Practice Mentoring

I found the section titled; Practice Mentoring, in the Group Communication text really interesting. They first define what exactly a mentor is, which according to the book is a member of the organization who is often older, more experienced, and well respected and who serves as a role model for a less-experienced employee (often known as a protégé). They go on to talk about how mentors are important within a work place and how they benefit the work environment. They also describe the four stages that the mentoring relationship progresses. The first one is Initiation. This is where the mentor and protégé start to learn about one another. This happens by the mentor counseling and supporting and the protégé is open to new things and shows loyalty. The next stage is cultivation. This stage is when the mentor and protégé begin to form a interpersonal bond. The third stage is separation. Within this stage the protégé doesn’t need the mentor with them anymore and they drift apart. The fourth and final stage is Redefinition. This is when the mentor and protégé are now considered equals of one another.

Content Fallacies

I decided to go with content fallacies. Even though I had a tough time understand the way the book describes content fallacies, I believe that content fallacies are when arguments are bad ones. Normally, when an argument is bad, you then have to analyze everything and determine weather each piece is a strong or weak statement. For content fallacies, it is always easy to tell right of the bat that the argument is a weak one. I will use the slippery slope idea, which is defined in the book as, (this is reasoning in a chain with conditionals where at least one of them is false or dubious), for my example. “ Schools should not make uniforms mandatory, because then they will start controlling everything little thing a student does.”
The conclusion has no way of backing up the claim because there is no given reason that that would happen., making this example a content fallacy.

Structure of Arguments

Example 5: Las Vegas has too many people.1 There’s not enough water in the desert to support more than a million people.2 And the infrastructure of the city can’t handle more than a million: The streets are overcrowded,3 and traffic is always congested;4 the schools are overcrowded,5 and new ones can’t be built fast enough. We should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in the city and county.6
Argument? Yes

Conclusion: We should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in the city and county.

Additional premises needed? If there is not enough water, the streets are over crowded, traffic is always congested, and the schools are over crowded, then Las Vegas has too many people.

Identify and sub argument: 2,3,4,5 are independent and support 1. Then 1 supports the conclusion.

Good argument? Yes, I think so.

I believe that this exercise was very helpful. It helped me break down the argument and really look at the structure of how an argument should look like.

Leadership...

I liked the section labeled Types of Leadership in the book, The Essential Guide to Group Communication. This section went over the different types of decision-making styles. It listed four different styles; authoritarian, consultative, participative, and laissez-faire. Authoritarian leadership is when the leader solely makes a decision and then discusses it with the rest of the group. This type of leadership end with poor group member satisfaction. Consultative leadership is when something is first discussed with the whole group so the leader can take their ideas and opinions into consideration when he later makes the over all decision. Participative leadership is when the leader works with the whole group to make a decision and where the leader does not have any more pull then anyone else in the group. Laissez-faire leadership is when there is not really any leader at all and it is just the group working together as one.

Strong VS. Valid...

In order for a argument to be considered a strong one, it has to mean that all the possible conclusions are extremely unlikely but still somewhat possible. For a argument to be considered valid, since it is not possible for the premises to be true and also for the conclusion to be false. It is hard to determine the difference between a valid and strong argument. Am example of a strong argument could be, out of al the weddings I had attended along with the ones my friends have attended, the brides dress is always white. Therefore, all brides wear white wedding dresses. Verses a valid argument which could be, when I walked into a wedding dress store all the dresses were white. Therefore, all brides wear white dresses . Even though both examples have the same conclusion, in some cases a strong argument along with a true premises is sometimes better than a valid argument.

The Three Tests..

In order for an argument to be considered a good one, it needs to be able to pass three tests. The first test is to figure out if the premises are plausible. The second, is to find out if the promises are more plausible than the conclusion. The third and final test is to find out if the argument is valid or strong. An example that I came up with is this: I have two dogs. This morning when I got up to give them water and food, I found my two dogs and five puppies. Therefore, one of my dogs had puppies. My example passes the first test because it is believable that I have two dogs. It also passes the second test because it is more believable that I have two dogs since you can see them with your own eyes, then the fact that one of my dogs had puppies since they just appeared over night. Lastly, my example also passes the third and final test because my argument is considered to be a strong one. This means that my argument is a good one if the premise is true.

An Interesting Concept..

The concept that I found most interesting was the section labeled, Prescriptive Claims and Value Judgments, from the Critical Thinking book. It talks about the difference between a descriptive claim and a prescriptive claim. A descriptive claim is when it says what is. A prescriptive claim is when it says what should be. An example of a descriptive claim is, drinking and driving is against the law. Since it is stating something that has to do with “what is”, it falls into the category of being a descriptive claim. Whereas, if it would have said, “people should not drink and drive“, would have turned the sentence into a prescriptive claim, since the sentence is stating it in a way that is suggesting how something “should be”, it then in turn makes it a prescriptive claim. A value judgment is when someone uses the word or words: good, better, best, bad, worst, and worse. Using any of these word automatically turns the statement into a prescriptive claim because it is giving the feeling that we should not do what is bad/ wrong/worse and in turn should do what is good/better/best for us.

Vague, or too vague?

An example of a vague sentence came up while me and one of my good friends’ were talking the other day about animals. During the conversation, I mentioned that dogs are better than cats. This is considered a vague sentence because it does not say what they are better at or even what makes them better. This sentence can be perceived in many different ways. A sentence can be vague but still have one general meaning that everyone will know what it is relating to. When a sentence could have many different meanings behind it and has people not thinking all the same idea, is when the sentence is considered to be “too vague”. So since the sentence, “Dogs are better then cats”, could have so many different meanings behind it to where not everyone would come up with the same idea, the sentence is considered to be “too vague”.

Subjective & Objective claims... What's the difference?

A subjective claim is when a claim can be proved to be true or false. It also depends on how another person feels about the claim and how they imagine what your claim means to them. An example of an subjective claim is when I tried convincing one of my good friends to go see the movie “Dear John” with me by telling them that it is almost as good as the movie “The Notebook”, which is one of her all time favorites. Since it is more of an opinion rather than a true fact, it is considered a subjective claim. A objective claim is when the statement is unarguably true. An example of an objective claim is when my friend asked when my birthday is, and I answered my saying, “February 18th”. Since this claim is a fact and is the truth it is considered to be a objective claim.