Projects

These first two projects have many bonus advantages attached to them, besides the usual researching stuff and using techniques that we have learned in this class and other classes to write a final paper that clearly and precisely states the point we are trying to make. I think a huge advantage of doing a paper like this is being able to do it in a group. This way, we are able to work on the important skill of being a collaborative worker. By being able to talk things out with our group members, splitting up work evenly so that everyone does their part, it not only shows how cooperative one can be, but also how well that person is able to work with others. I also think that by doing our own part, we are practicing being part of a team, where everybody's individual part turns into the entire groups final project.

Chapter 13

What I found interesting in Chapter 13 was about the graph portion of the chapter. I definitely agree that graphs can be a huge help when trying to make people see the visual side of a comparison. But for example, graphs can also be very misleading, and not be able to tell what is being compared based on the graphs. I know that when I had to do PowerPoint presentations for my public speaking class, using graphs was a good way to let people see the visual part of the numbers I was presenting them. Overall, I think the use of graphs can be very helpful to let people see exactly what point you are trying to get across to them, but they can also be very misleading unless they are very clear in stating what they are trying to show. But if you are able to harness the use of graphs, they can be a powerful tool.

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Appealing to someone's fear of something is probably one of the more powerful tools that advertisements use to get people to believe in something. For example, this ad against drunk driving uses fear to get people to think about getting a designated driver for those nights where they are too incapacitated to drive. By using the statistic as shown in the picture, people can get a better idea of how often and deadly this things can actually be. I personally think these ads are one of the best types of ads out there today because drinking and driving happens too often, and by making people aware of the consequences that occur because of that decision, they can appeal to peoples fear so that they will think twice about getting into a car after they have had too much to drink. Fear is a powerful emotion in humans, and an even more powerful tool to get people to think a certain way about something.

http://www.foundshit.com/anti-drunk-driving-campaign/

Appeal to Emotion

For me, and I think I speak on many peoples behalf, the appeal to pity has to be one of the stronger aspects of humans emotions. Though fear is probably the contender for the number one spot, I think pity can be just as powerful. by being able to make someone feel sad for a group or organization, and ask that if they have a way to help and are willing, they should. Many times this is used in getting support for a certain group. For example, one commercial that always makes me sad is the commercial for the SPCA, which is an animal adoption shelter for homeless animals. I literally have to change the channel because it makes me sad seeing all of those animals shaking or looking sad and depressed. The commercial is aimed at getting people to take an animal home with them. I think they do a very good job and appealing to peoples pity with that commercial.

Other Interesting Concept

Another interesting concept that I read about in Chapter 8 was a direct way reasoning and arguing backwards. An easy way to look at this is with two easy formulas. For the direct way of reasoning, it's "All S are P, a is S, so a is P". For example "I like to play video games. Call of Duty is a video game. I like to play Call of Duty". In this sense, we come from our original statement to our conclusion in three true and fluid statements. For arguing backwards, it's "All S of P, a is P, so a is S". An example would be saying "All runners are in shape. Tyler is in shape. So Tyler is a runner." Instead of your second statement agreeing with the first part of your original statement, it agrees with the second part. By using these forms, we are able to better explain our point in simpler and more straight-forward terms.

Truth Tables

When I was reading about the Truth-Tables, it was interesting to see the concept of the classical abstraction. The definition of this is when a person pays attention only to "whether the claim is true or false, anyhow it is compounded from other claims". Some different forms of such abstractions would be a conjunction, negation, disjunction, and conditional. By paying attention to the classical abstraction, we can see that if we can analyze a claim correctly, we can also check its validity. For example, a conjunction claim is only true when both sides of the claim are true. An example of this would be "My friend likes soccer and I like basketball". Now this claim can only be true if my friend likes soccer at the same time I like basketball. Another example would be of a negation, in which the claim is true if the part is false, or visa versa. For example, a negation would look like "I want to go to Subway or my friend wants to go to Chipotle". Now if both parts are true, then it is true. Otherwise it is regarded as false.

Chapter 8

One concept in Chapter 8 that I read a lot about was general claims and what is a contradiction to such a claim. What I thought was interesting was how the distinction between the words "all" and "some" was so important in stating one claim. A good example of this would be using my job. I could say "Some kids like to run during games. Soccer involves running. Therefore, some kids like playing soccer". Though the claim may seem valid, and it may be true that those kids who enjoy running also like soccer, it is not a valid claim. The group of kids who like running may despise soccer as a sport entirely, and only participate because of the running, not because they enjoy playing. This also makes the book definition about general claims more clear, in that a general claim is a "general way about all or part of a collection".