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.