Concept

A useful concept from the semester was appeal to emotion. There is appeal to fear, pity, spite and vanity.  I learned that in my arguments I have to tailor them towards the people I am talking to if I want it to go my way. I am more likely to use fear and pity. I use appeal to fear to try to get my siblings to teach me to drive a stick. I tell them that if I were stuck in the middle of nowhere and the only thing around was a car with a manual transmission I would be screwed, hoping it’ll scare them into teaching me. Then they pull the truck has no power steering excuse making harder to drive excuse and I’ll crash the other car excuse. Appeal to pity came in handy when I would convince my parents to buy me something. I’d tell them I looked like the poor kid at school when I had an old iPod or wanted more clothes. Now I have a job so I just get it myself.

Favorites

My favorite thing about the class was something that I sometimes dreaded, comments. Whenever I would check my email I got excited when there was a message about getting a comment on a post. I loved reading what people had to say about my posts. I also did not like them because I could not always find three posts to write 100 words back to. I hate word requirements and believe that if I can get my point across in less than the requirement, it should be acceptable. I hated blabbing on about some posts when I only had ten words to go. My least favorite thing about the class was only knowing people by an alias name. One of you could be my BFF! A way to improve the class could be not having to meet in person for the last group project. People take online classes so they do not have to leave home or because they are antisocial. Others do not have time to go to campus. Scheduling my groups facilitation took a while because everyone’s schedule was so different. I had to miss a class and another had to stick around campus for three hours after class. I am glad I took the class though.

Learning

I learned a ton of new concepts throughout the semester but probably the one that will stick in my head is the tests for an argument to be good. The premise has to be plausible, more plausible than the conclusion, and the argument should be valid or strong to be considered good. They are all simple things to check for. It is not as complex as fallacies were. With those, there were different types and then those had subcategories.  If you look at content fallacies, there are ten sub points. I don’t think I even know what half of them are. One thing I learned during the first couple of weeks are how bad some of my arguments can be. Since then I watch what I say and try to be as detailed as possible to avoid vagueness. I look at arguments on TV shows that I watch and analyze them to see if they are valid or rubbish teenage drama. This class is the one where I have put more newly acquired information to use in life, besides reading writing and math.

Interesting

Something interesting from chapter 15 was how to find causes on page 317. I like how the author compared it to how scientists test a theory. To find the cause of the decrease in water the guy in the example “conjectured possible causes” (a leak in the hose, valves, or pond liner, cracked concrete and evaporation) “and by experiment eliminated them until there is only one.” Once the choices are narrowed down, Epstein says to ask yourself “does it make a difference? Is there still an effect? And could there be a common cause?” After testing for the first four causes, the loss was still there. To confirm the problem was due to evaporation, the water flow was reduced. That led to less water loss, confirming that evaporation was the problem. If I had to guess I would have chosen evaporation because he mentioned that he lived in the desert.

Mission Critical

What was useful about the mission critical website was all of its information. In went into depth with each concept and the links made it easy to get to a concept rather than scrolling down the page. It seemed to provide more information than the Epstein text. A confusing part was when I got to the exercises in the qualified statement section.  When I would click on an answer to see if it was right it would take me to a different part of the page and have two answers, so it made answering the other question pointless. In the emotional appeals section, I liked how it listed out other names an appeal may have. For example, appeal to vanity is also known and apple polishing and appeal to fear may also be called scare tactics or appeal to force. The exercises in this section were better than the qualified and specific statement ones.

Cause and Effect Website

The cause and effect website was just like our Epstein book. It taught the concept and then provided an example and activity. From last week, I remember that causal arguments are like cause and effect. What I liked better about the website was during the activity it would explain the answer, whether it was right or wrong. In our text, we have the questions and answers in the back but no explanations. If we get an answer wrong we have to figure out why we got it wrong by ourselves. One question I had some difficulty with was number two. The “most significant difference” part threw me off and I did not get it right until try three, but each explanation made sense. Another useful thing was the mention of three factors, “how acceptable or demonstrable the implied comparison is,” “how likely the case for causation seems to be” and “how credible the ‘only significant difference’ or ‘only significant commonality’ claim is.

Intersting Concept

My interesting concept for this week is reasoning by analogy. While reading what it was I realized that I already use it. It is kind of like when our parents let one of our siblings go out but tell us to stay behind. Sibling A asked her parents if she could go out. They said yes. Sibling B asked her parents of she could go out. They said yes. That is how I use it in an argument. If one gets to go out why should I stay behind? I have always liked working with analogies. They were my favorite part of the SAT’s. Analogies are comparisons between two things. An example is glove is to hand as scarf is to neck. A glove and scarf are things that you wear. One other thing I thought was interesting was sign reasoning, more specifically the logic section. One of the types of syllogism was hypothetical. I never really understood why people would say “hypothetically speaking” and then ask a question. Now I do!

