Week 16-Post 3: Chapter 10-Too Much Emotion

The most useful or interesting concept that I found while taking this course this semester was concepts in Chapter 10: Too Much Emotion of the Epstein text. This Chapter is interesting because many people do things and believe things based on their emotions. One's emotions are very strong on their decision making abilities. Epstein states, Appeals to emotion is "an argument is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way" (191). An appeal that stood out to me is the appeal to fear. Many politicians and advertisers use this appeal to emotion to get people to do things because they put that fear in peoples brain and mentality. Appeal to fear gets people to do things that they may not want do or may affect the decisions they take based on their fear. Politicians always use appeal to fear to get votes and get people to support them. Like for instance people are scared of terrorism and a politician goes on and speaks on what he will do to stop terrorism. People will support him because this politician and others will create this fear for people to act based on their fear and emotions. Found this Chapter to be very useful and have many important concepts on appeal to emotion that are use in everyday life.

Week 16-Post 2: Most favorite, least favorite thing about Class

Favorite thing about this class was that it was mainly online most of the time so it made it possible for me to take this class to fit to my already busy schedule. My favorite thing about this class is that most of the work was done through daily blogs and the questions really made you thing on how to apply reasoning and examples to show that one understands the concepts in comm 41. Another favorite thing is that the Richard Epstein text of Critical thinking really explain the concepts very well as well as the group communication book. The least favorite thing about this class is that one has to wait 12 hours every time to post a new blog up to blogpost website. Sometimes that is stressful because you have to wait 12 hours to post every blog up. Another least favorite thing was that I felt that there some issues with group projects even though I worked well with my group. Sometimes its hard getting all five people in the group to find a time to meet in person where everyone can make it to get organize and start planning for the project. Almost everyone has a busy schedule and in sense taking this online class because it's more convenient for there schedules. This class can improve by having no restrictions on the blog post and perhaps an alternative to group projects.

Week 16-Post 1: Learning in Comm 41

There are many new concepts I learned through taking this comm 41 course and applying the concepts to everyday life. All the concepts learn through this semester were useful by applying them through weekly blogs that we had to do because doing these blogs assure that I was understanding and thinking such as concepts like Appeal to Emotion. I never knew that there was many concepts to do with Appeals to Emotion such as appeal to pity, appealing to fear,appeal to spite, and many more concepts having to do with appeal to emotion. The group projects were very useful for this class because it made you go back and look at concepts and apply them to group projects such as looking at a editorial and applying some of these comm 41 concepts to write and critique the editorial. The second project was using a social organization such as PETA to write about what kind of argumentation the website uses to prove their points. All these things were helpful to learn all the concepts in comm 41 but the blogs were most useful to keep you thinking about how your going to apply the concepts and use your own examples to write on your blog.

Week 14-Post 3: The Normal Conditions

In Chapter 15, Epstein talks about "The Normal Conditions" and goes and relates to the example he gives of spot and dick. Epstein goes on and explain why the normal conditions are important to cause an argument or example to be valid or strong. According to Epstein, Normal Conditions are "for casual claim, the normal conditions are the obvious and plausible unstated claims that are needed to establish that the relationship between purported cause and purported effect is valid or strong" (303). Epstein uses the example about Dick and Spot to show how the concept of normal conditions is use and the example is:

"Dick was sleeping soundly up to the time that Spot barked.
Spot barked at 3 a.m.
Dick doesn't normally wake up at 3 a.m.
Spot was close to where Dick was sleeping.
There was no other loud noise at the time...." (303).

Epstein explains that its important to leave or exclude the obvious and normally we assume that things are the "normally" just like that. For instance in the example above, Dick normally doesn't wake up wake up at 3 a.m. and we need to assume that things are normally like this that Dick never tends to wake up at 3 a.m. but this time he did. This concept was just interesting to me and made sense when Eptein conclude the normal conditions in his example of Dick and Spot.

