Final Post

Another concept from the textbook that I found interesting was the concept of variation in the population. Since I am kind of a tech geek and go through a lot of computer equipment, I noticed that variation in the population can be a very important thing. Some products or brands have a higher failure rate than others, but it doesn’t mean that each and every product by that company is guaranteed to fail. For example, in a stack of hundreds of cds, you could have one or two that don’t work, or as many as five or six. This can help determine how reliable a product is, by basing the variation in a product that is supposed to be consistent in quality, you can make a generalization about the reliability of that product overall. However, there will still be some variation, like where the cds came from or if it was just a bad batch that got shipped out by accident.

Second Post

Well I can definitely say that I learned a lot from this course. There were a lot of concepts that were kind of difficult for me to grasp at first, but by going through the readings again, both the textbooks and the website, I think I was able to understand them better. I think I definitely saw a lot of examples of things that I learned in this class in my everyday life, and I started noticing more as the course went on. Things like advertising, political campaigns, and even stories in the news can all have a definite slant to them, so I think this class helped me understand how to identify and really examine what kind of claims are being made, and if they are really valid or not. Everyone these days is trying to sell you on their version of the truth, and I think this class helped me become more skilled at seeing this and be able to decide for myself how true it really is.

First Post

I thought the section on haphazard sampling in chapter 14 was interesting, especially since you still see many examples of this in advertising today. People who already use a product are asked about their feelings about that product, which can lead to a very different response than if people who had never used the product or who had used a competing product were asked the same question. However, I know from doing sampling for a class that it can be very difficult to ensure that a poll is not biased in any way. It can be hard to find a representative sample, since it can be hard to control some factors that may influence the results. It was tough to go around, saying the same thing over and over to different groups of people, then collecting the data and analyzing it is a lot of work, which is something I didn’t realize before I did the survey.

Third Post

#3) I thought that number 5 in section A helped me understand why the cause makes a difference. The example they gave reminded me of an episode of the Simpsons that I watched a while ago. After a bear attacks Homer, he convinces the city to spend a lot of money on a “Bear Patrol.” When Lisa tries to use critical thinking to point out that the Bear Patrol is not effective, Homer doesn’t understand, since the bear hasn’t come back since the patrol started. When she picks up a rock and says that she could just as easily say that the rock keeps away tigers, since there aren’t any around. Homer, not being a big critical thinker, immediately wants to buy the rock from her. These examples show why cause matters in a causal argument. Correlation isn’t enough, because lots of things can be explained by correlation that aren’t always true.

Question #2

#2) I thought the Mission Critical website was helpful because it is a good resource that lists all the concepts we have covered so far in this class. I have already used it a couple of times to look up some terms that I wasn’t really sure about from the reading. It’s good to use for reference since everything is indexed so you can find what you’re looking for really quickly. I think it is good how it breaks down each link into subtopics so you can see what is there before you click on it, so you’re not just clicking through pages and pages trying to find what you’re looking for. I think it will really help me out a lot with the writing for the rest of the class, as well as help me with studying for the final exam. I also liked the links to some of the other readings for critical thinking. I had read the story by Edgar Allen Poe, “The Purloined Letter,” before for English class but I never thought about it from a critical thinking perspective before now.

April 25th - May 1st Questions

#1) I think the example in the reading on the website where they discussed the case of a bicyclist that caused an accident between two cars really helped me understand the concept of plausibility in causal arguments better. I like to watch a lot of courtroom drama shows like “Law & Order” so by picturing this example as something like you’d see on the show, it helped me understand it better. Most of the time, as they investigate the case, more evidence that shifts the guilt from one person to another is uncovered as the show goes on. This example kind of reminded me of that in that it makes you stop and reassess each claim on its own for credibility. However, since it is a tv show, I think they expect you to accept some pretty unlikely or unbelievable causal arguments sometimes in the name of entertainment, so it’s hard to be too much of a critical thinker and still enjoy the show.

