Concept that was Interesting

One concept that I found interesing  this semester is inferring and implying because we use it so often in our everyday lives. I could really relate to this concept because I imply things with friends all the time. According to the textbook Inferring and Implying is "when someone leaves a conclusion unsaid, he or she is implying the conclusion. When you decide that an unstated claim is the conclusion, you are inferring that claim" (Epstein 74). In daily conversations with other people we imply things. We assume that people know what we are talking about without fully explaining it. An example of implying is "I don't date fat people, therefore I would not dare Bob." I can infer that the person thinks Bob is fat. Sometimes it is best to be more upfront with people too. Another example of implying and inferring is "Jennifer does not like ugly clothes, therefore she will not shop at Kohls." I can infer from this statement that Jennifer thinks the clothes and Kohls department store are ugly.

My favorite, least favorite and what can be Improved.

My favorite part of this class was the fact there was plenty of details about assignments. I liked that our assignments were always clearly explained and given to us early in advance so we had plenty of time to work on them. I also liked that the blog questions were very clear and sometimes fun to discuss. I did like reading peoples comments on my blog posts as well.  It was interesting to read about other peoples viewpoints. The second group assignment which was about talking about a social organization was interesting. I liked learning about a social organization, in particular, PETA really changed my view on animals and their rights. My least favorite part of this class was having to post blogs 12 hours apart. I did not like that because sometimes I wished I could have gotten all the blogs done all at once. I also did not like the third group assignment which was the "group faciliation paper." It thought it was difficult to get together with my group because we all had such a busy schedule. It was also a hassle to try and get people together to discuss the assignment. I think what can improved in this class is that the blog posts should have no time restrictions. Other than that, the class was great and useful.

What I have Learned

Although I learned several things from the textbooks, Learning appeal to emotion really stuck out to me. This semester I learned about appeals to emotion. An appeal to emotion is "a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way" (Epstein 191). People use appeal to emotion in everyday conversations in order to persuade people to do or believe something. There are several different kinds of appeal to emotion. There is appeal to pity, Appealing to fear, appeal to spite, calls in your debts,  two wrongs make a right, a feel good argument, and wishful thinking. Appeal to pity is to basically try and persuade people to do or believe something that by making people feel sorry for the person using appeal to emotion. For instance when charities try to get people to donate money, they might use images that will make you feel pity to donate money. Appealing to fear can be used by teachers trying to persuade students to not cheat on tests or homework. For example, the teachers could explain to students that there will be serious consequences for students who cheat on tests or homework.

The Normal Conditions

One section fo chapter5 that I thought was useful for us to know is the Normal Conditions. According to the textbook, Normal Conditions are "for a causal claim, the normal conditions are the normal conditions  are the obvious and plausible unstated claims that are needed to establish that the relationship between purported causes and purported effect is valid or strong" (Epsetin 303). An example of normal conditions is
Bob was at home by himself when the thunderstorm struck.
The power turned off because of the thunderstorm at 7:30 pm.
Bob doesn't normally stay at home by himself at 7:30 pm at night
Bob was standing next to the lamp when the power went off.
There was nothing else unusual going on at the time..
This example could keep on going for as long as we like. According to the text, in arguments, we only mentions or put in parts that we think are significant to know. We normally do not state the obvious in arguments.

Mission Critical Website

I thought the mission critical website was much more useful than the cause and effect website because it talked about various topics. For example, I thought it was useful to know all the different types of sentences in arguments. Commands and exclamations are pretty rare in critical thinking arguments but they are the only sentences that cannot be considered true or false. These types of sentences are occur more frequently when you just got into a car accident or at a party. According to the wesbite, rhetorical questions occur more frequently in an argument. Rhetorical questions are questions that do not require or expect an answer. However rhetorical questions are used to make a point. For instance, an example of a rhetorical question is a television host asking it audience, "Who hasn't ever made a mistake?" This question is indicating that everybody makes mistakes. People automatically know its a rhetorical question. Most sentences in critical thinking are called statements or claims as well.

