Post 3 12/8

  For the last post of the semester, I found something from Chapter 14 which seemed useful, which is the concept of generalizations. According to Epstein, generalizing involves concluding "a claim about a group, the population, from a claim about some part of it, the sample" (280). For example, here is a generalization that can correspond to the current issue of college athletes getting paid to play college sports: Of the college athletes that were interviewed,  55 percent said that they were paid to go to the college which they attend in order to play sports. So about 55 percent of all college athletes get paid to play sports for their school. In this argument, the sample is the group of student athletes who were interviewed, and the population is all college athletes. Because the same proportion of the whole as in the sample will have the property, this is a sample of a statistical generalization.

Post 2 12/8

When I first signed up for this class, I did not know what to expect because I had never taken an online class before. I was also curious to see how an online communications course would work, because I had previously taken Comm 40 with Professor Harris and enjoyed that class. However, one of my favorite things about this class was having the opportunity to interact with a group for the projects throughout the semester. It was helpful to have the same group for the semester has well because it was cool to build relationships with those people and have trust in each other to get our parts of the projects done, instead of having to get comfortable with a whole new group for each project. Something that I did not like about this class was that the projects seemed like they were rushed and that we had to find seven to ten people from outside of class for the public relations part of the project, which is a lot because other people are also very busy. This class can be improved by possibly having more instruction on the projects because it seemed like my group had many questions about each project.

Post 1 12/8

   Over the course of the semester, I believe that I learned a lot from this communications class. All of the concepts which we learned in this class seem to be very important for every day life, whether it comes to using claims or fallacies when speaking out in a group. Especially in college, you are meeting so many people and need to develop new social skills to connect with people, and this class is needed to develop those skills. For me, this class comes in handy as well because I work at PF Changs as a server and I am talking to many people each day that I have never met before. One of the many things I learned this semester was the difference between prescriptive and descriptive claims. For example, at work this weekend it was very busy and the food was taking a long time to get to the tables. For my table, one of their entrees took thirty minutes to get to them. They were nice about it and knew that we were busy, but i told them that we would take care of that dish because it should have been ready with the rest of their food.  At that moment, I realized that I had made a prescriptive claim, which is a claim that says what should be.

Post 3 11/19

   Another concept of Chapter 15 which I found useful is the Cause and Effect in Populations section. According to Epstein, cause in populations is usually explained as "meaning that given the cause, there's a higher probability that the effect will follow than if there were not the cause" (320). For example, for this type of cause you could come up with an argument for why people who do not work out or exercise have a much higher probability of being overweight than those that do exercise. Also, there are different types of evidence to use for a cause in population. The first type of evidence is that there must be a control group. The control group is used to isolate any uncontrollable phenomena by not being subjected to the unknown variable being tested. If the experiment is uncontrollable, it is known as cause-to-effect if it starts with the suspected cause and you see if the effect happens. On the other hand, in an effect-to-cause, you start with the effect on the population, then try to figure out how it got there.

Post 2 Mission Critical Website

   The Mission Critical Website is different from the Causal Arguments, in which I thought the Causal Argument website was odd because it started by providing an example before going into detail about what they are. However, both links are helpful in their own way. When first going to the Mission Critical Website, it is somewhat overwhelming because there are too many links on the main menu. After reading through the website and clicking on the different links, I found that this site has so much information related to critical thinking and I will definitely be using it to study for the final. In addition to the many links which provide so much information for the basics of arguments, analysis of arguments, fallacies, and non rational persuasion, there are practice exercises and exit exams provided for each section. Something new I learned from this website is an appeal to vanity, which is a fallacy used to create a predisposition toward agreement by paying compliments, also known as apple polishing. Overall, Mission Critical is a very informative, useful website.

Cause Effect Website 11/17

   I thought that the Cause and Effect Website tool was very useful because it had a lot of information, starting with the main page which focuses on causal arguments. I did not know that using inductive reasoning by arguing causation was such a simple concept to understand, because it is always used in the court room. In the court room, the lawyers of both the plaintiff and of the defendant are constantly making arguments to causation while trying to sway the jury's opinions and reach the verdict. Another example similar to that of the exercises from the link on the main menu is if you and all three of your roommates go out to eat at La Vic's and everyone orders the same thing, a burrito with carne asada. The next day, everyone has to stay at home and miss class because everyone has food poisoning. Therefore, the idea which may be considered the most significant "commonality" in their illness must be the fact that all of the roommates ate a burrito at La Vic's, not they they all went to the gym together.

