Generalizing

According to the book, generalizing basically means concluding a claim about a group from a claim about some part of it. I found this interesting because they way the book describes it, generalizing is something we do everyday and is how we "make sense of our world". In short, generalization are arguments, so they follow the same rules of whether or not an argument is strong, which is if it has a plausible premise. I liked the example the book used which was "28% of all smokers get cancer." This is a generalization based off findings by poll takers or scientists, and shows that it is something we always see in everyday life. Any time you watch the news, numbers and percentages are always used. These are generalizations! We use them pretty much everyday to help us make decisions. For example you could say: "It's raining really hard today, I should slow down when driving or I could lose control like last time or like many others who have sped in the rain!"

What was your favorite thing about this class? What was your least favorite thing about this class? How can this class be improved?

My absolute favorite thing about this class was how I was able to work on the classwork at my own pace. This was really helpful because I work graveyard shift, so its nice to have some flexibility in one of my classes. I also liked that every week, all the information was pretty much laid out in a neat and organized manner. That definitely helped me stay on task! Good job professor Perez!

My least favorite thing would be the 12 hour post restriction! I know it is set in place to prevent procrasination, but it is definitely a pain, especially when you wait till the last minute. I found that some weeks I would have to carefully lay out my posts in order to meet the time limit on my final post.

Overall, this class has been great. All the assignments, tests, and group projects are fair, so I honestly can't think of anything to improve on!

What I learned over the semester.

Over the course of the semester, I have learned a ton of things, ranging from whether or not an argument is good or not to all the different type of fallacies. As a whole though, I think this class has definitely allowed me to become a much better critical thinker, in the sense that I can much better break down arguments or points out flaws in them. Not only can I now more efficiently point out weak points in arguments, I can also in turn make repairs by adding more or removing something to make it stronger. One thing I learned in particular that I found really useful was the different types of appeal to emotion. When reading about it, it was amazing to see how it was so commonly used in everyday life by pretty much everyone. In some way, shape, or form, you have probably appealed to someone's emotion before, so its great to be able to identify this when it arises!

Chapter 15

Reading through chapter 15, I found the section on "Two mistakes in evaluating cause and effect" to be the most interesting and useful because it was something that if I understood fully, would help me identify and break down cause and effect relationships later on. The two mistakes are reversing cause and effect and looking to hard for a cause.

The text gave a really great example for reversing cause and effect. Tom believed members joined an ecology group first, which then made them begin to rant and rave about a project to log on the forest. This is wrong because people don't join and then have those thoughts put into them. They are actually concerned with those kinds of issues even before they join.

The next mistake is looking to hard for a cause. The book uses quite a humorous example of Zoe belching loudly in the shower, which she believes made spot, their dog, run away. Its these instances where it seems like they aren't really thinking through the other possibilities, but rather trying too hard to find one!

Mission Critical Website

I really liked the Mission Critical site. All of the info is laid out in a way that it is extremely easy to find what you are looking for. Also browsing through the links gave me a ton of information about the different topics such as parts of an argument and all the different kinds of fallacies. Each section is also provided with an exercise that you can do to help you understand the topic better, which I thought was really useful because it is something you can practice on for the final. One thing that popped up in the previous exercise that I have never heard of before was "post hoc reasoning". Lucky for me, the Mission Critical website had a link explaining all about it. It is basically a falacy that states that "A preceeds B, therefore A caused B". Having it laid out in a simple manner like that really helped me to understand it, which is why I will definitely be reffering back to this site when it comes time to study for the final!

Cause and Effect

The cause and effect website was very useful in my opinion because of the example it used. The example of  how the bike swerved to avoid an illegally parked truck, but then caused an accident made it a lot easier to understand, because this is something that we can easily relate to. The example also went on to give more premises, which could actually change the cause of the accident, which was really interesting to me because of how one little thing could completely change the cause.

The site was also useful because it gave us a clear cut way to see the strength of a causal argument, which were:
1. How acceptable or demonstrable the implied comparison is.
2. How likely the case for causation seems to be.
3. How credible the "only significant difference" or "only significant commonality" claim is.

Using these three factors, one is able to judge the strength of a causal argument. Once the strength is measured, one will be able to easier make a decision on the cause, which is helpful in cases such as the one the example laid out.

Analogies in the Law

Reading through chapter 12, I came upon the section "Analogies in the Law". It caught my attention because the law is something I encounter on a day to day basis, and has the potential to affect my life tremendously if I were to make a wrong decision, so I continued reading on to see how analogies could be applied with the law. According to the book, most analogies are not detailed enough to be used as good arguments, but in the law's case, they are very detailed arguments, with similiarities and general principles being clear cut. Judges must know the similiarities in analogies in order to make the correct decision based on what past judges have ruled. When a judge feels the need to make a completely different decision that goes against past rulings, then he must find the differences between that case and the other. Once he finds those differences, he can make his new decision.

