What I learned this Semester

I believe that I have learned a lot through this course throughout this semester. Throughout the course we were taught many different types of arguments and how each argument can be used successfully. I feel like all these different types of arguments will come in handy one day, I'm just waiting for the day to bust out my mad argument skills!!! I think something important I learned during this semester was the concept of "bad appeals to authority." Bad appeal to authority is when people believes in a claim made from someone else who doesn't have much knowledge on the subject. I think its really important to know about the concept of "bad appeals to authority" because by knowing what is real and what isn't we can see through all the bs in our lives. Another thing I think was important to learn was the fallacy of appealing to emotion. This fallacy can be used to manipulate peoples emotions to get them to either accept an argument.

Favorite Part / Least Favorite Part / Class Improvement

There were a lot of things that I liked about this class. This is my first online class, and I really liked how I was able to "attend class" in the comfort of my own home. I thought it was pretty cool that we were able to show how much we learned through our blog post. Another thing that I liked about blogging is that we didn't have to worry about grammar and punctuation as much as I would for other classes. Being able to read my classmates blogs was also a good thing about this class. If I needed something to supplement my learning, i would read my classmates blog to see if they knew what I didn't know.

My least favorite part was actually having to meet up with my group in person. The reason why I had to take an online class this semester was because I was to busy to go to school. This is the only real complaint of this class. I really didn't mind meeting up in person, but I felt like since this was an online class, all work should have been done over a computer / laptop.

Class Improvement - One thing that I think should be changed for next semester is the Comm 41 homepage. There are way to many blog post on the homepage which ends up lagging when trying to scroll down to see older post. There should be multiply sections on the home page instead of having all the post posted on the first page.

Chapter 14

One important concept that was discussed in Chapter 14 was the idea of "generalizing." People generalize things everyday and it is commonly used daily. Generalizing is how we use our experience to understand things that happen in our lives. What happened before will most likely happen again until we experience a change. The more we experience something, the better our generalization becomes because we have more examples to draw upon. General claims that is the conclusion is called the "generalization." Plausible premises about the sample are called the inductive reasoning. To see whether a generalization is good or not, we must look at the generalization as an argument. "Strong arguments with plausible premises will be the best since there will be the possibility that there is an exception to a generalization (Epstein pg.280)."

Example of generalizations

"La Vic's is alway busy on Friday and Saturday nights from all the college students who are trying to get a late night snack."

Generalization - Yes
Sample - Every time I have been to La Vic's at night, it is alway busy.
Population - Anyone who has gone to La Vic's on a Friday or Saturday night.

A useful concept

One concept that I found useful in chapter 15 was section 8 which is titled "criteria for cause and effect." There are necessary conditions for there to be cause and effect. In the book Epstein list six different criteria for cause and effect.

The six necessary criteria for cause and effect are;

• The cause happened (claim describing it is true).
• The effect happened (claim describing it is true).
• The cause precedes the effect.
• It is (nearly) impossible for the cause to happen (be true) and the effect not to happen (be false), given the normal condition.
• The cause makes a difference - if the cause had not happened (been true), the effect would not have happened (been true).
• There is no common cause

The reason why I found this section to be really useful was because even though the section was short, it had a lot of useful information. I think the most important criteria would be the first two because it defines any cause and effect problem.

What was useful about the Mission Critical website?

What was useful about the Mission Critical website?

There were many things that I found useful from the mission critical website that was provided. After reading through the information provided on the website, I was able to understand the subject a lot better because of all the information on the website. The website had many different parts such as "parts of an argument," "basic relations," "analysis of arguments," "fallacies and non rational persuasion," and "other common fallacies." On the mission critical website under the "parts of argument" tab, i found the information provided for statements to be very helpful. A statement or claim can be divided into a sentence that is either true or false, and a sentence that "cannot." Only a few sentences cannot be true or false. Sentences such as "just do it!" and "why not?" Statements or claims are sentences that fall under the "true or false" category. We can categorize statements by three qualities; "where they are verifiable, evaluative, or advocatory claims," "where they are specific or, if non-specific, whether the qualification strengthens or weakens the claim," and "whether they serve as conclusions, premises, or support in an argument."