Week 14-Post 2: Mission Critical Website

At first it took me a few minutes to realize that mission critical was not another concept in critical thinking that I had to learn. I looked all over the place and only saw a lot of familiar concepts that I already learned about by reading the Epstein text and small group communication text. Then I realized that the mission critical website is a website that reviews mots of the concepts learned in critical thinking, but there were also new concepts that I had not heard or knew nothing about. I remember that there was a chapter in the Epstein text where we learned about different appeals to emotion. I don't remember seeing "Appeal to Prejudice" in the Epstein text or at least did not see this concept. From this mission critical website I learned that appeal to prejudice is also known as appeal to stereotype. According to the mission critical website, appeal to prejudice is "a predisposition to judge groups of people or things either positively or negatively, even after the facts of a case indicate otherwise". This website is really helpful because it has all the concepts that I have learn about in this comm 41 class in critical thinking and allows me to go back as well as other students to go back and review concepts that were not clear the first time around.

Week 13-Post 1: Cause and Effect website

According to the website, http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/graphics/induc/causal.html, one of the most important concepts for inductive reasoning in your arguments is to argue with causation. This material seem new to me because I had no idea of making arguments with casual arguments which makes your inductive reasoning a lot stronger by using causation. This website helped me understand that casual arguments are closely related to the structure of inductive reasoning, but there is one difference from inductive reasoning and casual arguments. The website helped me understand that the implication is that there is no significant difference in inductive reasoning, but casual arguments imply that there is one significant difference and this is what makes causal arguments different from inductive arguments. The exercises helped me better understand casual arguments. For example, the first exercise asked what was the "commonality" of the five people getting sick at the picnic? The most reasonable answer and choice for me was that this five people eat the potato salad because these five people most have a cause for getting sick while other people at the picnic did not get sick. The difference for people who did not get sick at the picnic is that they did not eat the potato salad at the picnic.

Week 12-Post 3: Analogies in the Law

In chapter 12, Epstein talks about reasoning by analogy. According to Epstein, reasoning by analogy is "a comparison becomes reasoning by analogy when it is part of an argument: On the side of the comparison we draw a conclusion, so on the other side we should conclude the same" (253). Epstein goes in to talk about "analogies in the law". Epstein states that analogies in law have to be presented with detail and with careful analyzed arguments. For example, a judge has to reason using analogies in the law to make a fair ruling against the person that is being accused of the crime. A judge has to carefully analyzed the arguments and evidence of both the prosecuting side and defending side of attorneys and the judge makes a decision after a certain amount of time and decides how to rule on the case. Analogies are everywhere, but they are a big part of the law.

Week 12-Post 2: Deductive Reasoning

The type of reasoning that I found most difficult to understand was Deductive reasoning. Even when I read the meaning for deductive reasoning, I had trouble understanding how to understand the meaning and think of a real world example. According to changingminds.org, deductive reasoning or deduction starts with a general case and deduces specific instances. From the link that I will provide below, I learned that deduction starts with an assumed hypothesis or theory. The assumed hypothesis might be accepted right away or might not be as accepted but the argument is not questioned or argued against. I also learned that deduction is used by scientist that take a general scientific law and apply it this scientific law to case and which they assume that this scientific law is true. According to wisegeek.com I found interesting is that deductive reasoning is one of the two basic forms of valid reasoning. So in difference from inductive reasoning that argues from the particular to general, deductive reasoning argues from the general to specific instance. So in away deductive and inductive are similar in style, but the way they are use to reason are use differently.

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/types_reasoning/deduction.htm

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-deductive-reasoning.htm

Week 12-Post 1: Other forms of Reasoning

Here are some examples of other types reasoning:

Reasoning By Analogy- Marco is physically fit because he works out 2 times everyday. Sarah also works out 2 times everyday. Therefor she will also be physically fit.

Sign Reasoning- BART is congested with a lot of Giants Fans, then there is a Giants baseball game happening today.

