always make a person happy. By analogy wealth does not make us any happier.

-Sign reasoning: There is bird poop on my windshield; a bird must have flew by my car.

-Casual Reasoning: My legs are extremely sore, it must have been from going to the gym yesterday

-Reasoning by Criteria: Your friend probably is going to need new clothes for that date, so let’s just get her that hot pink skirt.

-Reasoning by Example: You should not straighten your hair so much if you want to grow it out healthy. My mom use to straighten her hair ever day till she stopped and her hair has never looked better.

-Inductive Reasoning: Since Cyndi is an amazing person, her sister must be amazing as well.

Deductive Reasoning: All bachelor’s are single, Matt is single, therefore he is a bachelor. 

interesting concept

A concept that I have not yet to discuss in my blog would be the appeal to pity. I have already discussed appeal to fear, so I am going to talk about appeal to pity, which seems to me to be the opposite of one another.  An appeal to pity is used quite often in organizations, like the American Red Cross. They use images and sad commentary to provoke us to help.  Using the appeal to pity is not just about giving because you feel bad, but that your giving because you have the ability to help  so you should send donations.  An example of appeal to pity would be: “help Haiti the children are the ones that are suffering the most with no home or family. With a couple dollars months you can help this child survive.” When seeing this statement it makes you feel that I have all these nice things and should give back  to the those less fortunate.

Appeal to fear exercise #3

An advertisement that uses an appeal to fear that I thought was interesting would be the stop smoking ads, which are used extensively now to prevent people from smoking cigarettes.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7M54BbxA46Vg-N4EP8NEqTTEnvVLcQ18YuL3r3md0nxPovJHbek3Z_avIxaTfSOVJCIxOqur-fFgr0a_mfbi-zSDidrDincAubfxE2GtEW0gSEgV03n3muDqPZbO7TDIV8oZXV8qAExY/s400/Anti_Smoking_Ads_43.jpg

This ad states that smoking kills so why bother starting. It also states that cigarettes cause strokes, very addictive, raises blood pressure, reduces stamina, and more. All of these things frighten people beyond repair. This is a good argument because it is the premises and conclusions are true. When you smoke cigarettes it can cause all these bad effects. Thinking about how it can kill you makes you not even want to start smoking or quit smoking.  This ad appeals to fear because it gives all these bad side effects of smoking, making it less desirable and puts a sense of fear to whoever uses it.  This appeals to others fear because no one wants to have any bad effects from smoking and wish not to die. 

Appeal to the Emotion

Appeal to emotion is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way, stated in the Epstein text.  Everyone has emotions and it plays a crucial part on all of our lives.  There are several different types if appeal to emotional appeal to pity, appeal to fear and appeal to spite.  The type of emotional appeal that strikes me the most is the appeal to fear.  Appeal to fear is used a lot to strike in a fear in someone to do something. For example use a condom or you will end up being pregnant and lose your figure. This appeals to the fact that you don’t want to be pregnant or lose your figure and that scares you therefore you will always use a condom.  This type of appeal is used most by politicians and advertisers to pursue you to vote for them or buy whatever it is they are selling. 

Validity Diagram

The concept I thought was the most interesting and helpful would be the points that the book gives about how to check for validity in a diagram. A valid argument would be that the premises is true and there is no way for the conclusion to be false at the same time.

-       A collection is represented by an enclosed area

-       If one area is entirely within another, then everything in the one collection is also in the other

-       If one overlaps another, then there is something that is common to both collection

-       If two areas do no overlap, then there is nothing common to both collections.

-       An “a” or a dot in an area marks that a particular object is in that collection

These were the pointers that the book gave to help us check for validity.  This diagram helps by making you analyze the argument.  We can use these diagrams to decide whether or not a premise is true. This comes in handy when writing any type of argument. 

General Claims

            In chapter 8 of the Epstein text the thing I thought was useful would have to be general claims. General claims “assert something in a general way about all or a part of a collection” as stated in the text. When stating a general claim the use of all, some, and ect. are to general, therefore they are general claims. The claim may seem valid, but it is not. An example would be:

“All teachers are extremely strict and should be easier”

this is a general claim because it uses the term “all” suggesting that every single one, no exceptions. But in fact this claim is more suggestive because it is based on someone’s perspective, and not a true fact. Not everyone thinks that all teachers are strict. Some teachers can be pretty easy depending on their teaching techniques.  Therefore saying that all teachers are extremely strict and should be easier can only relate to those who feel that way because not everyone feels that way.