Cause and Effect Website

The cause and effect website gives an example of a bicyclist illegally moving into the traffic lane which causes a driver to slam on its break. The first car slamming on its break causes car behind it to rear end them. Using inductive reasoning, the arguments are that the bicyclist caused the accident or the first car caused the accident. All of these arguments have the form of an inductive argument. The website said that it is very likely for causation to occur in the real world. I thought it was useful to know the two rules of causation which are that "the cause must precede the effect in time" and "even a strong correlation is insufficient to prove causation." I also thought it was usefull to know that causal arguements use both difference  and commonality reasoning. In conlusion, even though we have already learned about cause and effect. This website helped to give more information on cause and effect. It is good to know more details about it in order to fully grasp the concept.

Analogies in the Law

According to the Epstein texbook, analogies in the law "are presented as detailed, carefully analyzed arguments, with the important similarities pointed out a general principle stated " (Epsetin 257).  We are reasoning  by analogy when we draw a conclusion from comparing subjects which suggest an argyment. In the law, similarites and differences must be pointed out. We use reasoning by analogy in the law because when judges rule cases, they have use reasoning by analogy. They compare their opinions on what should be the outcome of the case and with history's opinion on how the case should be ruled. Like the constution for example. Law officials have compare the rules of the constitution to present day beliesfs. For instance people these days use reasoning by analogy when discussing the controversial law, "don't ask don't tell." People go back and forth with the constitutions laws and present day beliefs.

Difficult to understand

The most difficult reasoning strategy for me to understand was Reasoning by Anology. So I decided to do some internet research on this particular type of reasoning. I found out that Reasoning by Analogy is a form of inductive reasoning. According to the website that I found, it said that "A is like B" or "X is similar to Y." I also found out that Reasoning by analogy tries to find similar and not so similar characteristics of one thing. For instance is "Is brown hair similar to blond hair and is blond hair similar to red hair." In this statement we can use Reasoning by Anology. When you use reasoning by anology, the similar characteristics of all these subjects that it is all human hair. Red, brown, or blond hair can either be curly, straight, frizzy, smooth, long short, medium-lenght, or even wavy. But all these subjects are different in their color. Red, brown, or blond hair can vary in different shades of colors as well. Like dark-brown or light brown.
quotes from :http://www4.samford.edu/schools/netlaw/dh2/logic/analogy.htm

Reasoning by example

Out of all the different types of reasoning, I chose to discuss reasoning by example because I find it to be the most effective when trying persuade someone to believe in your statements or opinions. Reasoning by example is when you use examples from your real life. This gives the person your talking to a reason why to believe in what your are saying. The example could possible be a short story. For instance, a good example of exampling by reasoning would be, "You should drink more cups of milk. My grandmother did not drink enough milk when she was growing up in Nicaragua and she ended up having some bone problems when she was elderly." This a good example of reasoning by example because I am giving an example of from my own life which makes my statement more convincing because  the person I am telling to drink milk to will think if they don't drink milk, they will have bone problems like my grandmother. The personing listening to someone give evidence of they should believe their statements will be more likely to be persuaded. Therefore reasoning by example is not only effective, but persuasive as well.

Objective #1

Out of the objectives, I chose to work on Objective #1, which is "Write a bad argument in favor of affirmative action who only premises appeal to pity." Appeal to pity is a type of appeal to emotion, when people triy to get sympathy or pity from the person they are talking to in an argument. After completing the social organizations project, I know a little about PETA's platform. An example of a bad argument would be if PETA said, "We should all try and protect animals from harm. Animals have rights too, how would you feel if you were forced to be used as entertainment? Or how would you feel if scientists would use you in experiments against your will? This is the kind of cruelty animals go through. You don't want animals to suffer right? Please donate some money or your time to help join the fight against animal cruelty." This is a bad argument because its only premises appeal to pity. The argument has to have more plausibly premises. If the argument gave more information about what PETA stood for, it would probably be a much better argument.