Casual Reasoning- If one does not maintain their car, then the car will have a higher capability of breaking down.

Reasoning by Criteria- If you want to get good grades, then you have to read this book that guides you on how to get good grades.

Reasoning by Example- You should never take a taxi anywhere because it is too expensive.I have to ride a taxi to work everyday because there is no other form of Public transportation around my home so I spend so much money on the taxi.

Inductive Reasoning- My mom has made pancakes and hot chocolate for breakfast everyday since I was a kid, so I will be getting pancakes and hot chocolate for breakfast tomorrow.

Deductive Reasoning-If one does not arrive to BART on time then one will be late to work. One missed BART. Then one will be late to work.

Week 11-Post 3: Call in your Debts

According to Epstein, an argument that "calls in in your debts" appeals to the opposite of spite: "You should believe or do something if you owe someone a favor"(193). I found this interesting because this appeal to emotion is true and I never thought this would be an appeal to emotion. People always do feel pressure to do things for a friend or someone close because they either owe them a favor or have a debt with them. For example, my friend asked me this past Tuesday if I could take him to his doctors appointment. I really did not want to take him because I was busy and he wanted me to take him during traffic hours. So I told him I couldn't take him. So my friend went on to reply remember all those times I bought you food and helped you with your homework assignments. So I felt bad and felt that I owe my friend to take him to the doctors so I took him. This example is using the appeal to emotion of "calls in your debts". So I just found this appeal to emotion really interesting because it actually happens all the time and people do things they really don't want to do because they owe someone a favor as well as many other things.

Week 11-Post 2: Pg. 195 Exercise #2

TRESemme Advertisement:
"Do not miss a fresh look and feel on the second day. TRESemme® Fresh Start Dry Shampoo is the perfect solution to clean hair without water anytime. The unique formula, with Mineral Clay and Citrus, refreshes your hair by removing oil and odor while injecting volume. Just a quick spray transforms lifeless, limp hair into clean, fresh hair with full of bouncy body. It also helps to maintain hair color with less washing."

I find this argument to be a good one. The reason is because this TRESeme Fresh Start Dry Shampoo is using a convincing argument that people should use this product to help them ease on the washing of the hair constantly that can affect the dye in ones hair. Most importantly this product is more appealing to women who don't want to go through the hassle of washing their hair each day. Most importantly when a woman has to straighten or curl their hair each day it can be time consuming but most importantly it damages their hair in the long run. So that long lasting healthy hair look is not there. With the TRESemme Fresh Start Dry Shampoo disposable to women around the world, it will help them easily get better looking hair and help conserve the life in their hair. The best thing about this product is that it promises good-looking clean hair without having to shower which ends up saving tome and energy. This advertisement is a great apple-polishing argument.

Link to Advertisement:
http://www.drugstore.com/qxp265171/tresemme/freshstart_dry_shampoo_for_oilystraight_to_normal_hair.htm?fromsrch=tresemme+shampoo

Week 11-Post 1: Appeal to Emotion

In Chapter 10: "Too much Emotion", Epstein talks about appeals to emotion. According to Epstein, Appeal to emotion is "an argument is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way" (191). The emotion that appeal to me was "Appealing to fear" because it was the first appeal to emotion that I could relate to. Is is true that appeal to fear is way that politicians and advertisers manipulate people and it happens all over the world. I could relate to this because does how people get other people to do things because they create that fear in a persons mind. I remember when I turned 16 I wanted to get my permit to begin learning how to drive, but my mom told me that I had to get only A's B's in my report cards so if i got anything lower than a B I will not continue to use my permit to drive. So in a sense my mom planted that appeal of fear in me to get me to get good grades if I wanted to get my permit. So this the reason that this appeal emotion strikes me because it reminded me of that moment when I wanted my drivers permit.

