A Little Bit More...

The semester in Comm 41 I have learned so many great lessons that it is quite difficult to pick just one thing that I would like to see further explanation on. Between generalizations and claims there is so much still to learn about the art of communication but one subject I think I could use some more time and explanation on would be about Fallacies. This was a pretty long chapter and lesson to learn, especially because there are so many different types of fallacies and learning when to spot one does taker lots of practice. I believe just being to point out a fallacy is a great accomplishment; knowing that it is a bad argument and then coming to the conclusion that it is an argument that is un-repairable is pretty amazing. Then there all the different types of fallacies that we have to know, were talking about 7+ different kinds of fallacies that we have to know the background of each one. It is a bit confusing in the beginning but once you break it down and get to spend a little more time on them I believe we all can have the art of finding fallacies down pat.

I can't believe this is my last blog of the semester!It really is just now hitting me and it definitely is a bitter sweet moment. This class was a great learning tool and I am really glad I took it. In the beginning I knew it was a challenge but as the semester went along it did get easier just like Professor Perez said! I wish everyone best of luck on their finals and I hope we all have a wonderful summer :)

What I learned...

Man this bog is going to be tough because there is so much that I learned in this course through out the semester I don't know where to begin! Coming into this class I had some previous experience with Communication because I took COMM 40 but with this class being on-line there were some big differences. I had never blogged before this class so that was a great learning experience. Learning about how to create a good argument and discovering when a person is delivering a weak argument is really going to help out later in life. A lot of what we leaned in this class we all can use later on and apply it to our every day lives. I have to commend out Professor Carol Perez for being an amazing teacher even when none of us have met in person. Teaching is already a challenge but when its an on-line course the challenge goes up even further and I believe our professor did an amazing job! We all know communication is key with all aspects of our lives and this class got everyone of us one step closer to preparing us to argue our way into this wonderful but challenging world we live in.

When is a Generalization Good?

In section C of Chapter 14 Epstein discusses when it is ok and when it is not ok to make a generalization. An example that the book gives when it is not ok to make a generalization is in a classroom setting. A teacher makes the statement that there are a few Chinese students in the class and they are all hard working and get great grades. Then the teacher says that they suppose that all Chinese are like that. The group size is way too small to make such a great generalization like this one. This is one way stereotypes are created. The larger the sample sizes the better chances you have of making a good generalization about something or someone. The book tells us that often you can rely on common sense when it comes to smaller numbers. The book also tells us that when evaluating statistical generalizations, you have to assume that the people doing the sampling have looked at enough examples which is pretty much a sure thing when you are dealing with a well know organization or company.

How to Look for the Causes

In Ch. 15 section C talks about how to look for the cause in your argument. it gave an example of a waterfall in a backyard and how they kept losing water to they came up with a list of possible things that could be the problem and by narrowing them down one by one they finally came up with a solution to why their pond was losing water. A car is another similar example, if something is wrong with you car there are always several main things that you go look at first to make sure they are functioning properly. In many instances we cannot really conduct an experiment but we can do an imaginary experiment instead. This is something that we all have done when checking for truthfulness or validity of the problem. The chapter does make a note saying that this method will only help you find the causes if you are guessing the problem among the ones you are testing. I though this was helpful because this method can be put to use in our everyday lives when we need to problem solve. Anything from our cars to an argument we can assess the situation and test each individual problem as we see it.

Mission Critical Website

The Mission Critical Website had a lot of extremely helpful material and in the beginning I was a little overwhelmed but once I took it step by step and looked through the sections I found it was not so bad after all. A few of the sections were Parts of an Argument with sub sections talking about statements, vagueness and ambiguity and inference identifiers. I this part of the site I learned the definitions of a few words such as ambiguity which is a word or phrase is said to be ambiguous if it has at least two specific meanings that make sense in context. I also learned the definition for vague which is a word or phrase is said to be vague if its meaning is not clear in context. Most of this material was things that we learned already or was covered in our books but it was a nice little refresher to get to see it all in one place again instead of having to go through the whole book again.

Cause and Effect Website

After completing all the readings and exercises on the Cause and Effect website I now have a much better grasp on the whole concept. In the several exercises that we had to complete I got to read about Causal Arguments which is an important use when we argue inductive reasoning. The example that they gave had to do with a bicyclist's and several motor vehicles. The whole point to the example is there is an accident and they explain how the many accusations will or will not hold up in court. They also give examples of why or why not they are good arguments. This site also teaches us about Introductions to Induction and Deduction, Analogical Arguments, and last but not least Surveys, Polls, and Experiments. All of these sections gave me more insight on the topic and helped me to further my communicating abilities. I really did enjoy the little mini quizzes at the end. They helped me make sure I retained the information that I just read about.

Vague Generalities

One section of Ch. 8 that caught my eye that has not yet been discussed was the section on vague generalities. This sections discusses the direct ways of reasoning with almost all and arguing backwards with almost all. Using the words "all" and "some" have lots of ambiguity in them but with the skills that we have acquired we are a lot to determine if the argument is valid or not. When we look at the premises it gives us a good reason to believe the conclusion of each even though the conclusion doesn't follow. When using the direct way of reasoning with almost all, almost all are S and P, a is S so a is P; almost all S are P+a is S--> a is P. Arguing backwards with almost all, almost all S are P, a is P so a is S; almost all S are P+ a is P--> a is S. At first this section was quite confusing for me but after i read and re-read the section a few times it all started to click and makes much more sense.