Cause and Effect

The cause and effect was quite a read but it was definitely helpful in the long run. Cause and effect is about how effect is when something happens. As an example given in the exercise, it states that a bicyclist was riding down the bike lane but all of a sudden the bicyclist had to swerve out of the way because of a truck parked in the bike lane. In conclusion, the truck caused the biker to swerve out onto the road. So the cause is that the truck has parked in the bike lane. And the Effect was that the biker had to swerve into traffic. I found the exercises to be very helpful also. Its is because it covers everything talked about and different varieties of it. The example that they worked with in the exercise was the company picnic and the potato salad. One of the questions was "5 company workers got sick. What would be a plausible clause for them to all get sick? And the answer was the potato salad because they all ate the same thing causing their sickness. But the counter argument was that it takes 3 days for incubation period to get sick so it could not be the potato salad.

Something New About This Chapter

One part of chapter 10 that I found to interesting is the "appeal to spite". This is the appeal that invokes ones principles or morals. One example would be

John: Hey Jake do you want to go eat some porkchops? They are really good.
Jake: I cant, I am Muslim. If i eat pork, it counts as a sin.

This would be considered an appeal of spite. John is trying to convince Jake to eat pork, which is a major violation of Jake's religion. Jakes argument for not eating pork is because of his religion. It is believed Muslim believers do not eat pork because of its sanitation issues. Appeal of spite is usually used in a religious or spiritual campaign. Or it can also be based of old sayings of wisdom. Here is another example.

Bob: What time did you wake up Tom?
Tom: Oh! I woke up at 5:30am so that I can get the best prices at the department stores.

Toms actions were based off the old proverb. "The early bird gets to worm". Because he woke up early, he got the best deals at the department stores.

Number 3, Ad with appeal to fear

Number three from the exercise page on 195 wanted me to find an advertisement that used an appeal to fear. So I have chosen this billboard called "buzzed driving is drunk driving." In this picture, it depicts a car that has hit a telephone pole. You can clearly tell that this car is very banged up. But ironically, the car from the person that was supposedly only buzzed was banged up in the same way. The main idea that this billboard gives is do not drink or drive period. It does not matter how much you have drank. This billboard depicts appeal to fear because it gives the view a sense of urgency to understand the importance of not to drink and drive. The mental image of the car being smashed up no matter whether your drunk or just buzzed. I know this ad works from a personal standpoint because since I have seen this ad, I personally have not ever attempted to drink and drive.

Too Much Emotion

In chapter 10, Epstein talks about appeals to emotion and how that relates to our reasoning. Epstein describes the appeal to emotion as the premise that inspires the person emotionally to take action or believe a certain way. One example of an appeal to emotion would be the "Feed the Children" infomercials. The show video footage of starving and injured child to persuade the viewers to take action and donate money. The emotion that this infomercial gives off is sympathetic and depressing. Another kind of appeal that is used pretty often is the "appeal of fear." This gives the sense of urgency to take action fast to be free from danger. Politicians use this kind of appeal a lot to convince voters to vote for them. For example, in President Obama's campaign, he called John McCain a "Flip flopper" stating he cant make up his mind. His premise is that a person that cannot make up his mind should not be president because he cannot back up his decisions. This creates a sense that Obama is a better candidate for president than McCain. And from the results, it worked.

Too vague for assigned reading?

Something i found to be interesting in the chapter but was not assigned was the vague generalities. This is a major issue because it is hard for somebody to draw the line between two commonly used words. For example, words like "almost all" and "most almost have the same meaning when used. It is hard to decipher "Almost all the kids eat lunch at school." or "Most of the kids eat lunch at school." By using these words usually leads to a very weak premise if it is argued backwards. But if it is used in a direct way, the premise is usually pretty strong. Using "almost all" in a reasoning chain also leads to a weak premise. There is a difference between using "almost all" and "all". All clearly states every single one while almost all can me all but one or more. This is what I found interesting in the reading in the chapter.

Organization Research

Researching about a organization has really helped me understand what that specific organization does in depth. By finding out what their fallacies, claims, and objectives truly gave me the inside view of the organization. For my group, we decided to work on DARE which is an anti drug abuse organization that educates children in elementary to middle school about drug abuse. By doing this research project, it taught me the specifics of what DARE does. Also it gave me the inside information such as celebrities used to promote their organization. By working in a group gave me the point of view of multiple people so that I obtain different opinions to compare. Working with multiple people really helps me understand the subject better especially with research. Know that people depend on me really motivates me to work my best so that I do not disappoint my group. Cause I know two or more heads working on one thing is always better than one.

Chapter 8 Concepts

One concepts in chapter 8 i found useful is the definition of the general words used in general claims. For example, "all" means every single one of something, no exceptions, while "most" means the vast majority of something. This can mean everything from 51 to 100%. These key words are the backbone of the generalized claim. Word choice is very important when creating a generalized claim. Most stereotypes come from a generalized claim but with the wrong choosing. For example, "All Asians do not know how to drive." This is a bad claim because that person has not seen every single Asian drive. Therefore this is a weak claim. To make this argument more believable, one can substitute the word "all" for "some". Making it "Some Asians do not know how to drive." This would make this claim a little more believable. Word choice is important while making a generalized claim.