Week 9-Post 3-Fallacies

There were some Fallacies in Chapter 11 of the Epstein text that I wanted to do further research on just because they didn't seem clear enough. According to www.nizkor.org, a fallacy is " is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position". According to the website nizkor.org the following pattern must happen
1) Person A has position X.
2) Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3) Person B attacks position Y.
4) Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This fallacy is committed when people actually misinterpret the other person's argument but putting words in your opponents mouth that they did not say is not going to attack their position or argument. So this made it a bit easier to understand than the text because Epstein states about strawman fallacy is "its easier to knock down someones argument if you misinterpret it, putting words in other person's mouth" (202). But searching another link heleped me better understand this type of fallacy.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Week 9-Post 2-Group Assignment # 1: News and Politics

Well the first group assignment was critical thinking in news and politics. My group met in the library and we decided on an editorial called, “Video Games and Free Speech” which talks about when California made it illegal to sell video games to minors in 2005 which violated the first amendment of free speech. Below is the link of the editorial that our group analyzed. Well this firs group assignment was useful because it made you critically analyze the editorial by using all the subjects we have learned by reading the small group communication text, Epstein text, and by doing all these blogs. For instance I analyzed the major claim in the editorial so from what I learned from reading the two books I wrote about the major claim. For example, I stated that the major claim of this editorial is “California lawmakers may have been right when they decided that video games in which players kill and maim are not the most socially beneficial form of expression. The Constitution, however, does not require speech to be ideal for it to be protected” (NY times editorial). From what the concepts I learned from reading the books I was able to determine the major claim and explain why this is the major claim of the editorial. The reason that this is the major claim is clearly because this is clearly the opinion of the editor and what he will claim for the rest of the editorial. From there I was able to analyze the article more because clearly the author agreed with California lawmakers to ban the sale of illegal games to minors even though it violated the first amendment. So this first group assignment was useful because it made me critically use all the new concepts learn in this class to analyze this editorial as a group and it was useful using some of the concepts learn in this class to get the get the assignment done.

Week 9-Post 1-General Claims

In the Epstein text I read a section "General Claims and Their Contradictories" and Epstein states that "some" and "all" can be ambiguous. Epstein states, "All means 'Every single one, no exceptions.'Sometimes all is meant as 'Every single one, and is at least one.' Which reading is best may depend on the argument and some means 'at least one.' Sometimes some is meant as 'at least one, but not at all" (160). So in other words Epstein explains two different general claims which have to do with "all" and "some" general claims. For example, When I was in high school I was the first one of my five friends to drive. So they would all want rides, but my car is camaro that could only seat 3 other people. So i said, "I can give some of you guys of ride, but not all because my car can only fit three people". This is an example supporting or showing how "some" general claims work.
I will know explain "all" general claims by using a similar example. For example, After my camaro decided to break down on me in high school. My parents let me used their SUV which can sit 7 people. Then i told my friends, " All five of you can get a ride whenever you need one". So in difference from "some" this example shows that every single of my friends will get a ride, no exception because I have enough room to fit all of them. With my camaro I could only fit some firends but at least one friend would get a ride.

Week 7-Post 3: False Dilemas

In Chapter 6 of the Epstein text I came across a section that is called "False Dilemma". Epstein states, " A false dilemma is a bad use of excluding possibilities where the 'or' claim is false or impossible. Sometimes just the dubious 'or' claim itself is called a "false dilemma" (118). An example of a bad argument or a false dilemmas would be when the claim doesn't list all the possibilities. An example of a false dilemma would be:

My Girlfriend says, " You watch too much football all Sunday morning until the last game Sunday night and instead you should be doing something productive like using the new treadmill you just purchased. Either you limit your Sunday morning to one game and then do something productive for the rest of Sunday or the t.v. has to go.

I say : You can't take the t.v. away from me just for watching football.