Reasoning by Analogy

Out of all the different types of reasoning given to us this week, I thought reasoning by analogy was a little difficult to get a grasp on. To solve this problem, I typed in "reasoning by analogy" into google, and found a great website that explained it fairly well. They define reasoning by analogy as "A is like B" or "X is similiar to Y". Seeing how reasoning by analogy can be broken into such simple parts really helped me to understand the concept. The site also stated that reasoning by analogy was simply another form of inductive reasoning, which also made it easier to grasp the concept because all I had to do was look at some inductive reasoning examples to really understand it better. I was glad this discussion question pushed us to do a little more research because now I feel I have a much better understanding of reasoning by analogy. All I have to do is fill in the blanks, like in the "A is like B" example!

Different Types of Reasoning (Real world examples)

Reasoning by analogy- You have to pay a toll to cross the bridge in a car. Bob is planning on driving across the bridge. He will have to pay a toll.

Sign Reasoning- Green means go, red means stop!

Casual Reasoning- I was late for my interview. This made me look like an irresponsible worker. Therefore I was not hired.

Reasoning by Criteria- Bob wants a new, flashy sports car. Will this BMW do?

Reasoning by Example- You want a well balance and quick sports car that still offers some levels of class and comfort? You should try a BMW M3! Alan has one and said that its the best car he's ever driven!

Inductive- Wow that liquor store is great! It's open 24/7 every day, even holidays! Anytime I stop by to buy something, I know it'll be open!

Deductive Reasoning- These finger prints belong to Bob. Bob's finger prints were found on the murder weapon. Bob is the killer!

3. Number 4 on Chapter 10 Exercises

4. Make an appeal to emotion for the next time a traffic officer stops you.

This really caught my eye as I was reading through the section because of how funny and true the fact is that many people will try to appeal to a police officer's emotion in order to get out of a ticket. I know if I got pulled over I would say pretty much anything to possibly make him more lenient, and hopefully out of a ticket. For example, If I got pulled over for speeding, and I knew I was definitely at fault, then I would probably say something along the lines of: "Sorry officer! I had to rush home because of a family emergency!" My hope in saying this is that the officer probably was in the same situation before and would understand my need to drive slightly faster. Either this or he would feel sorry for me and let me be on my way home to attend to my "emergency."

Appeal to Emotion

An appeal to emotion is basically an argument that affects you emotionally, meaning that it tries to influence you to think a certain way based on what they think you should feel. These kinds of arguments can be bad sometimes, but appealing to your emotion really makes you think its for a good cause.

Appeal to pity is a type of appeal to emotion and is the one that strikes me the most in my opinion. This applies when it is a situation in which you feel bad or sorry for someone. A common example I always see is TV commercials in which an organization or foundation shows that hardships of little kids in poverty. They usually ask for help or donations, which they say will all go to helping the kids. This kind of appeal to emotion actually affect me a lot because every time I see one of those commercials, I'll feel like donating some money, which I have in a few occasions.

Second Major Course Assignment

Out of the two assignments that we have worked on so far, I can definitely say that the second one was the most useful to me. Social organizations are quite common nowadays, and come in many different shapes, sizes, and all hold different purposes. This assignment really helped by allowing us to see what kind of questions we should be asking to really break down what a social organization is all about. My group for example did our paper on M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), which was really easy to go indepth with what they had to say after applying the questions the assignment asks us to answer. M.A.D.D. uses a lot of emotion to appeal because they are a group created by mothers who have lost loved ones due to drunk driving. Any loss, especially that of a loved one is very emotionally draining, and their stories are what drive the organization to do whatever they can to prevent drunk driving, especially in teens. Overall though, this assignment has made me much more aware of what social organizations can do to be more appealing to us.

What I Learned in Chapter 8

In chapter 8, I learned the exact definition of "some", which means "at least one" or "at least one, but not all." This really caught my attention because the examples they gave in the book showed just how vague using the word "some" is. The funny thing is, it is a word we all use frequently when we are unsure of our answer or if you want to be purposely vague. Take me for example, whenenver my Mom asks me if I've finished my homework, I'll simply reply, "Yeah, some of it..." To her, "some" means at least half, to me, its writing down the first sentence of my essay!


I also learned the direct way of reasoning with all.