Appeal to Emotion

The Epstein textbook discusses Appeal to Emotion in chapter 10. According to the text, appeal to emotion is "an argument is just a premise that says, roughly you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way" (Epstein 191). There are several different kinds of appeals to emotion. For instance there are: appeal to pity, appeal to fear, appeal to spite, calls in your debts, A feel-good argument and wishful thinking. The appeal to emotion that most striked me was appeal to fear. I agree with what the textbook says about polticians trying to manipulate and scare American citizens into voting for them. For instance, in this past midterm election there were political ads by Jerry Brown that were against Meg Whitman. The ads showed Meg Whitman saying the exact same things former governor Arnold Swarchenegger said in his speeches. Jerry Brown was trying to scare Californians into believing that if they voted Meg Whitman for governor, nothing would change and if they voted for him, things will be different in a positive way. This ad which used appeal to emotion was obviously very effective because Jerry Brown was the position of Governor of California.

Further Discusion

A topic that we have discussed that I believe needs further discussion is the slippery slope argument. In the book, it only gives one definition and it says that it "is a bad argument that uses a chain of condittionals, at least one of which is false or dubious "(Epstein 133). So I decided to do some research on the further definition of what is a slippery slope. According to my research, the slippery slope is if A occurs then the chances are mucher for B to occur as well. I found out that a slippery slope could also either have a fallacy or not. An example, if "a vase from the shelf falls down, it is more likely for the rest of the items on the shelves to fall down as well."A conjunction fallacy also relates to a slippery slope argument. A slippery slope argument basically means that if something happens that it will make something undirsarble to occur.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Slippery_slope

Usefulness

After completing the first two assignments I have learned a lot about how to make effective arguments, social organizations, and how to distinguish a weak arguments from a strong argument. For instance, assignment 2 which is based on Social Organizations gave me very useful knowledge. My group and I chose to discuss PETA which stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I was never aware of how animals were cruelly treated by humans for experiments, entertainments, clothing, and food. I was shocked by graphic images PETA put on their websites. For instance, there is video of a bull being killed for entertainment because it is traditional in that particular country. This assignment has made me contemplate my views about animals rights. Now, I feel that I stand against animals being used for entertainment, clothing and experiments. Animals are living organisms and deserve rights just like humans do. For this assignment, we had to find if there were any fallacies in the social organizations argument. I found a few like, "strawman". We also had to look for concealed claims. This assignment helped reinforce the lessons from the Epstein textbook.

Chapter 8

In Chapter 8, I learned about General Claims and their contradictories. The books says that people make general claims all the time by using the word, "some". For example, "some peoeple  will go to school tomorrow. According to the text, in order to use "some" it means that at least one person will go to school tomorrow in order for it to be true. People used the word "some" because they are not sure of the exact amount or number. A story that I have is, my psychology instructor was telling the class last week that
"some people will go to the experiment fair November 7th if they want to complete their required experiments assignment." My psychology instructor was mentioning how at least one person from the class will go to the experiment fair. In chapter 8, I also learned about Precise Generalities which are general statements that have a precise number in the the argument. For instance, a personal story of mine is that, my friend was telling me that "getting married doesn't always turn out to be a fairy tale because 50% of couples end up in divorce."

Reasoning in a chain and the Slippery Slope

I also learned about Reasoning in a chain and the slippery slope from Chapter 6.
According to the text there is a formula on how to reason in a chain. " If A, then B, If B, then C, So if A, then C" (Epstein 132). One example of reasoning with a chain is:
If Juan doesn't go to school tomorrow, he will fail his test.
If Juan fails his test, then Juan's parents would be upset with him.
If Juan's parents become upset with him, then he will not be getting a new car.
So if Juan doesn't go to school tomorrow, then Juan will not be getting a new car.