My girlfriend says, " So you agree to limit your football to one game on Sunday"

Even though my girlfriend it trying to make an argument to stop me to watch football its not a very good one because she her claim doesn't state all the possibilities of what will happen if I don't stop watching football. So the example above is an example of a "False dilemma".

Week 7-Post 2: Refuting an Argument

In Chapter 7 of the Epstein text I came across a interesting section called "Refuting an Argument". According to Epstein, direct ways of refuting an argument is "show that at least one of the premises is dubious, show that the argument isn't valid or strong, show that the conclusion is false" (149). I learned that at least one of those three rules I described above is necessary to prove or go against someones argument to show that its false and the argument will no longer be valid or strong. So the point in refuting an argument is to show evidence or prove that someones argument is false or prove them wrong. I also came across a section "Attempts to refute that are bad arguments" where I learned that in rational discussion its very bad to use ridicule as a device to go refutes ones argument. Epstein states, "It ends arguments, belittles the other person, and makes enemies" (151). For example, lets say my friend says " I want to become a doctor because because I like to help people". I ridicule his argument by saying, " You don't have the dedication and smarts to ever be a doctor and laugh at his statement and idea of becoming a doctor one day". By ridiculing an argument or a refute i am only ending the argument and making insulting the person like Epstein describes in the quote above.

Week 7-Post 1: Consider Alternatives

In Chapter 6 of the Epstein text I came across a section name "Compound claims and 'or' claims". Epstein defines compound claim as "a compound claim is one composed of other claims, but has to be viewed as just one claim" (113). According to Epstein I learned that some words or sentences can have two or more claims together to come out with a new claim. The compound claim depends on the "truth value" that means is the claim truthful or is the person making the claim being truthful. For example, you tell your friend, "Can I borrow your car or can you take me home which will take more time out of your day if this is the case". I also came across a section in Chapter 6 called "The Contradictory of a claim" where I learned about a "contradictory claim". According to Epstein, a contradictory claim is " The contradictory of a claim is one that has the opposite truth-value in all possible circumstances. Sometimes a contradictory is called the negation of a claim" (114). So the difference between the contradictory claim compared to a claim is the opposite of what the claim states. For instance a claim is "Bobby is afraid of horror movies". The contradictory claim would be "Bobby is not afraid of horror movies".

Week 6-Post 3: The Principle of Rational Discussion

In the Epstein text of Chapter 4 there is a section which is called "The Principle of Rational Discussion" that was interesting to read. According to Epstein, "The Principle of Rational Discussion" have three important principles that we assume that people must know to make good discussion/arguments. Epstein states, the three main principles are "knows about the subject under discussion, Is able and willing to reason well, and Is not lying" (60). Epstein goes on to talk about if your going to discuss something or argue it should be something that you have knowledge about which is part of his firs principle. For example I am not good with cars or don't know anything about mechanics so i cannot discuss about this subject, but I do watch a lot of moves so I have a lot of knowledge on different where I can open a good discussion if it comes up. The second part that Epstein talks about is that people must be able to reason well, but most people do not do so because they always want to be right and will not accept other peoples arguments so there is no point in reasoning with people who have those ideas. The final principle to reasoning with people is that the other person is not lying because if a person continuously lies there is no way you can reason with a person that lies.

Week 6-Post 2: Advertisment on Internet

In the link below its a advertisement about watching t.v online with your PC or laptop anywhere you go. This seems very convenient because you can watch t.v. programing on your laptop without having to call a cable or satellite technician to install your cable like you would for your television. This website also advertises to watch channels from over 120 different countries and over 2150 channels to watch if you get this deal to get "TV Noop on your PC". This website makes a strong argument that for only one payment of 44.95 you can get over 2150 channels compare to cable and satellite t.v. services where one pays a average of 80 dollars for about 100 channels. SO everything is sounding good but the low price and only one payment of 44.95 is to good to be true when I know for sure that cable and satellite companies are really expensive monthly costs to get cable for your t.v. Yet again they ask for credit card information to pay to get this package of over 2150 channel which could a good deal but most likely a scam to steal your credit card information or even install viruses into your computer. I was tempted to try and download it but I don't give my credit card number to websites I don't trust.

http://en.tvnoop.com/?source=ppccrash.TVNOOP&player=000000203s000003020US

Week 6-Post 1: Repairing Arguments

Repairing Argument Example:

All babies in the world wear diapers. Therefore Ricky wears diapers.


