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.