Ch.12 Post 3

Another concept in Chapter 12 is called Judging Analogies. When judging analogies, it is necessary to survey the similarities and guess on the more important ones so that we can find a general principle that applies to both sides. After this step, the differences are surveyed too see if there is not some reason that the general principle might not apply to one side. According to Epstein, there is a list of questions to ask yourself when evaluating an analogy: Is this an argument and what is the conclusion? What is the comparison? What are the premises? What are the similarities and can we state the similarities as premises and find a general principle that covers the two sides? Does the general principle really apply to both sides and do the differences matter? Is the argument strong or valid and is it good? (pg. 257) Something else to watch out for when judging analogies is a fallacy of composition, which comes about when something is supposedly true of the whole analogy when really only part of the whole is true.

Post 2

A form of reasoning that was somewhat difficult to understand was reasoning by criteria. The question that I had about this form of reasoning is: Can you experience reasoning by criteria by just making decisions based on a set of rules, acting as the criteria? In order to know if someone is using this form of reasoning, you define the criteria by which the outcome of a decision will be judged, and then, given those constraints, you are to identify the best decision. First, you have to establish the standards as being valid for a logical argument, and the criteria which appeal to common values are usually more likely to be easily accepted. An example of this is: "I guess you want something nice to wear when you go out to dinner. How about this outfit?" Instead of just saying "get this," the first example is more accurate for reasoning by criteria because we specifically know that the individual wants a nice outfit. By stating "get this," it does not give any criteria for which kind of outfit it is, and for all we know they could be looking at some gym clothes because there is no criteria for what the individual wants to wear to dinner.

Reasoning By Analogy Post

The first form of reasoning is reasoning by analogy, in which we draw a conclusion on one side of a comparison, so that it will make it easier to draw a conclusion on the other side of the comparison. An example of this is: We don't blame the police for crime. Police and crime are like doctors and injuries. Therefore, we should not blame doctors for injuries. Sign reasoning can be a linked cause and effect reasoning with more certainty. For example, "Where there's a leak, there's a flood in the bathroom." Causal reasoning is the idea that any cause leads to a certain effect. "My tire is flat because I ran over a nail." Reasoning by criteria is comparing against established criteria. An example of this is the way a teacher may grade an essay, based on the criteria they have set for you to follow. Reasoning by example is the use of examples in an argument. "You should work out more often. My friend works out all of the time and says it relieves stress." Also, an example of inductive reasoning is "All of the basketball players we have seen here are tall. Therefore, all basketball players are tall." Lastly, an example of deductive reasoning is "All college students are smart. Bryan is a college student. So, Bryan is smart."

Post 3 11/6

   From exercise #7 in Chapter 10, it asks for an example of appeal to patriotism. An appeal to patriotism is a fallacy which is also known as a type of appeal to authority. In order for someone to be considered patriotic, he or she is showing love and devotion to their country. Therefore, an appeal to patriotism can be considered as a type of fallacy in which someone attempts to gain support for his or her idea by displaying their to devotion and love for their country. In a 2005 online article called "Protesters Make Appeal to Patriotism in Opposing War," Glen Warchol talks about a confrontation that took place in a conservative part of Salt Lake City, Utah between pro-Bush veterans and war protestors. Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson was a large part of the controversy, stating that "we can debate, as we should in a free country, the decisions of our political leaders. But we must always support without wavering, and be grateful toward our men and women in the armed forces." This article can be found at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0823-04.htm

Pg 195 #6

   An appeal to spite is a type of appeal to emotion which deals with the hope of revenge. When demonstrating this fallacy, someone attempts to win an approval for an argument by taking advantage of the opposing party's feelings of bitterness, or animosity. In other words, an appeal to spite can sway the audience emotionally by associating a hate-figure with opposition to the speaker's argument. Here is an example of an appeal to spite:
Joe: I think that Bob did a great job this year. He was our best player, so I am going to nominate him for the MVP award.
Bill: Joe, did you forget about last year? You put up the best numbers last year but you did not win the award because Bob did not nominate you.
Joe: Oh yeah, you're right. I'm not going to nominate him anymore.
Even though this is not a good argument, the argument is still valid. The premise needed for this to be a good or strong argument is "Do not nominate anyone who has refused to nominate you."