All S are P
A is S
So A is P

Reasoning directly with all produces valid arguments, so its no wonder its something I frequently used myself, but didn't have a clear definition for, it was just something that I knew worked. For example, a discussion I had with my friend.

Jimmy: Hey is a 98 3-series rear-wheel drive?
Alan: Well, all BMWs up until recently are rear-wheel drive. That car is a 98 3-series, so I'm going to have to say yes, it is rear-wheel drive.

Contrapositives

A contrapositive is basically the equivalent to the original argument. The book uses "A" and "B" to explain this. "If A then B" and "If  not B then not A". It is a pretty concept overall and is something we run into all the time in our daily lives. Being able to identify the contrapositive sometime makes it easier to understand the original argument. It was kind of hard to grasps at first, but the example of getting a drivers licenses really cleared things up. That is, to be able to recieve a license, one must first pass the driving test. If you do not pass the driving test, then you do not have a license. As you can see, it is simply broken down using the "A" and "B". From this I was able to easily draw onto other examples such as "If the street light is green, you go" and "If you do not go then the light is not green".

What I Learned in Chapter 7

One thing I learned in chapter 7 is about raising objections. Raising objections is a great way to show that an argument is bad because it can show one of the claims to be dubious, it can show you directly why the argument is weak, or questions one of the premises of the original argument. Here's an example:

Bob: Let's go visit Mom and Dad in San Diego!
Kevin: It's too far...
Bob: We could take a plane!
Kevin: It's to expensive..
Bob: I'll pay for it then!
Kevin: Then we won't be able to afford rent when we get back...

I also learned three ways to refute an argument directly. One way is to point out that one or more of the premises are dubious. Another simple way that we have already learned is to show that the argument is valid or strong. The last way is pretty straight forward because all you have to do it prove that the conclusion is false. 

What I Learned In Chapter 6

One thing I learned in chapter 6 is the contradictory of a claim, which is a claim that, in any circumstance, will end up being entirely opposite of the original claim. I didn't know there was an official term that signified opposite claims, but it is a pretty easy concept to grasp. Here are some examples:

Bob is sleeping --- Bob is not sleeping

Bob will go for a run later --- Bob will not go for a run later

Another thing I learned about in chapter 6 is the concept of slippery slope arguments, which is a bad argument that piles on conditions after conditions, which might be false, and eventually collapses the argument on top of itself. Here's an example:

Kevin: Don't buy a BMW!
Bob: Why not?!
Kevin: Their reliability is horrible!
Bob: But newer BMWs are just as reliable as Hondas if maintained properly!
Kevin: No they're not. You'll end up broken down in the middle of nowhere and probably have to drop a ton of cash into fixing it. Not to mention it'll probably blow up a week after you get it fixed! Trust me, get a Honda!
Bob: *sarcasm* Your argument was very convincing Kevin...

As you can see, Kevin piles on a bunch of conditions that just continue to make his argument weaker and weaker, which shows a perfect example of what a slippery slope argument is!

Inferring and Implying

When you are implying something, you are basically leaving the conclusion unsaid. When you infer something on the other hand, you assume the unstated claim must be the conclusion.

This topic really caught my interest because I can refer to it so much in my personal life. With my friends, it seems like we are always having a mix up on what people say or do, based on the fact that everyone seems to either catch or miss the implication someone else makes. This can go the other way as well, when someone draws their own conclusion on something someone else says.

For example, the other day I told my friend "Hey, lets grab some coffee before work." It is implied that if we were to grab coffee, then he would have to be ready a little bit earlier so that I could pick him up and still have time to get some coffee before work started. He ended up not being ready at all, so we couldn't get any coffee because he assumed that we would still be leaving at the same time. I guess I should refer him to this class so he could use some critical thinking in order to catch my implications in the future haha!

Advertising on the Internet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLTIowBF0kE&feature=channel

You've probably seen the above commercial at one point or another, but if you haven't, it is basically a HILARIOUS commercial advertising Old Spice products for men! The commercial's basic layout that it uses in order to convince you to buy the product is to show you a man doing unbelievable things that aren't possible for the average male, but at least you can smell like this godly man! Now, can we accept his bold claims?

First we must identify the claim, which simply put is that using Old Spice will make you smell like the perfect man (refer to the commercial for all the examples!) One of the ways that you can accept or reject a claim is to use your personal experience, and in my personal experience, Old Spice smells pretty darn good, and is a product I use everyday! I guess if you could put it into words, Old Spice does make you smell like a godly man! So even though his claims are really outrageous, I can accept the claims because he is arguing that this is what a godly man smells like, not that Old Spice will make you able to do the unbelievable things he does in the commercial.

Repairing Arguments

Smoking cigarettes is bad. Smokers should all make the effort to quit.