Analysis: According to the text it is inferring that “Ricky is a baby” which is making the argument valid or strong. What this argument is also inferring that “Ricky is a baby” is because Ricky wears diapers. After the argument is done making a light describing that “Ricky is a baby” since he wears diapers. Once the statement “Ricky is a baby” is added to the end of the argument makes the statement a little more clearer. Also if this last statement is not added onto the argument it would not be a clear argument and the only person who would know that Ricky is an actual baby would be the person who is stating the argument. Therefore it leaves the listener to infer that Ricky is a baby because the argument does not clearly state who and what is the baby. The argument should only be corrected as needed.

Week 4-Post 3: Respond To Sexual Harassment

I choose to talk about a section in “Essential Guide to Group Communication” called “Respond to Sexual Harassment” where Dan O’Hair and Mary O. Wiemann talk about some of the causes that lead to sexual harassment which have been problems in recent organizations. According to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission defines, “sexual harassment as unwelcome sexual advances and requests for sexual favors” (68). According to O”Hair and Wiemann, “Sexual Harassment is also characterized as verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature if submission to the conduct is made a condition of employment or if the conduct creates an uncomfortable, intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment” (68). O’Hair and Wiemann talk briefly about some causes which are attraction and power which are the causes for sexual harassment. O’Hair and Wiemann state that communication is another cause for sexual harassment. O’Hair and Wiemann talk about how women and men communicate differently where women might send flirting messages like smiles, eye contact, and touch to indicate interestin a person and men use “nonverbal” behaviors as openings for sexual intimacy. This was just really interesting to me because it went into detail how communication is a big cause of sexual harassment. Sexual Harassment is a big problem in our worlds among students, workers, and other people and will remain a big problem unless people know how to communicate and report when sexual harassment occurs. I feel that this is still a problem because many people don’t report it and O’Hair and Wiemann state, “the victim is reluctant to press charges because the harraser has authority and status” (69).

Week 4-Post 2: Bad Appeal to Common Belief or Practice Fallacy

I was looking at all the Content fallacies and the one that grabbed my attention and that I could relate to was bad appeal to common belief or practice fallacy. Bad appeal to common belief fallacy means if a group or certain people believe that something is true then it must be true. There are many real world examples that came to my mind but they all date back to my childhood times. For example, in elementary school every kid in my school started collecting Pokemon trading cards and all the kids wanted to collect all 150 cards so because everyone else was collecting these cards I also started to want them. So I convince my parents to buy me the packages of cards at least one package of cards each week until I collected all of them. The Pokemon cards were pricy, but I thought I needed to have them but I only wanted the cards because everyone else had them. Another example, in the 7th grade most kids in the school started wearing air force one shoes and I had to have them to because it was the trend that every cool kid must have. So I had my parent’s buy me a pair of air forces ones because I wanted a pair shoes that everyone else was wearing so that I wouldn’t feel left out. They were the coolest shoes at that time and is a belief that everyone was following.