Difficult to Understand

The hardest reasoning for me to understand was causal reasoning.  When I visited the website on the blog the definition was a paragraph long so it was a lot for me to figure it out. The definitions on Wikipedia were easier to get a grasp of. This website http://www.experiment-resources.com/causal-reasoning.html provides the definition causal reasoning is the idea that any cause leads to a certain effect. Simple, cause and effect. Doctors use this kind of reasoning to get a diagnosis, just watch the show House. Symptoms are used to find the cause. Causal reasoning is split up into five methods. A common example I’ll use is eating then getting sick. The first is method of agreement. Please refer to my first post to read about this one. The next one is method of difference. This is when a doctor has two patients who ate together but only one got sick. The doctor would look for a difference in what they ate. Then there is the joint method of agreement and difference. There could be five patients that ate the same thing but only one did not get sick. The method of concomitant variation is when different amounts of something we eaten so the illness level varies. One patient could have had 3 beers and feels a little buzzed while a second patient had six and is drunk. Last is the method of residues. This is when a patient could have any number of symptoms and the doctor knows what all but one are caused because of prior cases. Say the doctor already had two patients that suffered from a lot of energy caused by eating a lot of candy and going to the bathroom a lot from drinking a lot of water. A third patient has those two symptoms plus a headache. Number 3 tripped on the stairs and since the other two patients didn’t, the trip caused the headache.

Examples

Reasoning by analogy is simple. It compares two things and both sides come to the same conclusion in an argument. The first example in the book was good. Kid A’s conclusion was to hit Kid B so Kid B concludes that it is fair to hit Kid A back. According to the University of Pittsburg, sign reasoning is a way of proving arguments in different forms. Some forms are logic, which are more forms within itself, visual/aural proof, and storytelling. An example of hypothetical logic reasoning would be if I take a sleeping pill (if A), then I will fall asleep (then B), I took the pill (A is present) then I feel asleep (so B is present). Casual reasoning’s different forms include causation, method of agreement, method of difference, and five others. An example of method of agreement is finding out what people had in common that caused the event. If two people went to the same mechanic with the same problem, a flat tire, the mechanic could ask them the where they drove. If both drivers said on southbound 880 by the airport, he concludes that there is something there giving people flat tires. Changing minds says criteria reasoning is “defining the criteria by which the outcome of a decision will be judged, and then identify the best decision, given these constraints.” An example from then is “how will we know when we have succeeded? Let’s discuss this first…” All the examples are in the forms of question and lead to a discussion to define the criteria and are not just a simple statement on how to succeed. Reasoning by example is using examples in your argument. “You will not be bored if you ever visit New York. I was there last month and our day was full of things to do and we already have an itinerary for when we go next” is reasoning by example. Inductive reasoning takes general conclusions from observations. An example of this could be “everyone that I see get on the subway, swipes a card. So to get on the subway you must swipe a card.” Deductive reasoning makes or evaluates deductive arguments. Examples can be valid or invalid but not true or false.

Interesting Concept

My interesting concept for this week is appeal to fear. Out of all the other appeals to emotion, I think this one would be the most effective. It makes people scared and puts them into a vulnerable state. That would make them vote, buy, or do whatever the thing implying the fear wants. Take a look at the following ad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX-QhoihLeI I have a mirror in my bathroom similar to the one in the commercial with a window opposite to it. After watching a scary movie I always get paranoid about something from the movie happening to me during the night. I think that when I close the mirror something is going to come in from the window and do something to me and the ad just makes me want to have some running shoes on hand. Another example of fear taking over us is the scene on TV with person A holding a gun to person B’s head. Person B eventually spills the beans about something from the fear of being shot.

Exercise

I chose to do exercise 2, find an ad that uses apple polishing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG6zhoYu6PY

It is like the example in the book. The example is shampoo and the unstated premise is “you want to look good with shiny, well-kept hair.” The ad I chose unstated premise is you want to make up that makes you look beautiful and skincare products that work. Now is it a good argument? Refer to the good argument test on page 40.  The premise is that women want to look good, that is plausible. The conclusion to the ad is to buy Mary Kay products.  I think women looking good is more plausible then that. Is it valid or strong? Women want to look good but may end up not buying the product. So the premise is true but conclusion false. That makes it weak.  It is a bad argument because it did not pass the three tests.                              