What was useful about the Cause and Effect website?

What was useful about the Cause and Effect website?

There were many things that I found useful from the cause and effect website that was provided. After reading through the information provided on the cause and effect website, I was able to understand the subject a lot better. I was also able to get a better understanding of the two. The website had examples which supported and demonstrated what cause and effect were. In the website it states that there are three factors which casual argument relies on. Those three factors are; how acceptable or demonstrable the implied comparison is, how likely the case for causation seems to be, and how credible the "only significant difference" or "only significant commonality" claim is. Another thing I really liked from the website was the exercise that was provided. They exercise was a multiple choice exercise and they gave four different potential answers and wrote a small paragraph explaining why the wrong answers were wrong and why the right answer was right.

Criteria Reasoning

One concept that I found difficult to understand to understand want "criteria reasoning." The examples provided on my classmate blogs did help me understand the concept a lot because of all the different examples given. Criteria reasoning is when you place a criteria in a statement that will make it seem more valid and accurate. One should start be looking at the criteria by how the outcome of the decision by judged. I had the hardest time trying to find an example for criteria reasoning in my first post for this week because I did not understand criteria reasoning that well. The example that I used in my previous post was how employers look at certain criteria's on your resume when you apply for a job. They look for certain things such as your education level, your previous work experience, and other activities. Employers look at certain criteria to fill the position that they are currently hiring for.

Important concept in chapter 12

A concept in chapter 12 that I found important in chapter 12 was "judging analogies." When judging analogies, it is very important to survey the importance of similarities and guess the more important one that we find a general principle that will be able to apply to both sides of the argument. The example given in the book that I found useful for explaining this analogy was that Tom was talking about how homosexual marriage threatens the sanctity of marriage because every child needs both a mom and a dad. Not two parents of the same sex. Tom believes that a constitutional amendment will protect the sanctity of marriage. The same argument can be used against divorced family because a child needs both a mom and dad. If there is a law that will outlaw homosexual marriage then there should also be a law that outlaw divorces.

Different types of reasoning

There are seven different types of reasoning.

The first type of reasoning is reasoning by analogy. Reasoning of analogy is basically an analogy statement of two similar things that are compared to each other. An example of this is "riding bmx is like playing a video game. The more you ride, the better you get."

The second type of reasoning is sign reasoning. An example of sign reasoning is "if there is loud music coming from a house, then there must be a party going on inside the house." Sign reasoning can be a linked cause and effect. In the example just because there is loud music coming from the house, doesn't mean there is a party going on inside.

The third type of reasoning is causal reasoning. An example of this is "I walked over a nail so my foot is now bleeding." Causal reasoning is that any cause can lead to a certain effect such as how walking over a nail can cause your foot to bleed.

The fourth type of reasoning is reasoning by criteria. Reasoning of criteria is comparing or looking at certain criteria. An example of this is when people look over your resume, they are looking for certain criteria of the resume such as previous work experience and education.

The fifth type of reasoning is reasoning by example. Reasoning by example is using examples in an argument. An example of this is "I was so bored until I bought a Playstation 3. Now i am never bored."

The sixth type of reasoning is inductive reasoning. An example of inductive reasoning is, "All soccer players we know are fast, therefore all soccer players are fast.

The seventh type of reasoning is deductive reasoning. An example of deductive reasoning is "All MMA fighters are strong. Jake Shields is an MMA fighter, so Jake Shields is strong."

Page 19 exercise #4

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

"I'm sorry bu officer th reason why i was speeding was ecause my parents were unableworka to pick uup my little sister from school so they called me to pick her up. I was speding because i didn't wnt her to wait at school all alone at school."

I know this actually works because I have used it before. This typ of appeal to emotion is the appeal to pity. The officer would not want to keep you there any longer because would not want your litle sister to be left all alone with no one to pick her up. Any officer would let you go without giving you a speeding ticket because you have a legitimate reason to be speeding. Everyone knows how important it is to pick up their child from school, and everyone knows how dangerous it is to be leaving kids alone on the streets.