Week 4-Post 1: Complex Arguments

3. Las Vegas has too many people.1There's not enough water in the desert to support more then a million people.2 And the Infrastructure of the city can't handle more then a million: The streets are overcrowded, and traffic is always congested; the schools are overcrowded and new one's cant be built fast enough.3 We should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in the city and country.4
Argument: Yes
Conclusion: We should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in the city and country.
Additional Premises needed:Its best to continue claims 1,2,3,4 AND 5 a better ending sentence that joins all arguments together,
Identify any Subargument:2&3 are independent arguments that help support claim 1.
Good Arguments:The Argument is overall valid but the concluding sentence needs to be improved in order to to help support and prove a better ending sentence.
 I found this exercise  to be useful. The reason is that it helped me identify the claims to an argument but also helped me identify when an argument is not correct. The best part about this exercise is that it was easy and it provided the tools into small subgroups that helped identify weather the argument has sufficient evidence and a strong conclusion to prove the argument correct or not. Also this exercise helps improve our arguments and may help us in the long run write and share a proper argument with others. I believe that exercises like this help improve our writing and arguments.

Week 3- Post 3: Individual Evaluation

     In "The Essential Guide to Group Communication", O'Hair and Wiemann give good pointers on how to evaluate every individual in your group to make sure that there was leadership establish as well as the rest of the group participating. O'Hair and Wiemann state the eleven topics to evaluate group members are "preparation, speaking, listening, open-mindness, sensitivity for others, value of information, value of thinking, group orientation, value of procedural contributions, assistance in leadership function, and then the overall evaluation" (53). I found these to be very important because I have worked in groups numerous of times and most of the time these groups were picked by the teacher. This is really good way to think of when you are evaluating a person in your group because most of the time not every person in the group contributes to the project or assignment in the same way. There might be people in your group that do no work and receive credit while the people that did all the work feel upset because not every person did the same amount of work. Also evaluating is good to receive feedback because I always like when I receive feedback for the hard work I did on a assignment and what I could work on more. I feel that its always good to receive feedback from your own group members that way individuals know what they did great and what they need to work on. 

Week 3-Post 2: Strong vs. Valid Argument

      In the Epstein text, a valid argument is defined as " an argument in which it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false at the same time" (399). Valid: Smoking is bad for your lungs. Therefore smoking is bad for your health.The reason that this argument is valid is because both of the statements in this argument are both found to be true and there is no proof challenging this statement that smoking can be good to anyones health.

     In the Epstein text, strong argument states, " invalid arguments are classified on a scale from strong to weak. An argument is strong if it is possible but unlikely for the premises to be true and the conclusion false at the same time. An argument is weak if it is possible and likely for the premises to be true and the conclusion false at the same time" (398). Strong Argument:I love to eat pizza which contains cheese. But when I eat any other food with cheese in it, it makes my stomach hurt. Therefore the cheese is the cause of my stomach ache. The reason that this argument ends up being strong is because my conclusion is that the cheese is the cause in the stomach ache. But others can argue that this argument can be false since I can eat cheese in pizza but not in anything else. Therefore the conclusion to this argument can be different in others eyes.

Week 3: Test for an Argument to be Good

         Upon reading Chapter 3 in Epstein text, Epstein states that the test for an argument to be good the following must occur : the premises are plausible, the premises are more plausible than the conclusion, and the argument is valid or strong. An example of a good or valid argument is: "Siberian huskies have a great chance of surviving in freezing temperatures due to their warm fur. So all dogs with fur should be able to survive in freezing temperatures". The premise of the argument is truthful and even reasonable because Siberian huskies have warm fur and other advantages to surviving in freezing temperatures. The second test for an argument to be good is for the premise to be more convincing/realistic than the conclusion. In this argument,  the premise is more realistic than the conclusion because we know that Siberian huskies are more adapted to colder habitats than all other dogs with warm fur. For the last and final tests, the argument needs to be valid or strong. My argument is credible and strong because Siberian huskies come from descendants of wolf and are naturally adapted to colder habitats therefore more likely to survive than other dogs. Even though there could be a counter argument that Siberian huskies are just like any other dog. That Siberian huskies are to dependent on humans just like any other dogs, but my argument is still good to pass all the the three tests to be a good argument. Even though there might be other dogs who have warm fur, adapted to the cold weather, but this doesn't change the fact that Siberian huskies have more advantages to survive in freezing habitats for longer periods of time than other dogs.  