Appeal to Emotion

According to Epstien, “an appeal to emotion in an argument is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way.” The different kinds of appeals are appeal to pity, fear, spite and vanity. There are also call in your debts arguments and feel good arguments. Appeals to fear, spite and vanity do not have an effect on me and neither does a feel good argument. If someone brings up a debt in an argument I am likely to fold in. For example, if a coworker worked one of my shifts for me and they needed one of their shifts covered and reminded me of the favor they did for me, I am likely to repay the favor. I feel really bad when someone helps me out but I cannot help them back. Whenever I see the commercials about abandoned pets or poor children I do get an urge to give money so appeal to pity works on me. I hate the idea of a sad world. =(

Leadership Styles

After going back through “Critical Thinking” and “The Essential Guide to Group Communication,” I have decided to further explore the different kinds of leadership styles. First a quick recap. Authoritarian is one persons leads the group and makes decisions without any input from its members. Consultative leaders take the members input and makes a decision. This kind of leader usually doesn’t have enough information to make a decision on their own, that is why they turn to a group. In a participative group, one person guides the other members and has very little to do with making a decision. The last style is laissez-faire. This style has little to no leadership. Now on to the research. On http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadstl.html there are 3 different styles. It lists authoritarian, participative, and delegative/free reign. The last one is the same as laissez-faire except the website makes it sounds better than the book does. In our text it says it “has been consistently found to be the least satisfying and effective management style.” It also mentions that the leader is hard to find when a problem comes up. According to the website, “the leader allows the employees to make the decisions. However, the leader is still responsible for the decisions that are made. This is used when employees are able to analyze the situation and determine what needs to be done and how to do it.” It also mentions “this is a style to be used when you fully trust and confidence in the people below you.” I really like how it says that because if more groups or workplaces used a delegative style, their employees would learn to take more responsibility and feel like they have a say in what goes on. After reading what was on the website, I do not see the laissez-faire style as bad as the books makes it seem to be.

Group Assignment

I thought both group assignments were useful. Our mission for the second project was to research an organization and I learned a lot about my groups organization. We picked the Red Cross and I thought they mostly offered money and supplies to areas of natural disaster. They do a lot more! They have blood donation centers, they help all over the world even when there is not a disaster, and offer health education programs. They also reach out to the entertainment industry which I thought was pretty cool. They provide props for sets like posters and even vans. The other part of the entertainment outreach program is their celebrity cabinet. It is a bunch of celebrities that volunteer for a year then the cabinet changes. I thought my group communicated with each other very well. We all had each other’s schedule and helped answer any questions that came up. I think we all feel more comfortable with each other after the first project.

2 Things I Learned

The first thing that I learned this week from Chapter 8 was that general claims are usually bad. If you look at the cats and dogs example on page 159, it sounds valid. I tried to guess what it would be after reading the first example and I got it wrong. Then I learned that you have to take into consideration what “some” means and that “all the dogs that like cats are abhorred by the cats as too wimpy” could happen. The second thing I learned was the diagram of an argument. I learn with pictures so this definitely helped. It helps me understand the examples given in the book and why they are or are not valid. I do have trouble putting the right premise completely in the middle though. For the barking example on page 165 I started with mammals in the middle rather than on the outside.

Tutorial

I am more of a visual learner so I really liked how all the tutorials mapped everything out. I like how the claim is in one box then reasons and objections in separate boxes are linked to it. The different colors and shapes were also useful. They made it clear which boxes were contentions or objections.  When arguments became more complicated the mapping was still simple. In tutorial 3, when things like co-premises, and objections and reasons came up for the same argument, the visual was still easy to read.  One part that did get confusing though was how to map strange bedfellows and stranded co-premises. With strange bedfellows both reasons were in green so the X did not make sense. Then I figured out they should not be connected because if a co-premise comes up, it would be linked to the reason. In 3.6 of the tutorial, a similar thing happened with a co-premise having its own box making it seem like a reason.

Chapter 7

Something I learned from chapter 7 was that there can be an argument within an argument, a mini-argument. You get one of these when you “knock off an objection.” In the argument about getting another dog, the mini-argument would be the last 3 answers because they are knocking off the 3 objections right before. This new argument makes me wonder if the whole argument can be valid or strong if the mini-argument is weak or invalid. It would probably make the whole argument a bad one because one of the premises would be false or dubious. Another thing I learned was the difference between direct and indirect refutation. With direct refutation you show a premise is dubious the argument is not valid or strong, and a false conclusion. Indirect has to do with reducing to the absurd. In this case a bunch of the claims are bad because of their conclusion.