The Second Assignment

I enjoyed doing the assignment more then the first because it gave my group the chance to analyze a certain organization. My group and I decided to analyze the American Red Cross Association. This organization was extremely interesting. I learned a lot new things about the Red Cross. For example how they are always the first to be on scene. This assignment helped me understand the concepts clearly.  It shows how the Red Cross use emotional appeal, fallacies, advertisement, and more in this company. It was extremely helpful because we were able to break it down by artifact and focus on one at a time. It helps us dig into the concept a lot better.  Everyone in my group was able to participate and this made the assignment far more enjoyable. I felt that this assignment was far more successful then the first because it gave everyone a chance to contribute to each artifact.  Overall I learned about organizations and the uses certain techniques within the organization. 

Reasoning with "or" claims

The concept that I thought was the most interesting would have to be reasoning with “or” claims in chapter 6 of the Epstein text.  This is used after we decide if the argument is valid or weak by having a looking at the compound claim, if it has one.  A valid argument is when the premises cannot be true or the conclusion to be false at the same time, while a weak argument is when the premises can be true and the conclusion can be false at the same time. The book states that the valid argument form: A or B, not B, therefore A. This is excluding possibilities. The letters are used as claim A or Claim B.  Sometimes we can reduce the possibility. There is many possibilities with the way A or B are placed. It could A or B or C, not A, not B, therefore C.

Chapter 7

Refuting an argument as stated in the Epstein text is there are several ways of refuting an argument:

1. Show that at least one of the premises is dubious

2. Show that the argument isn’t valid or strong

3. Show that the conclusion is false

When refuting indirectly with an argument it is sometimes hard to point out if the premises is false of dubious, but you know there is something wrong with the premises.

            Reducing to the absurd:

“To reduce to absurd is to show that at least one of several claims is false or dubious, or collectively they are unacceptable, by drawing a false or unwanted conclusion from them,” as stated in the text. . When reducing the absurd you need to find a false conclusion. So if a argument has a absurd conclusion, then the premises is not want you want, but it still must remain as a strong or valid argument. 

chapter 6

In chapter 6 of the Epstein text taught me different types of claims. A compound claim is two claims linked together, while a contradictory of a claim is the opposite truth of another claim, which can be also called as the negation of the claim.  Both these arguments are the opposite of one another. An example of a contradictory claim would be:

Claim                                               Contradictory

This is a whale                             This isn’t a whale

Another thing I learned was the false dilemma. A false dilemma is a when the argument one makes is valid but it is not good. It excludes the possibility of where the claim is false or implausible.  This is a type of fallacy that only two alternatives are considered. An example of this would have to be:

 “If you are not with us, you are against us”

To avoid a false dilemma we have to imagine other possible alternatives.

Advertisement

http://www.justdezign.com/2001portimages/Ad_Perfume.jpg

For the advertisement i decided to use a perfume ad. This is advertisement for the Perfume Manora. It states that
 " a heady fragrance that stuns the sense.
Experience its transforming powers..."

In the text it states that there are three choices we can make in believing a claim or not.
1.accept the claim is true
2.reject the claim is false
3.suspend judgement

I would not accept this claim to be true because I actually collect perfume bottles and i have never been stunned or transformed for any of the perfumes i own. Perfumes do not have the powers to do any of this. I can reject the claim because i have had experience with this being false. I have never had any perfume with these kinds of mystical powers. I can however suspend judgement by evaluating the argument. This argument is not strong or valid it is rather weak and invalid. These argument can be false.

Repairing Arguments

An example argument would be "All cows go moo, so Laura moos."

This argument needs to be repaired in order for it to be a strong or valid argument. Stating that Laura moos and not stating that she is a cow could be wrong because what if she was not a cow, but a dog or human. Saying that Laura the cow moos would make this argument strong or valid. So this argument needs to be repaired. The premises are true, but without stating that Laura is a cow could make this argument weak or invalid. The repaired statement would then be: “All cows go moo, so Laura the cow goes moo too.” This argument would make more sense with saying Laura is a cow. It would be a strong and valid argument with the statement that Laura is a cow. Without saying Laura is a cow  she could be a person and then this argument would be completely false.