Question #2

I thought the idea of wishful thinking was interesting, because I didn’t realize that it would fall into the category of an appeal to emotion. I guess I thought of it as a kind of self-justification. I think a lot of people use wishful thinking today to try to justify their actions to themselves or to others. With the election season coming up, I’m sure there will be a lot more ads that use wishful thinking as an appeal to emotion. For example, I heard one on the radio the other day that talked about how great California was, and how we can get it back that way if we elect a particular candidate. This struck me as a type of wishful thinking, as an appeal to the voter’s sense of nostalgia. Just because someone wants things to be a certain way, doesn’t mean that they will be. As a state, California is always changing and adapting, so it can’t go back to the way it was. It is possible to move things forward with good policies and government, but to want it to return to some unrealistic previous version just seemed ridiculous.

Week of April 11-17th Problem #1

I felt that the appeal to pity was the most interesting, probably because you see it so often in advertising now, especially with ads that are asking for money for natural disaster victims. They don’t show you that the money will be going to help rebuild schools and hospitals, or that it will provide food, water, and other supplies for those who lost everything they had. The commercials just bombard you with pictures of people bleeding, screaming, or crying. This seems especially exploitative when the pictures are of children, and strikes me as a perfect example of an appeal to pity. If these charities really are providing these types of services for those affected by disaster, then it should be easy to provide pictures as proof of this, instead of just using ones that appeal to pity. But when I see ads that just show disaster victims with sad music playing in the background, I know this is a blatant appeal to pity, instead of my reason, and it makes me less likely to want to give money.

I found the section on mentoring useful, I guess because I was a mentor and I didn’t really realize it. When I had a summer job where I had worked there the previous summer, there was a kid that came to work with us. He was younger than I was at the time, and I guess kind of looked up to me, since he was always asking me for advice about what to do. During the initiation stage, I guess I gave him kind of a hard time, since he could bug me a little bit at times. But eventually I saw that he was a good kid, so I tried to show him the ropes as best I could. I lost track of him after the summer was over, so there was definitely a separation phase, but when I was reading that section, I realized that it pretty much described our relationship.

Question#2

I think the main advantages that I gained from doing the first two assignments were that I was able to work on my group socialization skills, as well as being able to work on my editing ability. I think the biggest advantage overall though would have to be the editing, as I ended up doing the final editing on both assignments. What made it more challenging, but rewarding in the same regards was the fact that I was editing the writing of different group members. With this, you end up identifying different writing styles, and sometimes find certain grammatical mistakes that will be common to a particular individual. But I think with any person’s writing, you will be able to find certain patterns in their writing style, which forces you to think harder, to identify the pattern, as well as seeing the assignment from a different point of view. As far as being able to work on the group socialization skills and having to email the parts of the paper back and forth between group members, it forced us as a group to become more aware of deadlines and being able to communicate the need to meet them more effectively.

Week of March 21-27 Question 1

The section in chapter 8 that I found the most useful was the part about contradictory statements. There was an example that I found on the PETA website when we were doing research for our project. “The fact that they might suffer in the wild is no reason to ensure that they suffer in captivity.” This statement says that all animals suffer in captivity. However, there are many animals that not only seem to enjoy the comforts of life away from the elements and natural predators, but there are also may animals that are no longer able to survive in the wild, since their habitat or food source has been eliminated. Other animals depend on human for survival in other ways as well; I read about a cat that had epilepsy. Her owner gave her medicine to ward off the seizures, but said that the cat would probably not be able to survive on her own.

Question#2

http://www.enutramart.com/detail_LAT1011__Ab-Gymnic-Weight-Loss-Abdominal-Toning-Belt.html#

I found a dubious link for advertising for the Ab-Gymnic Weight Loss Toning Belt. This product claims to provide the equivalent of 600 situps in 10 minutes. However, they provide no reputable evidence for their claim. There are no testimonials by any doctors, which alone should be a dead giveaway that something is amiss, since real doctors should evaluate any device for safety, which is going to be altering something with your body, whether it is mental of physical. The site definitely has a bias, because they are actually the ones trying to sell you the product. However, neither one of these claims are strong enough to outright reject the claim. However, based on my personal experience of having seen someone who used one of those belts, I can reject the claim to be untrue, because I know that my own experience tells me that these products do not work as claimed.