Chapter 6

The first thing I learned about in chapter six was compound claims. It makes complete sense.  In the lawn mower example, you have two claims but since you are only going to end up getting one its compound. Just like a compound word. You have two words put together but word count does not say “2” it says “1.” After that came a lot of terms that started with the letter “c” that I got all mixed up. What I did get a hold of was the slippery slope argument. It is easy to notice this type of argument because it is a bad argument; it goes on and on with a bunch of conditionals and at least one of them is false. The two examples in the book were also simple. This concept is also easy to understand because it does not have another side to it, like conditional claim and contradictory of a conditional.

Intersting Concept

My interesting concept for this week is the summary box on page 90. I think it is really well written on why we should reject of accept a claim. More specifically, why we should accept a claim when “it is being made by a reputable authority whom we can trust as an expert about this kind of claim and who has no motive to mislead.” The “expert” and “motive” parts are what have changed the way I think when someone is trying to tell me something. For example, if I want to buy a car and I have narrowed it down to a CR-Z and a Prius, would I trust the opinion of my dad and brother? Before reading this chapter, I would believe them in an instant, but know I would have to think about it. Both cars are hybrids are both dad and brother have experience with owning and driving one. My brother is a mechanic so he has a leg up on maintenance and technical specs. That makes him the expert. When it comes to motive, I do not think my dad would care which car I got. My brother on the other hand would probably say something in favor of the CR-Z because of its better looks since he would be the one working on it and driving it on occasion. I have to be careful about not being too gullible now.

Internet Ad

Random ad I got from Bing. I have never heard of Charmone or worn their shoes so I have no personal experience with the brand. At the bottom, it says their shoes are not just good looking but also comfortable. The shoes pictures looks ok but I don’t know about the comfortable part.  Since I don’t know if that claim is true or false due to my lack of experience, I am going to suspend judgement until I try a pair on. According to the summary box on page 90, I can’t accept or reject the ad.  No experience eliminates the first three. Under “other sources” nobody has ever told me about their experience, so it throws out the first two. That leaves “the claim is put forward in a reputable journal or reference” and “is in a media source that’s usually reliable and has no obvious motive to mislead, and the original source is named.” I got it off the internet, which has reliable and non reliable sources. Bing put the ad up and I don’t see why they would mislead me. I would still use the site if I did or didn’t get a pair of does. The original source is Charmone. I guess I’ll be trying on a pair this weekend.

Repairing Arguments

Example: I hate cold weather. I am going to Lake Tahoe in December.

Analysis: I believe this is an example of a phony refutation. It is a bad argument because I said that I hate cold weather then went on to say that I am going to a cold place during the winter. Why would I go somewhere where I hate the weather? The argument could be fixed by saying that I have to make the trip for work or a family event. If I add “I have a mandatory company conference in Lake Tahoe at the end of the year” in the middle, it would make sense. Referring to the guide on page 62, the argument has become valid, the premise is plausible to others, and the premise is more plausible than the conclusion. People often do things they do not want to do for work, so it could make it believable.

Organizational Culture

At work, everyone has an individual task but we work as team to give the customer what they want. After going over organizational culture, my work place is a mix between an open/family organization and closed organization. We are a closed organization in the sense that we always have to wear a uniform, have all kinds of policies on how to do things, and if you are on the shy side, you show up, do what you are assigned then leave at the end of the day with the only talking you did was related to an order. I can also see it as an open culture because when we are not busy, we talk about what is going on outside of work, mess around with each other and we occasionally have an “employee of the month” program. Sometimes it just seems like we are hanging out while cleaning something. I have no clue what kind of culture we had when the company first started but 60 years later it is set. New hires adjust to it and policies are made for a reason.

Violating the Principal of Rational Discussion

I chose to discuss begging the question. In the book it says “the point of an argument is to convince that a claim is true. So the premises of an argument have to be more plausible than the conclusion.” If you make an argument and someone does not understand what you said, then there is a fallacy. An example would be “you should turn off the stove before you leave the house.” If the person you are addressing has to ask “why?” then you are violating the principal of reasoning.  By simply making your argument more specific, you can eliminate the question. “You should turn off the stove before you leave the house to avoid a fire” avoids the question because it answers it. A misleading example could be Bob saying “Steve died yesterday” to Emily. Emily could ask “What do you mean he is dead? I just saw him an hour ago.” What Bob meant to say was that Steve died in the video game that they were playing. Bob is not lying, just misleading because he left out the video game part.