Appeal to Emotion

   An appeal to emotion is a premise that states that you should believe something because it corresponds with how that certain something can make you feel a certain way. According to Epstein, "emotions do and should play a certain role in our reasoning" (191). There are certain types of appeals to emotion, such as appeal to pity and appeal to fear. An appeal to pity is categorized as a fallacy in which somebody tries to win support for an argument by abusing his or her opponent's feelings of guilt. An appeal to fear is when a person wants to create support for his or her ideas by using propaganda to try and increase fear or prejudice toward a competitor.

  The type of appeal to emotion which caught my attention is the appeal to fear because I read that it is very common in politics and marketing. This goes perfectly with election time because there are many different fallacies brought up, but I am unsure of which ones they use when seen on t.v. Appeal to fear corresponds with the ad on t.v. where Jerry Brown was attacking Meg Whitman by showing video clips of her stating the same things that Arnold Schwarzenegger said during his term as governor. Therefore, Jerry Brown was using an appeal to fear by showing that his competitor will not be a good fit for California.

Post 3 10/23

   A concept from Epstein that can be difficult to understand is in Chapter 11, which talks about different types of fallacies. According to Epstein, a fallacy is "a bad argument of one of the types that have been agreed to be typically unrepairable" (199). This definition from the book seemed to be somewhat confusing, and another description I found from the website http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ describes a fallacy as "an error in reasoning." There are two types of fallacies, in which a deductive fallacy is an invalid fallacy whose premises are true and the conclusion is false. An inductive fallacy is "less formal" and "the premises do not provide enough support for the conclusion."

   For the project, I worked on the fallacies part of the paper and a new fallacy which i found is "mob appeal." The website http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/041105 describes mob appeal as a fallacy which "encourages the viewer to join the preverbial throngs of people who are doing a particular act."

Social Organizations

    Both class projects have been very useful and it is fun and interesting to work with classmates from an online class whose blogs we are commenting on each week because we can actually get to meet them. So far I have found the second project, Critical Thinking and Social Organizations, more useful and entertaining. I have always heard about different social organizations such as American Red Cross, Green Peace, MADD, and PETA, but have never taken the time to research them and find out what their different goals are.
   My group chose PETA for our project, which stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. This group goes to very far lengths to let their message be known that they want people to "Go Veg" by not wearing any type of animal fur or skin and not eating meat. This made for a good topic because it was very amusing to see the pictures of people locking themselves in cages, or getting wrapped up in serran wrap, like they are a piece of grocery meat. I was able to find out about the different types of reasoning and the fallacies used by PETA. Also, it was helpful to learn APA format for this project because I have always used MLA and was not familiar with APA at all.

Ch 8 General Claims

According to Epstein, general claims "assert something in a general way about all or part of a collection" (159). An example of a general claim is "All good students do their homework. Bob did his homework. So bob is a good student. Although it is a general claim, it is not valid because the premises may be true, yet Bob might not have completed all of his assigned homework from last week. 

When making a general claim, there are very clear meanings to certain words such as all, some, no and only, so you have to be careful about what you say in the claim. When someone claims that "all" athletes are fast, there are also saying that everyone who is an athlete is fast. Also, stating that "some" pit bulls are nice, means that at least one pit bull is nice. Other words which Epstein clarifies are "no," which also means "every single one is not" (160). Also, the contradictory of a claim has opposite truth value. For example, for a claim being "some babies cry," the contradictory would be "no babies cry."

Slippery Slope

Something that I found interesting which corresponds to Compound Claims in Chapter 6 is a slippery slope argument. According to Epstein, a slippery slope argument is a "bad argument that uses a chain of conditionals, at least one of which is false or dubious." In order for something to be a conditional claim, the claim must be able to be rewritten as "if...then..." or "if A, then B." Here is an example of a slippery slope argument between two people: 

A: Don't move to Southern California.

B: Why not?

A: Because going to the beach is your favorite thing to do and if you move to Southern California, you will end up staying there forever.