The Five Strategies

The concept I thought was interesting would be negotiating effectively in the small group text.  Negotiating is an daily thing everyone does in their life when encountering anyone.  There are five strategies for negotiating;

1.    To listen to the opposing side and listen to the reasons and understanding before you can argue your side first.  So this means that you will find out there reasons and allowing you to understand the circumstances.

2.    You must be introspective. This means you shouldn’t put words in people’s mouth and expect that they are willing to for instance covering a shift at work or doing a part in a project.  You cannot just assume they will be okay with it, just let then speak first before assuming.

3.    Ask fact-finding questions and try to uncover the who, what, when, where, and why of the opposing sides premises. This means that you should know the extent at which they are negotiating as well, so that when your negotiating your side it would be more successful.

4.    You must communicate with an open mind. This means you must be considerate of the other opposing sides argument otherwise the negotiating would come to a stop and would not continue. You would lose the negotiation if you do not take everything into consideration.

5.    You must keep your emotions in check. This means try to not show your anger, sadness, and frustration because this would affect the way you speak and this would just cause strain in the situation causing the opposing side to withdraw from the negotiation.

These five strategies are necessary in negotiating effectively. 

Strawman

The content Fallacy I have decided to discuss is the “strawman.” It is defined as misrepresenting or putting words in the other person’s mouth, which is stated in Epstein.  It is an informal fallacies that misrepresents the other opposing sides argument or statement. An example would be: Person 1: “we should provide more help for the poor and give them a better opportunity to make their life better” Person 2: “So you think we should just hand it to them and not have then work for it. There is no way this would work because this would just show people they do not need to try to make a better life and cause more poverty.” This would be an example of “strawman” because the opponent took person 1’s statement and twisted the words so that it becomes something different then what the person really was stating. This is called putting words in person 1’s mouth.

Complex Argument

Exercise 1: My neighbor should be forced to get rid of all the cars in his yard 1. People do not like living next door to such a mess 2. He never drives any of them 3. They all look old and beat up and leak oil all over the place 4. It is bad for the neighborhood, and it will decrease property value 5.

Argument? (yes or no) Yes

Conclusion: The neighbor should be forced to get rid of all of his cars.

Additional Premises needed? If this neighbor has old cars that do not work, leak oil, beat up, and does not use the cars; and also is messy causing a decrease in property value, then the neighbor should be forced to get rid of his cars.

Identify any subargument: 2 and 4 support 5, while 2, 3, 4, and 5 are independent and supports 1

Good Argument? I believe this is not a good argument

I do agree that 2, 3, 4, and 5 are independent and you can say that they support 1, but I do not think that it leads to a conclusion. Because being messy, not driving his car, or look old, how would that decrease the property value and how would they know that the people do not like living next door to a mess. They might not mind the mess at all.  This is a bad argument because it is his property and the mess is in his yard, it is his property and he can do with it how he pleases.

I found this exercise helpful because it took a lot of thinking to figure out the conclusion and premises.  It helped break down the statement and allowed me to analyze it more thoroughly, which is helpful in learning the materiel

Leadership and Decision Making in Groups and Teams

A concept that I thought was interesting is from the Group communication text it talked about the different kinds of leadership. Defined in the text leadership is stated to be directing and influencing someone. Like the president of the United States, in which his job is to guide us and lead us, but a leader can be anyone who has the courage to lead someone or someone.  The different kinds of leadership defined in the text are authoritarian, consultative, laisse-faire, and participative. Authoritarian and consultative are completely opposite leaderships, Authoritarian is when the “leader” control and makes the decision, while consultative is when everyone is able to contribute there ideas and opinion on a subject at hand. It is similar to Participative because it means working together as a group to accomplish something.  The least effective leadership would have to be Laisse-Faire because there is no dedication to the other group members and there is no great communication between each person. 

Good Argument

            A good argument is where the premises are plausible, the premises are more plausible then the conclusion, and the argument is valid or strong.  An example would be that:

All snakes are reptile,

All reptiles are cold-blooded,

Therefore all snakes are cold blooded.