But you could also reason in a chain badly. Here is an example of reasoning in a chain badly:
Go to class! If you don't go to class then you might miss something important the professor talked about.
Then, you might fail a test. Then you might be put on academic probation. Then you will lose your scholarship. Then you will have to drop out of school. Your life would be over.

Although this is written badly, you can easily correct it.
The book talk about Slippery Slope argument which "is a bad argument that uses a chain of condittionals, at least one of which is false or dubious "(Epstein 133).

Raising Objections and Refuting an Argument

I learned about raising objections and refuting and argument in chapter 7.
People raise objections when somebody argues with an argument. According to the text, "raising objections is a standard way to show that an argument is bad"(Epstein 149). When someone raises objections we are showing that the argument is not strong or we start questioning a premise. An example of raising objections is
Bob: Going to college is a waste of time and money.
Ben: No its not, people go to college to start their careers and get a head in life. (objection)
Bob: Well, I can get ahead in life by working at a regular job and building my way up.(answer)
Ben: It will be easier just go to college, besides most careers want people to have at least a bachelors degree or even a masters degree. (objection)
Bob: The career that I'm thinking of getting into doesn't require me to go to college. (answer)

The textbook says that you can either refute and argument directly or indirectly. One way to directly refute an argument is to prove at least one of the premises is dubious. One way to indirectly refute an argument is to "reduce to the absurd" which is "to show that at least one of the several claims is false or dubious" (Epstein 150).

Compound Claims and the Contradictory of a Claim

Two things that I learned  from chapter 6 were compound claims and the contradictory of a claim.
According to the text, a compound claim is "one composed of other claims, but which has to be viewed as just one claim" (Epstein 113). The word "or" can connect to claims and turn it into a compound claim. An example of a compound claim is "Either Tanya will attend Stanford University in the fall or will attend UC Berkeley in the fall."

According to the text the contradictory of a claim is "one that has the opposite truth-value in all possible circumstances. Sometimes a contradictory is called the negation of a claim" (Epstein 114). An example of a the contradictory of claim is, "My mom is going to Whole Foods this afternoon.....My mom is not going to Whole Foods this afternoon." Another example is, "My mom or dad will wash the car today....Neither my mom nor dad will wash the car today."

Inferring and Implying

According to the textbook Inferring and Implying is "when someone leaves a conclusion unsaid, he or she is implying the conclusion. When you decide that an unstated claim is the conclusion, you are inferring that claim" (Epstein 74). It is very common for people to imply things during everyday conversation. We assume that everybody will know the unstated conclusion because it seems obvious. People have to remember that everybody is different and some things may see obvious to one person but not to another person. Sometimes, it is better to just be upfront and say exactly what you are trying to say.  An example of a statement where someone is implying something is "Bob doesn't like restaurants that sell greasy food, therefore he doesn't like Jack in the Box." I can infer from this statement that Bob won't eat at Jack in the Box because it sells greasy food according to him.

Advertising and the Internet

I chose to discuss this advertisment of Beyonce Knowles as the spokesperson for the makeup line, "Loreal Cosmetics."In this Advertisement, there is a quote by Beyonce who says, "This makeup is so true to my own skin, it actually mimics it." According to section B of the textbook people must either reject or accept claims. Viewers will either reject or accept this claim from personal experience or other sources. People might have already tried this foundation and had good results. Or they might have tried it, and have had negative results. Fans of beyonce knowles might accept the claim simply because they trust that Beyonce would never be a spokesperson for Loreal unless she really believed and used the products. This advertisement is considered an  argument according to section C because many advertisements are arguments with conclusions telling people to buy the product. The premise of the Loreal advertisement is that Beyonce uses Loreal foundation and she loves it. Therefore, people should buy the foundation.