Appeal to Spite

An appeal that I found interesting that we have not discussed yet is "appeal to spite." This is interesting to me before appealing to spite is "the hope of revenge." This idea revolves around the idea of getting even with someone. Appeals to spite is also when someone will try to attempt certain things during an argument such as taking advantage of existing feelings of bitterness. The example given in the book for this concepts revolves around someone name Tom and someone named Dick. Tom's car is not working and Tom is asking Dick to help push his car. Another person name Zoe is asking Dick why he is helping Tom push his car when the week before, Tom didn't help Dick when help was needed. The premise that makes this argument strong is not helping someone who has refused to help you recently. Appeal to spite "often invokes the "principle" that two wrongs make a right." (Epstein pg. 193.)

Appeals to Emotion

Appealing to the audiences emotion plays a major role in their reasoning. Appealing to emotion is a type of argument that will connect to your audience through their emotions. People will make good or bad decisions because of their emotions. A type of appeal to emotions is appealing to someone's fear. An appeal to fear is a fallacy in which a person will attempt to support their idea by using deception to increase fear towards an idea. Appealing to fear is most commonly used in politics and in marketing. An example of appealing to someone's fear is "if you do not graduate high school, then you will never be successful in life." This is an appeal to fear that if often advertised in high school to make students believe that the only way they can be successful is to have an education. Without an education, students will never be successful in life and will only be able to get a job where they get paid the minimum wage.

An important Concept

One important concept that I believe should be discussed a little bit more is the concept of "bad appealing to authority". An appeal to authority is when we accept a claim because of who said it. Bad appealing to authority is important in arguments because when people believe in bad appeal to authority they are believing in false information. Bad appeal of authority can sometimes be a claim made by someone who does not know much about the claim they are making. People usually fall for bad appeals to authority because other people believe the claim is true. The example I used in my previous blog post about bad appeal to authority was the product Airborne. Airborne is a product that is advertised to cure the common cold. This is a bad appeal to authority because everyone believes this product simply because Airborne says it works. There has been no real clinical testing to prove the claims that Airborne has made.


http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html
http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/graphics/adhom/author.html

General Claims and Valid / Invalid Form of General Claim

One thing I found important in chapter 8 was that when using general claims is any argument sometimes people will use contradictory words such as “all” and “some.” These words can be used to generalize or specify an argument. An example of these contradictory words is “All students in college do their homework.” This is a weak argument because “all” means everyone without any exceptions. Not everyone in college does their homework, there must be at least one student who doesn’t do their homework. “Some students in college do their homework,” is a better argument because that would mean at least one student in college does their homework.

Another thing that I found useful in chapter 8 was the diagrams used to help explain valid and invalid forms of general claim. When creating these diagrams there are only subcategories of larger topics which can be placed in a smaller circle within the bigger circle. An example that I found helpful that was given in the book was that “all dogs are mammals.” This was shown by “dogs” was placed into a circle and around that circle was another circle which was titled “things that bark.” The “things that bark” circle was placed into an even bigger circle titled “mammals.” The “dog” circle ends up within the “mammal” circles proving that dogs are mammals.

The Usefullness of Assignment #2

For assignment #2, my group and I chose to write our paper on the American Red Cross. At first, I really knew nothing about the Red Cross except that it holds blood drives every so often and that it helps people whenever help is needed such as during Hurricane Katrina. After writing the paper and researching more about the American Red Cross, I have found out that it is so much more then just a group that holds blood drive. The American Red Cross is provides so much then what I thought. For 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, The American Red Cross provides a helping hand in the form of food, shelter, and blood. The American Red Cross is also ran mostly by volunteers who are not getting paid and are helping out of the good will of their hearts. For over a century the American Red Cross has been helping countries all over the world whenever their is a natural disaster or even a domestic disaster.

Compound Claims

A compound claim is when there is a sentence that contains two claims that are combined into one single claim. An example of a two single claims that can be combined into a compound claim are: "Joining a self defense gym teach you how to fight." and "Joining a self defense gym will help you control your anger." These two claims can be combined to make a compound claim such as "Joining a self defense gym will help you control your anger or it will teach you how to fight." Notice the word "or" in the compound claim. The two sentence from before have turned into a compound claim because joining a self defense will either do one or the other. Such as teaching someone to control their anger or helping their aggression by teaching someone how to fight. Not every sentence with two or more claims can be a compound claim though.