The premises of the argument are true and the conclusion is true as well making this a valid argument.  There is no way that the premises and conclusion to be false. These premises are plausible because of snakes were reptiles and reptiles are cold blooded then snakes must be cold blooded too. There is no reason for this not to be plausible. The conclusion can be false if there was a new species of snakes that are warm blooded but it is not likely that would happen because snakes must be cold blooded in order to survive in their surroundings. So all snakes have to be cold blooded.

Valid Vs. Strong Argument

A strong argument is when good evidence is used to support the claim therefore making the premises true. For example I recently discovered that I was allergic to nuts. I began getting rashes on my arms and face and could not figure it out for the longest time, but one day when I was eating sushi I got the rash again. I was wondering why I kept getting it till I figured that every time I had gotten the rash I had peanuts or any type of nuts with it. So because of the evidence I was able to declare that I was allergic to nuts.

            A valid argument is when the premises are true and the conclusion is true as well. An example of this would be when my friend and I were watching the Superbowl he stated that since some of the Steeler’s players are injured and must be taken out that they will lose. In the end they lost.  So this makes it a valid argument because both the premises and conclusion is true.

Epstein Concept

A concept from Epstein that I thought was interesting and am going into greater details would be vague sentences. Vague sentences can range from numerous things. Giving a vague sentence is simple, but it gives no vivid description of the subject, person, or place.  A vague sentence can go several ways in meaning like the type of sandwich one wants, the looks of a person, and many more.  Without making something clear to the point where the recipient cannot understand is a vague sentence. A vague sentence is extremely hard for many people to agree upon without any type of other description. An example of a vague sentence would be “it’s a nice day out” or “look at that man.” Both sentences are extremely vague by saying it’s a nice day out does not mean much without saying why it’s a nice day out like the sky is blue, birds are chirping, and the sun is big and round in the sky. By saying look at the man, this raises many questions, what does the man look like or where is he located specifically. 

Vague Sentence

A vague sentence that i have heard recently was during work. I work at Hot Dog on a Stick so we have two kinds of hot dogs, one on a bun and one on a stick. Are menu is simple and easily read and understandable, but this lady came up to me while i was working one day and asked " You guys sell dogs here right?" and all i could say was "yes ma'am." I thought it was odd because the menu is right in front and are store is called Hot Dog on a Stick, so of course we sell hot dogs! She then asked " Can i have a hot dog and a lemonade." This question was vague because we have two types of hot dogs and several choices of lemonade. She did not give a vivid enough answer to what type of hot go, what size lemonade, or what flavor lemonade.  This made her sentence vague because she was unable to give a good description or a more vivid description of what she wanted.

Discussion Post 1

A Subjective Claim can be true or false because it is solely based on personally opinion; it could not be proven false or true by any means. While a objective claim is quite similar to a subjective claim, but an objective claim can be proven false or true in anyway what so ever.  Therefore an objective claim is not based on one’s own opinion but if it could be proven or not.

            An example of a subjective claim is when I was entering a hair salon to get my haircut, I could not help but notice a lady that just had her hair colored and cut into a bob. I felt as if it was the worst haircut that I have ever seen, but for some reason she loved it and raved about it until she left.  This is a subjective claim because there is no way to prove if your hair is terrible or not because it was my own opinion. Some people may think it looks great and other might think that it looks terrible there is no way to prove if it’s false or true.

            An example of a objective claim is like when my friend stated that her room was far smaller then mine. This could be true or false but this is an objective claim because we were able to measure our rooms and find the area and compare our results. It was easily proven that her room was the exact same size as mine.  We were able to prove the claim, so it was not just an opinion but fact.

about me

Hello Professor and fellow classmates,

My name is Linda Dinh and I am a freshman in my second semester of college. I am currently trying to change my major to forensic science concentration of biology.  I was born in Merced and moved to San Jose during middle school and am still currently living in San Jose. I enjoy to travel and hangout with my loved ones. I am currently working at Hot Dog on a Stick and I love it more then anything, the people there are like my family and I would not have it any other way. I like to fun tons of fun, but still remain focus on schoolwork. I actually have very minimal communications experiences because this is my first communications class. I really hope improve on my critical thinking and pass the class. In high school i did have one online class because i went into homeschooling the last semester of my senior year. Therefore the second semester of senior year English did not count as college requirements and so i had to take the Brigham Young online class for second semester of senior year English. I have on a tight deadline and only had three weeks to complete because of the late notice i received about the homeschooling and college requirements. But i succeeded in finishing the online class with an A.