B: What's wrong with that?

A: Then you will not be able to see your family and friends every day. You will have to make new friends. Those people won't even be as nice as us. Soon you will be stuck down there with people you do not like, looking for a new job, and regretting that you moved.

B: Okay you are right. I'll stay in Northern California instead.

Ch. 7 Counterarguments

Something that corresponds with counterarguments is the act of refuting an argument. In order to refute, or argue against, an argument, there are different steps which must be taken into consideration. You must show that the argument is not valid or strong, that at least one of the premises is debatable, and that the conclusion is false.
An argument that can be refuted is: It is pointless to buy a brand new car. They all look cool on the freeway and make you feel good. However, over time the value drops tremendously. So it is pointless to buy a brand new car. You can object to the premise that they all look cool, and attack the conclusion by stating that some do not lose value and that it is a smart buy to get a new car.
Another aspect of a counterargument is refuting indirectly. Even though there is something wrong with the premises, sometimes you just cannot pan out which premise is actually debatable. Some arguments like this are refuted by reducing to the absurd, which is when you show that several of the claims are actually false and lead to an inaccurate conclusion.

Chapter 6 Compound Claims

A factor that applies to the structure of arguments is a compound claim. According to Epstein, a compound claim is "one composed of other claims, but which has to be viewed as just one claim." The propositional function of a compound claim depends on the truth-values of the claims that come along with it. An example of a compound claim is "either I will finish my homework tonight or I will wake up early and finish it right before class." When looking at a compound claim, the alternative will be the part of the "or" claim.

A conditional claim is a type of compound claim. If a statement is to be considered a conditional claim, you have to be able to re-write the claim as "if...then..." The statement after "if" is known as the antecedent and the statement after "then" is known as the consequent. An example of a conditional claim is "If the Oakland Raiders make the playoffs this year it will be a miracle." In this claim the antecedent is "the Oakland Raiders make the playoffs," and the consequent is "it will be a miracle."

Common Mistakes

When you are evaluating premises of an argument, there are many different types of common mistakes which can be made. The first is arguing backwards, which according to Epstein is "a mistake to reason that because we have a strong or valid argument with a true conclusion, its premises must be true."
For example, Bryan went out to dinner to eat and was unaware of the ingredients in a certain sauce. Bryan is allergic to seafood. So Bryan has been swelling up in the throat. This is backwards because it is arguing from the truth of the conclusion back to the truth of the premises, meaning that Bryan might just have a cold.

Another common mistake is bad appeal to authority. This is when we tend to believe a claim just because of who said it. For example, when President Obama says that "our economy is improving everyday," and people instantly believe so because that is what the President said, it is a bad appeal to authority. Other mistakes are the confusion of plausibility with possibility, mistaking the person for a claim or for the argument.

Here is the link to my ad for advertising and the internet: http://espn.go.com/
ESPN is a sports website which has many different ads each day. Besides all of the sports scores and news, ESPN has ads for movies such ass "Jackass 3D," which was being advertised today when i visited the website.
This ad is catchy because it is at the top of the website and is short, but gets straight to the point. It reads, "Jackass 3D experience it in realD 3D and digital 3D, in theaters October 15." This claim is that the movie is coming out on October 15 and that you will be able to watch it in 3D. This claim is believable because it is easily accepted as true and from experience everyone will believe when a movie will be released when an opening date is set, and people make plans to go see the movie. Whether a movie is advertised on the internet, television, or a billboard, they always catch the eye because it is a source of entertainment, which is very intriguing.

Repairing Arguments

When you discuss or read an argument, you must assume that the other person knows about the particular subject indicated in the discussion, that the other person is able to reason well, and that they are not lying. These are the principles of rational discussion, which correspond with being able to repair an argument. When repairing an argument, a premise or conclusion can be added if the argument becomes either valid or stronger, if the premise is plausible and seems to be so to the other person, and that the premise is more plausible than the conclusion.

Here is an example of an argument which needs to be repaired: When Bobby's mom left the list of chores out which Bobby usually won't complete, Bobby ran over and finished his chores right away. So Bobby needed some money. In order for this to be a good argument, a premise needs to be added, such as, "When kids hurry to get their chores finished which they usually do not want to complete, then they probably need money." This statement is plausible and makes for a good argument, because money is motivation for kids who want something and can only get it by making some cash from their parents by doing chores.

