Importance of Arguments and communication

Communication and Arguments are very important.

Communication - People communicating throughout the world has been a great impact in our lives. Everyday we communicate through the internet, phones, conversation, etc. Technology has evolved our ways of communicating and by doing so, making our lives even easier and more durable. Communication has been a great way for us to get our points towards others. One aspect that communication has brought are arguments.

Arguments - They have been around for centuries. From adam and eve on whether or not to eat the apple to girls and boys today whether or not they should stay together or break up. Arguments helps us communicate with one another and helps us understand one another. Without arguments, our human language would not be as important as it is today. Arguments give that spark a conversation to life. It also gives a purpose to us communicating with one another. Without arguments, we would not have to communicate as much.

Class experience

I have learned many things from this class. I learned that taking online classes are not as hard as I thought they would be. I also learned that communication is very important towards others. I also learned that communication has a great impact in our lives and that without it, we wouldn't be able to understand one another.

My favorite aspect about this class was that I can contact my teacher very easily. With technology today, email and Instant messaging can do wonders. I always liked how my professor would always answer my emails whenever I needed help. I also liked it how everyone that I met was friendly and kind. If it weren't for this class, my summer would have been very boring hahaha

I do not think this class needs any improvements. It is straight forward and it has a good amount of work. It's not too much or not too little. Overall, this was a great class to be a part of. Thank you.

What I have learned in this class over the summer

What I have learned many things in this class. I learned how important it was to stay focused when it came to doing your work. As you know it is our summer vacation and I really did not feel the need to take this class. But as the weeks pass by, I learned that it was not so bad because it kept me busy and still focused for the coming semester.

I also learned that it is very important to turn in your work on time. Before I took this class, I was very lazy and I would either work on homework last minute or the night before. And now, with the 12 hour apart rule, I have to make sure I stay on top of things and get them done as soon as possible. And with me in Japan for the summer, my time schedule is somewhat different from everyone else. So I really had to make sure that I was focused and get everything turned in on time.

Group Discussion

For this group discussion, I had my whole family read my paper on the second assignment. I also told them my opinions on how advertisements affect our outlook on life and others.

Both my parents and my brother believed in what I said and what I wrote. They also agreed on my opinions. They believed that since we watched television and used the computer almost everyday of the week, commercials can be found everywhere. And by that, they said it can have a major impact in our lives through what we say and what we believe in as well.

As for my friend, he agreed me when it came to advertisements, but he believed that the company or association that we chose was not correct when it came to their argument towards poor and sick people. He believed that even though they may gain food from this organization, they would be able to manage. By believing that, he argued that the foundation isn't really helping the people but actually spoiling them to not get a job.

Mission Critical website

What I found useful in this website was the concepts of supporting you conclusions with premises and arguments. This helped me a lot because it showed me how important it was to have good support and evidence of a claim or argument. Without this strong support, your argument can be countered easily or even ignored.

This also helped me in a writing stand point. My whole life I was never a good writer. I would always make claims and assume the readers of my essays would understand what I was writing about. Since I learned from this website, I am able to make better decisions when writing an essay and making better arguments that can support my main topic or claim.

Another thing that I learned from these concepts and support were the types of support. I learned that by using a well known authority or even a well known fact, can help my claim or arguments even more.

Cause and Effect website reading and exercises Website

What I found useful in the website was the idea of being: ambiguous and vague.

In the website, they are both specified with these descriptions:

-A word or phrase is said to be ambiguous if it has at least two specific meanings that make sense in context.

-A word or phrase is said to be vague if its meaning is not clear in context.

This helped me realize when I am talking to a person, I can tell now whether or not they are being ambiguous or vague. People today always speak as if they know everything. And people that listen to them with little knowledge believe them.

But since I learned these concepts from the website, I am able to tell whether or not the person knows what he or she is talking about. And by doing so, I can tell what kind of person they are; if they are liars or they like to pretend they know everything etc.

Graphs in Chapter 13

Graphs are described to be very useful in Chapter 13. Graphs to me personally are easy. They give me a visual on what I am trying to solve or relate to. It also helps me be able to understand what I'm trying to learn.

Throughout my life, when it came to math, graphs were easy to me. Every time I took a test, I would hope that there would be an example of a graph to help me solve the question.

Graphs can also harm us when it comes to math and concluding facts. Graphs may have information that is easy to access, but depending on the reader, sometimes people can get confused or perceive different type of graphs in different ways.