Week of Feb. 28-Mar. 6 Question#1

I was asked to come up with an example of an argument, and to discuss what needs to be repaired. With Roy Ashburn in the news a lot lately, I thought this would make a good example.



Example: A senator has never publicly denied that he is not gay. So, it is likely that the senator is gay. This is a weak argument because not denying something doesn’t make it true. But this argument could be repaired if you added more evidence, like the fact that he was arrested for drunk driving leaving a gay bar with another man in his car, then the argument would be stronger. This makes the argument stronger because both of the premises are good: someone who was arrested for DUI near a bar was probably at the bar, and if he had another man in the car who was also at the bar, it is probably that they were both homosexual, since it was a gay bar. Since both of these premises are plausible, this strengthens the original argument that the senator is gay.

Question#3

The concept that I chose go over this week has to do with the perceptions that are made by group members towards each other during the course of a group project. All the time group members are changing the way they perceive the other members in the group. These perceptions are always changing due to many various factors, which can include things ranging from the tone of the situation to the expressions on the faces of the other group members, which change our feelings at that given moment. These perceptions can set the overall tone for how a group meeting goes, or how well group members are able to get along. The concept also talks about how quickly these perceptions can be made, especially when regarding things like facial expressions, which can subconsciously change someone's perception of someone else within a matter of seconds. It is interesting to think about the different ways perceptions can be made, and how quickly they can also change.

Question#2

The fallacy that I choose to cover from the text was ‘Ridicule’, from the section on Violating the Principle of Rational Discussion. This fallacy has to do with situations, where people put someone or something down, in order to try and further there own goal of trying to convince someone of something. Very often you hear this happen in the real world, from academic to professional situations, and even around the home sometimes.

A real world example of this taking place can be seen in the following conversation, that I heard a few semesters ago, though the names are made up.


John: Hey mark do you want to go surfing later?


Mark: Sure dude, that sounds awesome, but are the waves actually going to be out when we arrive? Maybe we should check online first?


John: Nah dude, it is going to be fine, just trust me.


Mark: Like the last time we trusted you, and ended up driving 3 hours to get to an ocean of glass?! Like I said bro, I think we should check.


John: Fine dude, you didn’t have to go there though, I told you it was a mistake.

This is a good example of ridicule, because Mark is ridiculing John about being wrong before, to try and convince John they should check online for the wave report before heading out.

Question #1 week of Feb. 14-20

3) Las Vegas has too many people. There's not enough water in the desert to support more than a million people. And the infrastructure of the city can't handle more than a million: The streets are overcrowded, and traffic is always congested; the schools are overcrowded, and new ones can't be built fast enough. We should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in the city and country.

Argument? The argument is that Las Vegas is overpopulated.

Conclusion: The conclusion is that new laws should be put in place, regarding zoning laws, and how the city determines what is an appropriate amount of people to have immigrating to the city.

Additional premises needed? To make the argument more convincing, the author could have cited facts regarding his statements on population and immigration.

Identify any subarguments: The first subargument is that there isn't enough water to support the current population, and the second subargument that preventing people from living there and stricter zoning regulations will solve the problem of overpopulation.

Good argument? I think it is a pretty strong argument, since it is common knowledge to most people that there are a lot of people in Las Vegas at any given time, and that is in the middle of a desert. Overall, it is a oretty convincing argument.

Question #3

A concept which I found to be interesting had to do with cohesion in groups. This basically has to do with how well members of the same group are able to “mesh” with each other, and how they are able to come together to meet the common goal of the group, without fracturing the group goal into different agendas.

The concept goes on to detail how there are commonalities between cohesive groups, which can usually be identified in individual groups that are able to work cohesively with each other. Some of these commonalities can include things like finding high amounts of individual group member satisfaction in terms of how the group is working and communicating with each other. Another is that groups that are able to work cohesively with each other show a higher rate of efficiency in terms of being able to complete the task while maintaining a positive outlook towards their portion of completing the group goal.

It is clear from the concept that was presented that finding a cohesive group that is able to work is much better than just attempting to complete a group task with members that can’t come together to work toward a common goal.