Ch.4 Group Text: Superiors and Subordinates

In Chapter 4 of "Group Communication," the author talks about the relationships between superiors and subordinates. This is a type of organizational relationship deals with the communication in a business between managers and employees. Management and its staff have many issues to talk about, including complaints, projects, performance, and what needs to be done to improve the company and its work environment.

As a server trainer at P.F. Chang's in downtown San Jose, I know that the relationship between the superiors and subordinates is very important. There are many issues to cover which our management communicates to me, and I relay our discussion to the other employees. For example, yesterday our trainers and managers had a long meeting going over changes that are going to be made in the restaurant, including many brand new items for our happy hour menu. I was able to try every dish so that our managers could get feedback on how we feel about the new food. Some stragegies were needed in order to make the meeting successful, including approaching the meeting with an open mind, minimizing any distractions from inside the restaurant, and exhibiting active listening skills.

Content Fallacies

According to Epstein, an arugument is considered a fallacy if the premise is questionable and does not support the conclusion. An example of a fallacy that deals with a lack of clarity is the drawing the line fallacy. It is found when a concept is rejected because it is too unclear and if you cannot draw a straight line in order to determine the outline of the concept.

Here is an example of a drawing the line fallacy:
Bob can never be called fat. Bob isn't fat now, however if he eats one more donut, that won't make him go from not fat to fat either. If he eats one more donut after that, this one gain will not either make him go from not fat to fat. Therefore, no matter how many donuts he eats, he can never be called fat.

This argument would be rejected because it is very unclear and a straight line cannot be drawn when trying to figure out the outline of this argument. So, it is considered a drawing the line fallacy.

Structure of Arguments

1 I'm on my way to school. 2 I left five minutes late. 3 Traffic is heavy. 4 I'll be late for class. 5 I might as well stop and get breakfast.

Argument- Yes

Conclusion- Since I am going to be late for class, I might as well stop and get breakfast.

Additional Premises Needed- Yes, additional premises are needed. The person does not give a reason for why they are going to be five minutes late for class in the first place. Even though they will be late, there is not a good enough reason to go ahead and go to breakfast because all that will do is make them arrive to class even later. This shows that there should be a premise added after claim number four so it can be connected to the fifth claim.

Identify Any Subargument- Claims 1,2, and 3 are subarguments which support the 4th claim that traffic is heavy. Claim 4 and the claim that they might as well be very late or miss the class support the conclusion.

- Since a premise is needed to connect the 4th and 5th claim, this is not a good argument.
- This argument was helpful because I learned how to better analyze complex arguments and think about which premises can connect to conclusions.

Plausible Claims

In Chapter 3, Epstein briefly talks about plausible claims, but it is not hard to learn what the purpose of a plausible claim actually is. When writing a plausible claim, it can be a recognized as a response to some type of literature, and they are seen very often in a court room. According to Epstein, "A claim is plausible if we have good reason to believe it is true" (38). If someone is not completely sold on a claim that, for example, you are trying to make, your claim is less plausible because that person does not have a very good reason to believe your claim is absolutely true. If there is no reason to believe a claim is true, that claim is considered skeptical and implausible. Even the Supreme Court now requires that a plaintiff must state a plausible claim for relief, which I noticed last semester when I had to sit through a case for a class project. The plaintiff said "I am suing Bob for stabbing my daughter with a knife because she has a hole in her chest." This claim was considered plausible because they had pictures of the girls' wound in the court room, and the girl said that the man who she recognized was the one that stabbed her.

Strong Vs. Valid Arguments

Distinguishing between a strong argument and a valid argument may seem complicated, but they are used all the time and apply to the concept of making a good argument. In a valid argument, it is not possible for the conclusion to be false if the evidence of the argument is actually true. For instance, Bob is a basketball player. All basketball players are tall. So Bob is tall. My example shows that this is a valid argument because there is no way that the premises are true and the conclusion could be false at the same time. Even though the conclusion is true, it makes for a valid but bad argument because there have been some short basketball players.
A strong argument has a true conclusion to go along with its true premises. An example of a strong argument is from the other day when I was at work at P.F. Chang's. The customer said, "Every time I eat shellfish lately I feel ill. It can't be any of the sauce you use, because the other day I had shellfish at home I got sick. I must have a shellfish allergy." This is a strong, and good argument because I knew the customer was not lying since I had to guide her to a shellfish-free meal. However, it is not valid because this lady may have had some virus which reacts with shellfish to make you feel worse.