In the above argument, you can see that the conclusion is "Smokers should all make the effort to quit" and the premise is "Smoking cigarettes is bad." What do they mean by "bad"? Since the premise is very vague, the argument is weak, but luckily we can add in another premise or two to repair the argument and make it a strong one! We can go on to talk about the numerous health risks that are associated with smoking, such as lung cancer, higher risk for heart attacks, and even yellowing of teeth. This list can go on and on, but we only need a few to help this argument. Expanding on what makes cigarettes "bad" not only makes the statement less vague, but also strengthens the argument. What we did with this argument in this case satisfies one of the criteria to count as repairing an argument, which is if it becomes stronger or valid, then it counts as a repair!

Practice Mentoring

Something interesting I read in "The Essential Guide to Group Communication" was a section on mentoring. A mentor is someone with much more experience in whatever field they are in, and are responsible for taking a protege, or less experienced employee, under their wing and showing them the ropes. Something I didn't know about this mentor-protege relationship is that there are actually stages that they will go through together.

The first stage is initiation, where they both get to know one another. Here is where the mentor must begin to give advice and the protege must be accepting and loyal.

The next stage is cultivation, where a sort of personal relationship begins to form. This is where the mentor will usually give the "I got your back" speech.

The third stage is separation, where the protege advances to the point where they are more independent from the mentor, whether is be a promotion or transfer.

The final stage is redefinition, where both parties share the same views as equals.

Concent Fallacies

The fallacy I chose to do is "Bad appeal to authority: (Almost) any argument that ____ gives about ____ is (probably) true. This means that just based on the fact that someone is in a place of authority, then their arguments would always be true. The problem with this is we are more prone to believe them because of their qualifications that make them authoritative in our eyes. For example, you know nothing about cars, and your car just broke down! So of course you're forced to take it to a mechanic for repairs. Upon checking out the car, the mechanic then piles up a huge list of what is wrong and needs to be fixed. You, not knowing a thing about cars are more likely to just nod your head in agreement. The fact is, this mechanic could be taking advantage of you and piling on extra repairs that aren't needed in order to make more money for himself! This situation is where "bad appeal to authority" really shines!

Structure of Arguments Exercise

Exercise #2:

Argument? Yes this is an argument. "I'm on the way to school. 1 I left five minutes late. 2 Traffic is heavy. 3 Therefore, I'll be late for class. 4 So I might as well stop and get breakfast. 5

Conclusion: I might as well stop and get breakfast.

Additional premises needed? You can definitely add additional premises to this argument if needed. For example after sentence 4 you could say "I can get the notes later from a classmate." This gives another reason for going to breakfast.

Identify any subargument: 1, 2, and 3 are the subarguments.

Good argument? This is not a good argument because it really could have used some extra backing to justify getting breakfast!

This exercise was actually very helpful in helping me breakdown the structure of arguments. It revealed all the seperate components and helped me to understand how to identify each part. It was definitely good practice for any future exercises that may require me to break down an argument!

The Four Types of Leadership

Reading through the Group Communication book brought me across the four types of leadership. I was always aware that different leadership styles existed as I had participated in many group activities over the years, but I didn't know that they were all specifically named. They are authoritarian, consultative, participative, and laissez-faire. Authoritarian and consultative leadership styles both yield member dissatisfaction, which I can agree with! Participating in a group where your input holds little to know value is really discouraging. Unfortunately I have been in groups like this and it is definitely not a fun or reward experience for that matter. The best leadership style I learned was participative, where the leader actually readily accept input and ideas. Any member's idea also has the ability to influence the way the group moves on with what they are doing. Groups like this are a pleasure to work in. It is the type of leadership I like to employ whenever I take charge of a group, and I have always had positive results every time!

Strong vs Valid Arguments

In strong arguments, the premises could all be true, but the conclusion could possibly be false. For example:

BMW prefers to manufacture all their vehicles with rear wheel drive. All BMWs to date have been rear wheel drive. In conclusion, BMW will only make rear wheel drive cars. *Statement disregards the small number of models that were made in all-wheel drive, pretend they never existed :P*

In this example, the premises are both true, and the conclusion is also true. BMW has been in business for decades, and has always boasted about the superiority of rear wheel drive over front wheel drive. It looked like they would never make a front wheel drive car, thus making it a strong argument. Here's what makes the conclusion possibly false. BMW has FINALLY decided to introduce a new front wheel drive car some time in the near future, thus making the conclusion false. No one saw that coming! Highly unlikely move from BMW!