Question #2

Well, I was asked to come up with a good example of a strong versus a valid argument, and this is what I was able to come up with at the time.

An everyday example of a strong argument would be that the majority of game consoles fail due to high temperatures. My game console was working fine yesterday, but now it isn’t working. Therefore, my game console failed to due heating issues. This is a strong argument because its premises are plausible; if lots of consoles have this problem then it’s likely that my console has overheated too. But it’s not a valid argument because the console could have failed due to a power surge, the dog peeing on it, etc.

A valid argument using the same premises would be that after my console, which was out of reach of animals and using a surge protector, failed, I checked the external temperature of the console, and found that it exceeded the recommended temperature limits, and smelled like heated plastic.

Problem #1 week of feb. 7-13

While reading through the examples, I was having a bit of a hard time trying to come up with one at first. But eventually I realized that all I needed to do was simplify things, and just try to make an example out of just whatever random thing I happened to be thinking about. So after browsing a car forum, I came up with this:

Example: Fast cars get ticketed. A Dodge Viper is a fast car. If you buy a Viper, you will get a ticket.

Analysis: The premise is plausible because often with very fast sports cars, the owners will be tempted to go over the speed limit, which often results in a speeding ticket. The conclusion is bad, because not all people who end up buying Vipers will receive speeding tickets, but the premise of the argument is sound, because a majority of the people that buy fast cars do get tickets. The argument is strong, because the premise holds some truth, but it is not a valid argument because of the fact that not all Viper owners receive speeding tickets.

Question#3

One of the concepts from the small comm book that I chose to discuss in further detail discusses with overcoming communication apprehension in groups. I thought this was pretty interesting, as this tends to be a big problem in some online classes when the students are forced to come together and collaborate on their own time and under their own direction.

The concept talks about the anxiety that some people feel when they have to communicate with other group members, or the pressure that they feel when they know that will have to communicate with other group members at some point. It goes on to discuss how students who feel this apprehension do not perform as well as they could, had they not been suffering from the anxiety caused by the requirement of group communication. This seems to be a very important point, as anyone who is worrying about something, whether it be group communication or anything else, is not able to devote 100% of their abilities to the task at hand.

Question#2

Walking across the campus at San Jose State University, I often find myself in a position where I will hear very vague sentences or comments while walking past people. Whether or not this has to do with the age of many of the people on campus, or the fact that they are still students, but I do know that it seems to happen quite often. Just the other day while walking back to the parking garage, after my class had already let out, I overheard a very vague sentence while waiting for the crosswalk signal to change. It was two girls talking to each other, and when I had walked up near them I heard one girl say to the other, “You know what I mean by cute, he was tallish, he had hair, he was a good looking guy…” to which the other girl responded, “Well that really narrows it down for me.” All I could think of at the time, was “really, you are a full-time student, and that is the most information on something that you could come up, was that vague ramble?”

Question#1

While the different approaches to dealing with the objective problems of the deficit and national healthcare may be highly subjective depending on one’s political point of view, the objective fact remains that these issues are causing internal strife, not only within the country, but in Washington as well.

Even among parties that claim to have similar points of view, these problems are such dividing issues that the proposed solutions end up being highly subjective as well.

For example, looking at the deficit objectively, the overwhelming amount of money owed decreases economic stability both nationally and abroad. However, the proposed solutions range from person to person, and are therefore subjective. Some want to raise taxes, while other want to raise them.

While objective problems like the need for a national healthcare plan can be agreed upon, in the sense that there is a definite need for a concrete plan for the country, due to the large groups of uninsured people and the fact that healthcare costs are a leading factor in causing debt, the ways to solve the problem range from individual to individual, and are therefore subjective.

First Post

Hi everybody, my name is Jason L., and this is one of many online classes I have already taken at San Jose State . This is the first time that I have enrolled in a Communications class, and I anticipate it will be a great learning experience.

As I mentioned this is not the first online class that I have taken, and I am completely familiar in the unique aspects of online classes, such as the need for self-motivation to keep yourself on track and on time with the class.

Take care everyone and talk again soon.

-FedEx