Chapter 7

For chapter 7, it discusses raising objections and refuting an argument. Raising objectives against an argument is a way to show that the argument is weak. An example of this is "B.J Penn is the best lightweight champion in the world." The objection to this sentence is "Both times when Frankie Edgar fought B.J Penn, Frankie was the underdog. Not only did he win both times but he also won the lightweight belt too." The objection to the argument shows that B.J Penn might not be the best lightweight fighter in the world if he lost to the same guy twice. In the text Epstein gives us 3 ways to refute an argument, "show that at least one of the premises is dubious, to show that the argument isn't valid or strong, and show that the conclusion is false." Someone can refute someone else's argument by attack the weak point in their sentences.

Chapter 6

Necessary and Sufficient Conditions
In Epstein's book it states that two claims are equivalent if both claims are true exactly when the other one is. This can be seen in a contrapositive sentence. A contrapositive sentence is if A is true then so is B, if B is not true then A is not true either. A claim and its contrapositive are alway the same. An example of this is the contrapositive of "if it is raining the the ground will be wet" is "if the ground is not wet then it is not raining." In the example the contrapositive of any true proposition is also true.

The Contradictory of A Claim
In the book it states that any compound claims are claims that are made up from other types of claims but can only be seen as one claim instead of many claims. It can get confusing to see if these type of claims are false, so a contradictory of a claim is the opposite of the original claim. An example of this type of claim is that "Tony went to the dining commons" while the contradictory or the opposite would be "Tony did not go to the dining commons."

Appeals to Authority

One concept that I found interesting from this week assignment is the concept of "bad appeals to authority." Bad appeal to authority is when people believes in a claim made from someone else who doesn't have much knowledge on the subject. An example of a bad appeal to authority is the product "Airborne." Airborne is a product which is advertised to cure colds and many consumers buy this product every where believing that it will treat their cold. This is a bad appeal to authority because the product Airborne is nothing more then a pseudoscience. People who took Airborne claim to have the product cure their cold, but what if they were never getting sick in the first place? The product Airborne is a bad appeal to authority because there has been no clinical testing proving that Airborne does in fact cure colds. I think its really important to know about the concept of "bad appeals to authority" because by knowing what is real and what isn't we can see through all the bs in our lives.

Repairing Arguments

One major problem with any argument is that the sentence does not have the proper premises to support it's conclusion. With the Principle of Rational Discussion, we can find out how to evaluate and interpret any arguments. The three rules of the Principle of Rational Discussion are "Know about the subject under discussion, is it able and willing to reason well, and if it's not lying." (Epstein. pg 60) An example of an argument that does not have a premises that supports the conclusion is, "My sister does not have a job, so because of that she should not buy a car." This argument is weak because it needs more details to support the conclusion. To make the argument better we should add "Buying any type of car requires a job to pay for the monthly payments." For anyone to buy a car requires that person to have money, if the person does not have a job then the idea of buying a car would only be a dream if the person had no source of income. By adding in that part to the original sentence the argument becomes stronger because it is now clear why someone with no job should not buy a car.

Advertisement on the Internet

Force Factor is a sport supplement that is advertised as the "supplement of champions." It can be described as a workout supplement that will help make you mentally focus at the gym and give you more power, strength, endurance. In the ad they have many athletes such as B.J Penn and Vernon Davis who have used this product to gain that "athletic edge." We do not know whether these claims are true or false because there is not enough information such as information from clinical test. We do not know if this product really works until we have tried the product out.