With valid arguments, there is no way the premises can be true while the conclusion is false. For example:

There is 12 inches in a foot. There is 5,280 feet in a mile. Therefore there is 63,360 inches in a mile.

Drawing from this example, you can see that if the premises were always to be true, then you cannot change the outcome of the conclusion to be false, unless you were really bad at math. Either way, the conclusion would be false, making it invalid.

The Tests for an Argument to be Good

We live in a world where arguments and debates are a part of everyday life. Not all arguments are good, or valid for that matter. Luckily for us, we have three simple tests that we can use to rate an arguments potential to be good or bad, and valid or invalid.

Here is an argument I recently heard about in another class:

An infant was recently given a vaccination shot. Soon after, the infant was diagnosed with autism. The vaccination was the cause of autism in the infant.

First, are the premises plausible? Infants are often given vaccination shots, so thats plausible. Infants can also be diagnosed with autism, so thats another plausible.

Second, are the premises more plausible than the conclusion? In this case, the premises are more plausible than the conclusion stemming from the fact that the conclusion is false. The symptoms of autism usually coincide with the time the vaccinations are given, which sadly causes people to establish in their minds that they are related, when in reality they are not.

Third, is the argument valid or strong? This argument is invalid because the premises are true, but the conclusion is false at the same time. It is a weak, and therefore bad argument because many things can contribute to an infant developing autism, often times it involves genetics. It just so happens that vaccination shots and autism symptoms occur at roughly the same time, which leads many people to create a causation effect between the two.

Establishing Norms in Groups

Reading through Chapter 2 in "The Essential Guide to Group Communication", I came upon a section discussing norms in groups. Norms according to the text are "sets of expectations held by group members concerning what kind of behavior is acceptable or unacceptable, good or bad, right or wrong, or appropriate or inappropriate." The text clearly is about improving group communication in an educational enviroment, but I couldn't help but think how it could really apply to any group. Take my group for example. Though it is clearly "bad behavior" to smoke cigarettes to a large majority or people, it is something that is widely accepted as normal in my group. Literally everyone smokes in my group, and no one really gives it a second thought, while another group hanging out nearby could be shaking their heads in disgust, clearly disapproving of our habit. The text also goes into detail about how norms affect the kind of topics that can be expressed, or if negative comments are appropriate. I can definitely say that my group has an established set of norms on the kind of topics we talk about, as they usually only involve either cars, sports, or video games. This concept was really helpful in allowing me to know that I should be careful entering other groups, be it in an educational enviroment or outside of school, to not cause a conflict if my norms happened to differ from theres. In the case that there is a clash of norms, I now know that it would be best to politely conform or bring up ways in which we could re-establish a new norm that is comfortable for everyone in the group.

Vague or Ambiguous Sentences

Recently my professor in my Bio10 class showed us a short video called "Here Be Dragons". It is basically a video introducing the basics to critical thinking, while putting down "psuedo-sciences". One part that really caught my attention was when the host was talking about products that aren't FDA approved. Basically, it is legal to sell any product as long as its not blantently dangerous and doesn't claim to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any diseases. This is where the vague statements come in. Manufacturers of these products use vague statements on purpose in order to get around laws which wouldn't allow them to sell their products in the first place. An example mentioned in the video was about herbal dexocifications. "Herbal detoxification restores vitality." To the average person, this statement has enough merit to pass off as true, when it is in fact quite useless to use for reasoning. What is detoxification and in what way would it restore your vitality? Purposely vague statements like this accounts for billions of dollars spent a year on useless products. Watch out for these in advertisements and commercials people!

Subjective and Objective Claims

Subjective claims, in short are opinions or claims based on one's own feelings or beliefs of whether or not it is true or not. Take religion for example. There are many different religious view in the world, but one can't say that any of them are fact. "When you die, you go to heaven or hell." This claim could absolutely pertain to many people's own personal religious view, but at the same time could clash against other's. Take reincarnation for example, which is a widely accepted belief strongly engrained in Buddhist or Hindu belief, that directly challenges the claim of when you die you go to heaven, thus making the claim subjective.

Objective claims on the other hands are statements that can either be true or false, but not both at the same time. It is generally something everyone agrees on. I overheard my little cousin the other day practicing his addition. "5+17 is 22" "13+7 is 20". Luckily for him, these statements were correct and something everyone would agree on.

Hi everyone!

Hey there everyone, I'm M3! I don't really have much experience in communications other than taking a speech course last semester, so I hope to learn a lot more and broaden my understanding and knowledge of all the components to great communication. My only experience with online classes is taking an online math course. It is definitely a challenge to keep yourself dedicated to getting everything done on time, but it wasn't too bad. I have a strong passion for cars and I love sports!