Repairing Arguments

The book gives us many different examples of arguments that need to be repaired or are just fine the way they are. A good example that I have chosen comes from my own personal experiences. For instance, " Not having my own car is a nusiance because I always have to rely on other people. My friends always have to give me rides when we hang out. My dad is always late when he has to pick me up form places. All of my friends have their own cars except me. As soon as I find a job, it will be difficult to get a ride to go work my shifts because I don't have my own car. Therefore, my parents should buy me my own car.

This argument is pretty good except for the sentence, "My friends always have to give me rides when we hang out," because the argument will be better without it.

Organizational Culture

The definition of organizational culture from the Group Communication text is "its members' relatively stable perceptions of their organization and norms--emerges over time, in much the same way as  the cultures of nations  or ethnic groups develop."

The book says that having good communication either requires you to understand the culture or let the culture guide you about what are appropriate behaviors in a organization. For instance, some organizations encourage their members ask questions give their opinions and suggestions. While other organizations do not like having open communication. These type of organizations would rather have their members just do their own work and then go home with no questions asked. It depends on a person's personality if they want an organization that is similar to a family or just work.

Depending on the organizational culture, each organization has its own idea of how they take risks. There a few organizations that will give praise to a person who takes a risk. But other organizations would rather not take risks and stick to the plan.

Violating the Principle of Rational Discussion

I chose to discuss Begging the Question which states, "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."

This is basically saying that the first few statements that a person is arguing about have to be believable because the argument would be considered weak if the premises were not plausible. People are not going to agree or understand what you are arguing about if the premises are not plausible. The people listening would probably just choose to not listen to the argument.

One example of Begging the Question that I can remember from my everyday life is me arguing with my parents to buy me and own car. My argument was, "Not having a car gives me too many restrictions, I have to rely on others for rides and it gets too inconvenient for my dad and I because we both have to share the car. I am late to everything because I don't have my own car and it restricts me from getting a part-time job."

The premises of my argument are believable which it make it a strong argument.

"My neighbor should be forced to get rid of all the cars in his yard. People do not like living next door to such a mess. He never drives any of them. They look old and beat up and leak oil all over the place. It is bad for the neighborhood, and it will decrease property values" ( Epstein 225).

Argument? : yes
Additional premises need?: He never drives any of the cars so he should be forced to get rid of all the cars in his yard.
Identify any subargument: Sentence 4, "They look old and beat up all over the place" is a subargument.
Good Argument? Yes because the preises are probable.

This exercise was pretty useful because I was able to analyze ad disset an argument. It gave me a better understanding about what makes a good argument by breaking it down and looking at each sentence. Now, I am able to look at arguments and analyze each sentence and see whether or not it is plausable and if it supports the main argument.

Types of Leadership

One section that I found interesting in the Small Group Text was the different types of leadership there are. The textbook says that there are four decision-making styles when it comes to leaders. The four types are authoritatrian, consultative, participative, and laissez-faire. Authoritarian leadership is when the leader does not consult any decisions with their group. Usually the group members aren't satisfied with this type of leadership. Consultative leadership is when the leader takes the opinions and input of their group into consideration before making a big decision. Participative leadership is when the leader actually works with its group to achieve goals and tasks. Decisions will usually will take longer but everybody in the group is usually satisfied. Lastly, Laissez-faire leadership doesn't directly lead the group. The group will work on their own without much or any leadership. The text says that the group is typically not satisfied with this type of leadership.

Strong Vs Valif Agruments

A strong argument is an argument that has good reason behind it. In order to determine whether an argument is valid strong is to have the conclusion follow the premises. . The premises have to be more probable than the conclusion of the argument in order for the argument to be considered to be strong.


An example of a strong argument is "The store, Jessica McClintiock only sells dresses because everyone I have seen or talked to buy only dresses from there. Therefore Jessica McClintock does not sell clothing that is not formal dresses." This is an example of a strong argument because the conclusion follows the premise. The store, Jessica McClintock does not selling other clothes like jeans, or shirts because the story is mainly formal dresses for young women.

An example of a valid argument is “Beth said she got an A in English class. I believe her because all her tests were A’s and she always turned in her homework on time. So she really did get an A in English class.”