Ch.3 Tests for an Argument to be Good

According to Epstein, there are three tests to look at before an argument can be considered to be good. First, the premises must be reasonable, or believable. It must be more logical than the conclusion, and finally, the argument has to be valid or strong. For example, the best college football teams in the nation are ranked numbers one through twenty-five. This weekend, Alabama was ranked number one and beat San Jose State. So, Alabama is the best college football team in the nation. In this argument, the premises are logical, and are more believable than the conclusion. It is true that the best college football teams are ranked by numbers one through twenty-five, and it is true that Alabama is number one. However, even though Alabama is ranked number one and should be considered the best team in the nation, someone else might believe number two ranked Ohio State should be considered the best team because they also won and are undefeated just like Alabama. This means that the premises are true, but the conclusion may be false. Overall, the argument is strong, but not valid. Since we know that college football teams are ranked and Alabama is currently number one, it makes a good argument.

Prescriptive and Descriptive Claims

Prescriptive and descriptive claims, from "Critical Thinking" by Epstein, are very simple concepts to understand and come about every day, whether you are at home, work, or at school. Descriptive claims state a fact, or are a true statement, and prescriptive claims are when someone suggests what ought to be. If you see the words "should" or "should not" in a sentence, that sentence is probably a prescriptive claim. An example of a descriptive claim is "Bryan is a student at San Jose State." This is descriptive because it is a statement about what already is, or a known fact. Anyone that knows me, or is in this class, already knows that I attend San Jose State. An example of a prescriptive claim is" Bryan should get his homework done prior to the deadline." This is prescriptive because I need to and should get my homework done before the Saturday night deadline. Whenever you hear about something that "should" be, now you know that it is a prescriptive claim.

Vague Sentence

Even though some sentences appear as claims, they may not be completely up to par and might qualify as vague sentences. When the speaker needs to make his or her sentence clearer because there are so many ways to understand it and you cannot settle on one way, they are expressing a vague sentence.

An example of a vague sentence for me reminds me of last year when I was at an event in San Francisco with my girlfriend and a group of friends. There were a ton of people at the event and at one point I split up with the group to get something to drink. While I'm gone, my girlfriend splits from the group and cannot find them. She calls me to meet up with her and says "I'm standing under the green flag, come meet me here." I look around and notice that there are about 20 of the same green flags spread around the complex. This is a vague sentence because I had to ask many questions in response in order to understand and settle on which flag she was standing by, and eventually I found her.

Subjective and Objective Claims

There are numerous types of subjective and objective claims. A claim that is subjective invokes personal standards and whether it is true or false depends on what an individual, or group of individuals, thinks, believes, or feels. In other words, when someone voices their opinion they are making a subjective claim. When watching "Sportscenter," there are many subjective claims throughout the show because there are so many different sports reporters with their own opinions. Yesterday when I was watching "Sportscenter" with my roommate, one reporter asserted that the "New Orleans Saints are going to repeat as Super Bowl Champions this year." This is a subjective claim because while the reporter believes the Saints will win, I stated that I think the Colts will win, and my roommate claimed that the Vikings will win the Super Bowl. The reporter's claim differs from other opinions, so it is a subjective claim.

A claim that is objective applies impersonal standards. An objective claim can be true or false, but has to be a statement about a factual matter. When I talked with someone today about when we should leave for a high school football game tomorrow, she asserted that "we have to leave earlier because it will take longer to get there in traffic." This can be proven to be true because traffic leads to a longer commute, so it is an example of an objective claim.

Introductory Post

Hi,

My name is Bryan and I am currently a junior. I have some communication experience in which I took Comm 40 with Professor Harris. It ended up being a 9 unit class which included having a debate on the radio station and I enjoyed it. This is my first online class, but I look forward to learning about how to communicate and interact better within a group. Some of my interests are sports, working, and hanging out with friends.