"Monitoring Perceptions in Groups" -Question 3 (Post 3)

     In Chapter 2: "Participation In Small Groups" Dan O' Hair and Mary O. Wiemann make good points in "Monitoring Perceptions in Groups". O'Hair and Wiemann go on to talk about how group members have or come up with perceptions about other people that may sometimes not be true. In other words the authors are talking about how assumptions can be made about people among a group but these assumptions aren't always true. O'Hair and Wiemann state, " in short, you can make many interpretations of another person's behavior, but not all of them will be accurate" (13). This section in the book caught my attention because it is very true what the authors are talking about. People can have a perception of another person just by looking at them or by what they have. In general people are just judge mental and will always critique someone without truly knowing them. For instance some people might have a perception of me as a quiet guy who isn't much fun, but the people who actually know me know that i am a outgoing person always willing to try new things. So people will always have perceptions of other people, but if they stop to think that these perceptions of the person might not always be true because they are just "perceptions".

Vague Sentence

  Vague Sentences are the easiest ways for us to communicate several thoughts and feelings to one another. Today my dog was running around the house after he woke up in the morning. He was running around looking for a place to pee since he had just woke up. He disappeared for a while and we began to call his name, “Bean?!, Bean!? Come here.” He popped out of nowhere and showed up coming out from behind the T.V. table and then we began to get a stinky smell, which was from his poop. He ran out towards me and gave me that cute little innocent look that he had not done anything. Soon after my cousin said, “He is so bad.” This then came to be the vague sentence. The reason is because he did not specify by what he meant in which, why the dog is bad. As we can see vague sentences are everywhere in our everyday life.

Subjective and Objective Claims

    Subjective and Objective claims are part of our everyday vocabulary but we just don’t realize that we use them all the time.

    Subjective claims are those found to be true or false depending on a person’s point of view.So my girlfriend and I have different taste in foods but we seem to always reach a compromise. So when she always tries to explain to everyone how I am such a picky eater she points out meals that she loves which I do not like. For example, She will say, “Pasta is the best meal ever!” Trust me she says it with so much enthusiasm and excitement. As for myself and I believe many other people may agree that pasta is not the best meal ever.

As for and objective it is a statement that can be proven right or wrong which is based on facts or proof. This is not a statement that can be proven to be right or wrong, based on ones opinion.

For example today in class I was talking to a fellow classmate about football. He went on to ask me what my favorite football team was and I told him that I liked the SF 49ers. My classmate went on to bash the Niners because he liked the Oakland Raiders so; we began to talk about the football game that they recently played against each other in a pre-season game this past Saturday. He went on to say, “The 49ers suck that’s why they lost against the Raiders.” This then became the objective statement. The reason is because the statement is false and can be proven to be false anywhere online and by any of those people who watched the game. In reality the Niners beat the Raiders in their own turf this past Saturday. It comes to show and prove the Niners don’t suck.

            As we can see no matter what situation or argument one gets into there will always be an Objective or Subjective claim.

Introduction

Hello Fellow Classmates. I would like to introduce myself today in this blog. I am 21 years old and a 2nd year student at San Jose State University and the oldest of four children. I have enjoyed my experience in San Jose State so far. I took Public Speaking last semester (Spring 2010) and it was a good experience even though I thought it would be a challenging class because I don't like speaking in front of  people. I signed up for Comm 41: Critical Decision Making to satisfy my G.E. requirements but I am looking forward to develop my critical decision skills by taking this course. I have only taken one online class as a college student and it was Art Appreciation. The Art Appreciation online class was not as difficult  as I thought it would be but there where times when it was difficult to get assignments done due to the technological difficulties of an online class. I like playing video games as well as sports and I am a Justice Studies Major.I enjoy watching movies but I prefer horror movies. I live life day by day and do not let anything or anyone hold me down.