A Good Arguement

According to the textbook, there are three tests for an argument to be considered a good arguement. The first test is the argument's premises have to be probable. The second test is that the premises have to be stonger than the conlusion of the argument. The third test is that the argument must be valid.

Here is an example of an arguement : "Bob cell phone service provider is Verizon Wireless. But the other day he came in to work talking on his iphone. Therefore, Bob changed his cell phone provider to AT&T."

This argument is a good argument because most people know that AT&T is the only cell phone service provider that carries that iphone right now. The first premise is most likely true. But the conclusion could be false because perhaps Bob was using someone else's phone which happened to be the iphone. This arguement passed the first two tests I mentioned. But I am not sure if it passes the last test. The arguement is relatively strong but not very strong. There could be other reasons why Bob is talking on an iphone.

Prescriptive Claims and Value Judgements

In chapter two of the textbook, "Critical Thinking", Prescriptive Claims, Descriptive Claims and Value Judgments are discussed. A prescriptive claim is a claim that tells the reader what should be. For example, "Wearing animal fur as clothing is cruel," is a prescriptive claim because it is telling the reader they should not wear animal fur as clothing. A descriptive claim  just states something and does not say what should be like a prescriptive claim. An example of a descriptive claim is, "Bob has a blond hair." A value judgement is a very vague claim that suggests what is right, wrong, good, bad, better, worse, etc. One example of a value judgement is "Doing drugs is bad." This sentence is a value judgement because it is vague and has the word, "bad". The word, "bad," implies what people should not do. The sentence is vague because there are many questions that could be asked about it. For instance, which drugs? Coffee is a drug, is that bad too? How are drugs bad? Bad for a person emotionally or physically?

Vague and Ambiguous Sentences

A vague sentence is a sentence that could be understood in several different ways and theres no way of finding out what the sentence truly means until the speaker clarifies what the sentence actually means. An ambiguous sentence is a sentence that either has two or very few ways to be understood.

My example of a vague sentence comes from watching television the other day and a perosn said that "Many young people like President Obama." This a definitely a vage sentence because people can ask so many questions about it. How young are the "young" people? High Students? College Students? People in their late 20's and 30's? Do the young people like him for his policies or just because he seems like a cool guy? How many young people across the country? Therefore this sentences is a vague sentence because there are many ways to  understand it.

My example of a ambigous statement is hearing two people talk at the grocery store. Behind me was a mother and her daughter, the mother told her daughter that "the meeting would be at 8 o clock tomorrow."
When I heard that sentence, I wondered, 8:00am or 8:00 pm? This is a ambiguous sentence because there are only two ways of understanding it.

Subjective and Objective Claims

According to the reading, a subjective claim depends on a person opinion or feels. An objective claim does not depend on how someone feels or thinks. Here are examples of a subjective and objective claim:

My boyfriend and I were talking on the phone today, and we were discussing how he is liking his new living situtation at San Francisco State University. My boyfriend told me, "Living in my own apartment is way better than living in a dorm." His claim is an example of a subjective claim because he is making that statement from his own personal experiences from living in a dorm his freshman year. His claim may or may not be true depending on the persons beliefs and expeirences.

Yesterday, when I was talking to my mom in the kitchen. We were discussing some of our favorite movies, and I told her that the movie, 27 Dresses is one of my favorite movies. She then asked me when the movie was released and I told her, "27 Dresses was released in 2008." This is an example of an objective claim because it does not depend on what someone believes in.

Introduction

Hello! I'm Rossi and I am going into my second year at SJSU. The exerience I have had with "communication" is little. But Last semester I did take com20. I hope to get some more understanding on how to make important decisons that are occuring in my life. I hope this class helps me become less indecisive. I actually have no experience with online classes. This is the first online class I am taking. Some of my interests are playing tennis, swimming, running, shopping, reading and spending time with people I care about! :-)