The claim for this advertisement is that they are giving away free samples of Force Factor and all we have to do is pay for shipping which is only $4.99. Even though they are giving away free samples, if you read the fine print carefully it says that you will be automatically enrolled in Force Factor's auto ship program which will ship Force Factor supplements to your house every month will cost $69.99. The cost of the product will be charged to your account automatically every 30 days. Internet Ads like these are everywhere online and many people fall for them everyday. This is just one of the many examples which teaches us to read the fine print.

http://www.forcefactor.com/FreeTrial

Content Fallacies - Appeal to Emotions

The fallacy I chose for this exercise is the fallacy of appealing to emotion. This fallacy can be used to manipulate peoples emotions to get them to either accept an argument. This type of fallacy is often used and can be seen everywhere such as on T.V commercials or on billboards. Other things that this fallacy can be used for are for public speeches or political speeches. A real life example of this type of fallacy that I recently seen was a billboard that said “buzz driving is drunk driving” and it also had a picture of a wrecked car. This appeals to peoples emotions because drunk driving or impaired driving can be potentially dangerous. This also appeals to my emotions as a college student because I know a lot of people who go to parties and then they end up driving home under the influence. I also know someone who passed away because he was in a car with a drunk driver.

Complex Argument for Analysis

Example #1

"My neighbor should be forced to get rid of all the cars in his yard (1). People do not like living next door to such a mess (2). He never drives any of them (3). They all look old and beat up and leak oil all over the place (4). It is bad for neighborhood, and it will decrease property values (5)."

Argument: Yes

Conclusion: My neighbor should get rid of all his cars because he doesn't even drive them and they are effecting the neighborhood in a negative way such as leaking oil on the group.

Additional premises needed - The neighbors think that the cars are a problem because he never drives any of the cars, they leak oil all over the place, and they can potentially decrease the property value of the neighborhood.

Identify any subargument:
Sentence #2 and #4 supports sentence #5. All the sentences support sentence #1.
If no one likes living next to all these leaky, old, and beat up looking cars then it is bad for the neighborhood because it will decrease the property value of the area.

Good argument?
Yes it is a good argument because all the premises seem plausible.


This exercise was pretty useful. One thing that I found helpful in this exercise was breaking down the arguments. Instead of focusing on the whole argument, I took it sentence by sentence.

The Need for Effective Communication in Organizations

One concept that I find really important from Chapter 4 in the Small Group Text was the "need for effective communication in organizations." There are many organizations on the San Jose State campus, whether it is the A.S.B club or an organization such as a fraternity. All these organizations exist for a purpose such as bringing people together for a common good. The only way for any organization to be successful is by having good communication. An example of good communication can be taken from the group projects all the students have to do for this class. Five students are put into a group in which they must communicate with others to do their group project. The group I am currently in had bad communication at first so we very very disorganized. It wasn't until someone stepped up and took the leadership role and started sending everyone messages. The communication for my group slowly got better and now we are on our way to finishing our project.

The Test for an Argument to be Good

There are many ways to make sure an argument is good. To make sure an argument is good one should take the three test to make sure. An argument is good if the "premises are plausible," "premises are more plausible than the conclusion," and "the argument is valid or strong (Epstein, pg.42.)"

For example : The best team in the NBA wins the championship. The Boston Celtics have won a total of 17 championship titles. Because the Boston Celtics have the most championship wins under their belt, they are the best.

Test for a good argument:

1. Premises are plausible.
Only the best teams in the NBA make it to the championships. The team must win in their division and in their conference before they are allowed to play in the championship.

2. Premises are more plausible than the conclusion.
It is very plausible that the Boston Celtics is the best team in the NBA but if they were the best team, they would have won the championship title during last years season. Sadly they did not.

3. The argument is valid or strong
This argument is false because the LA Lakers have won the championship titles that last two years in a row.

Group Communication - Leadership

In chapter 3 of “Group Communication” the concept of leadership is discussed. I find this chapter in the book to be very important because everyone can be a leader, but not everyone can be a leader who leads his/her team to victory. There are many types of leadership styles such as authoritarian, consultative, participative, and laissez-faire. In high school I got to experience the leadership role when I became the captain of the wrestling team my senior year. As the team leader of the wrestling team, I had many things that I was responsible for; initiating and leading warm-ups in an effective manner, setting up and taking down the mats and chairs for home matches, making sure everyone on the team made weight for matches. After reading through the different types of leaderships I can say that when I was captain of the team, I was a participative leader. Wrestling is not an individual sport. It takes a close-knit family of guys to make a winning team. I worked along side with my teammates to make sure everyone on the team was successful. I might have been the captain but I was in no way more important then anyone else on the team. I think a participative leader is the best type of leadership because even though someone was elected as the leader, everyone is still considered to be equal. Win as one or lose together, no one will outshine anyone.

