Question #3

I think that a concept that needed further discussion is section B in chapter 11 titled “Structural Fallacies”. I think that even though they provided a chart labeling the fallacy type and also with the similar type of valid or strong argument, I believe that they could have further discussed this concept. They should have gave more examples and made them more easily to understand the differences between each type of fallacy. Instead of them using the use of letters to try and explain the different fallacies they should have maybe used complete sentences with concepts that made it easier of people to grasp. But for the overall chapter on “Fallacies: A summary of bad arguments”, I think that the book did a great job at explaining all the other concepts within the chapter. They had a lot of examples to easily explain the concepts at hand and they did a great job at breaking down each concept in a way that I was able to easily understand.

Question #2

A few of the things that I learned over this semester is how to work in groups. I thought that this idea of working with other classmates made this class a lot more fun then it would have been if we had to work alone. I believe that I definitely would not have learned as much as I had over this semester if I was to have worked alone. I learned a lot of new information about ways to state things and also learned how to make ordinary arguments stronger and to become more of a valid argument. I believe that in taking this class I will leave know how to better my arguments and also I think it will better my future essays. I will have to say that I was a little timid about taking an online class, but after seeing how much fun it can be and how much you can really learn without having to sit inside a classroom, I will definitely be interested in taking another online class.

Question #1

For this weeks reading, I found the section on “Three premises needed for a good generalization” the most interesting. In the our text, “Critical Thinking”, by Richard L. Epstein, it lists the three premises needed for a good generalization. The three needed are as follows, “The sample is representative, the sample is big enough, and the sample is studied well”. I found that with in this section of the chapter, they did a great job at describing the concept at hand and also that they made the concept easy to understand. The way the book broke down the meaning and the easy way that they stated the three premises needed I found quite helpful. I also like the example they used. I found it to be easily understood and showed exactly how this concept is suppose to be put to use. Overall I think that the book did a excellent job at explaining the concept and found it a great way to learn what is needed to make a god generalization.

Question #1

I thought that the Cause and Effect website reading and exercises was really useful. The way they were able to break down the material and make it really easy to understand was great. I especially like the exercises afterward. They helped you better understand what it was you just read and made you really think about the ready much more. It also let you know how well you really were able to understand what the website was talking about. I also like that you were able to check your answers afterwards to make sure you understood the questions and got the right answers. Also the way that the website walked you through why each answer was either right or wrong with a explanation stating why it was right or why it was considered to be wrong. I thought all together the website reading along with the exercise portion was really great and quite useful.

Question #2

I really liked the layout of the Mission Critical website. I liked how it was organized and how they had exercises available after each little section. I think that it is a very useful and helpful tool when they are able to give the readers exercises. I think that when given exercises it makes the reader better understand the concept and also helps make sure the reader truly understands what he/she just had read. The website gave great explanations of each concept and they made it relatively easy to understand. Each section gave great insight into what the concept was really about and how it could easily be seen and used in the real world. The website I found to be really useful and also helped me to better understand each concept they covered. It was also like a review session that covered a good portion of what we have been learning about over the semester.

Question #3

For this weeks reading, I thought that the section titled Cause and Effect in Population was really interesting. I liked how it gave three different types of this along with a definition and examples. The book did a really good job at explain what each one was and made it really simple and easy to follow what the book was talking about. I liked how they broke down each section discussing a control group, cause-to-effect, and also effect-to-cause. The book really makes the differences between the three topics clear and easy to understand. The examples they used to better explain the definitions were really easy to follow and made me get to know what they actually meant. I think that for this particular topic and section in the book, the author did a great job at having the reading be light as easily understandable compared to some of the previous reading we had had in the past.

Question #3

The exercise from the assigned reading that I found helpful and interesting is actually the exercise we had to do for question 2. Going through and reading the five different exercises we could choose from actually helped me better understand the concepts that the chapter was discussing. After reading each choice I actually was able to come up with an example for all five. With each one I was able to come up with an example and in turn was able to better understand what it was wanting us to understand and take from the chapter. I feel like these exercises were useful to do because I felt like I actually got something out of it. I am able to now better understand what each different type of appealing to emotion is and also able to pin point which one is being used in ads and commercials seen on television and/or magazines.