Discuss Strong versus Valid Arguments

There is a fine line of difference between a strong argument and a valid argument. Both strong and valid arguments are important for making a good argument. The difference is so subtle that sometimes it maybe be difficult to tell them apart. A strong argument can be very persuasive and may sound true but it is not always true. An example of this is that since B.J Penn use to be the world lightweight and the world welterweight champion in the UFC. Even though he is not the champion now, he will become the champion soon. This is a strong argument because even though Penn was a champion before does not mean he will become a champion again. An argument can be valid if its premises are true and the conclusion of the argument is also true. A valid argument is not valid if the premises are true but the conclusion is false. An example of a valid argument that is going to relate to everyday life is that hockey players wear padding for protection because in hockey players are allowed to check each other with their body (whole body checking, shoulder checking, or hip checking.) Because checking can be very dangerous to the players because it is a defensive tackle, the padding for their body is there to keep them safe. This is a valid argument because the reason and conclusion are true. The padding is use to protect the hockey players from checking (defensive tackling.)

Pick One Concept from the Reading - Prescriptive and Descriptive Claims

One concept from chapter 2 is the prescriptive and descriptive claims. Both of these are interesting concepts of chapter 2 because both prescriptive and descriptive claims can be used to describe things. The difference between these two claims is that when someone makes a descriptive claim they are talking about what it is, while a prescriptive claim explains what something should be. Prescriptive claims usually involve a sense of valued judgment which also means that prescriptive claims are usually someone's opinion of a subject. Descriptive claims are usually based on facts because a descriptive claim is based on what something is.

I believe that both prescriptive and descriptive claims are important to public speaking and critical thinking because a descriptive claim can start a conversation but prescriptive claims are what keeps the conversation going. I believe this because prescriptive claims are claims that are based other peoples opinions and not everyone agrees on the same thing.

Question 2 - Vague and Ambiguous sentence

Vague sentence or ambiguous sentence are sentences that are so broad that the sentence can be answered in many different ways. Vague sentences and ambiguous sentences cannot be answered unless the person who asked the question can make it clearer. Vague sentences and ambiguous sentences lack detail.

An example of a vague sentence that I recently heard was when I was at the gym working out with my friend. While I was benching on the flat bench and he was spotting me, he said that I was strong. That is a vague sentence because I didn’t know what he meant by saying I was strong. This sentence can be qualified as vague because I didn’t know what he meant when he said I was strong. Did he mean that I was stronger then him? He could have also meant that I was strong for my weight.

Question 1 - Subjective and Objective Claims

A subjective claim is a statement or a fact of someones personal opinion. A subjective claim can be either true or false depending on what a person or a group believes in. A situation that i was recently in that involved a subjective claim was when my friend and I were talking about B.J Penn who happens to be a mixed martial art fighter. My friend believes that B.J Penn is a horrible fighter and does not deserve all the fame he gets. My friend believes that Penn is lazy and does not think Penn should be ranked in the Top 10 for pound for pound fighter. I believe the opposite of my friend. I think that Penn is one of the worlds top lightweight fighter and will one day reclaim his belt. I believe that Penn has proved many times why he should be considered the best at lightweight. He was once the UFC lightweight champion and also the UFC welterweight champion. Penn has moved up many weight classes just to fight fighters who weighed more then him just for the challenge. Both my friend and I's opinions are subjective because it is based on our personal opinion of the fighter.

An objective claim is the opposite of a subjective claim. An objective claim are statement that can be proven to be either true or false. Just because something is objective does not mean it is true. An objective claim that my friend and I also discussed recently was that B.J Penn was one of two people to hold the UFC championship belt in two different weight classes. He won the UFC welterweight championship belt in 2004 and won the UFC lightweight championship belt in 2008.

Introductory Post

Hey guys! This Comm41 class would be my first online class ever at SJSU and this is the second communication class I have taken. As far as communication goes, I am not a shy person. My major is international business and I chose this major because I am hoping that one day it will allow me to travel overseas a lot. This is my third year at SJSU and I was born and raised in San Jose. Things I am interested in are partying and watching mixed martial arts.