No matter the reason, graphs are always there to help us in many ways. It is up to us to learn and use them the right and correct way. When it comes to graphs, we need to make sure that we understand them and that we can use them to help us rather than not helping us and making us have the wrong idea of what is to be learned.

Second Major Course Assignment

In our currently/ Second Major course assignment, I learned a lot about emotions and it's effect towards our choices and beliefs.

I learned that emotions can effect our choices in a bad and good level. Emotions affect our lives everyday. The way we feel towards other people helps us treat them by our feelings. I also learned that emotions can affect how we make decisions in life.

It was also useful to learn how people in the advertising business uses pictures and other factors in their advertisements to affect how others feel towards their feelings. By learning this, I think twice every time I see an advertisement that makes me feel guilty, sad, etc.

Through our emotions, we can make good decisions.

When making a decision, I learned that I must have a set of factors that support my claim. So that whenever my claim is questioned, I can back it up with evidence and support to help make my claim seem correct.

Importance of Numbers

Numbers today are very important in our today's society in communications. What we all need to remember is that number never lie. Also, Numbers can be both good and bad. Some may misleading and others may be help to others.

Misleading: Sometimes numbers can be misleading. For example: If I was to state a claim by saying "Over 90% of people in the U.S. uses cell phones. And the other 10% uses pay phones." I then ask "Which one is clearly better?" What is misleading is what did the question mean by "better?" Some questions and claims can be vague or confusing. This is one aspect of numbers that we must know about.

Helpful: Numbers are helpful because it gives us an idea of what we are thinking about. For example: Let's say that my friend said "Many people bought my candy." He could have been more specific by saying "85% of the students bought my candy." By saying those figures of how many people bought his candy, it helped us have a clear picture of how many people really bought his candy.

Arguing by analogy

Arguing by Analogy was one concept in chapter 12 that interested me. This concept by me giving an example. You know how people believe in the saying “ an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” This saying basically meant that whatever someone does to you, they must pay the price with equal consequences. By believing in this saying, people now would argue that since the saying applied then, it should apply now. I do not know if I’m doing a good job in explaining this, but people uses not actual facts but past beliefs to argue with analogy.

This interested me because today, people really don’t use common sense. Al they do is believe in what they hear and they automatically believe in its claim. Today we need to make sure that we understand one another and use actual facts rather than believing in what ever we hear.

Pg 195 # 3

3. Find an advertisement that uses an appeal to fear. Is it a good argument?

I remembered watching a commercial that caught my eye. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMpKDZDjBWM

In this commercial, they use fear into gaining the viewers attention and at the same make the viewers realize that they need their security in their house. The commercial was some what corny. The burglar finally opens the door but does not go inside the house because he sees the family. In a real life situation, the burglar might have went in either way.

But the argument of the commercial was that: if you want good security for your home, get "Brink's home security." By using this commercial, I believe it was a good argument. Burglary happens all the time and the commercial showed that by making the viewers fear for their own safety. It's a smart tactic but at the same time the right one for the people who created this commercial.

Appeals to Emotion

Appeals to emotion is something that we all have experience. Whenever you use your emotions to judge or to make a decision, you are experiencing this type of appeals to emotion. People today use their emotions to make decisions all the time. For example: You see a commercial about how animals are being treated badly. And they say you can help them by donating money. This may be true but by showing you pictures and videos of animals being mistreated, they use your emotions to try and get you to donate money.

Appeals to emotion is not necessarily a bad thing. It actually helps us understand what we really care about in life and what we chose in our decisions. Our emotions are there to make us feel safe and at the same time help us make good decisions with our hearts. But sometimes, the logical way should be the right decision. Even though you may have felt bad for those animals, you might not have enough money to give and at the same time not have enough money for your self.

Conjunction Claims

Conjunction claims are claims that are true if both sides of the claim is true. If either one of the sides is not true, then the whole claim is false.

example: Dogs bark and also love cats.

This claim may be true in the first part: "Dogs bark", but the second part is false: "(dogs)love cats." Since not all dogs love cats, then the second part is considered to be false. So all in all, the entire claim is false because both sides of the claim need to be true for the whole claim to be true.

I find this very interesting because many people now a days say many things but do not recognize that they would contradict themselves when claiming something. But by knowing this type of claim, it will be able to help me in fixing how I use claims and when I'm talking to another person.

Categorical Claims

What I found interesting was the idea of categorizing claims. I did not realize how broad claims were until I read this part of the book. In this part, they explain that claims can be categorized into these types of claims: "All S are P. Some S is P. No S is P. Some S is not P."

For example:

All doctors are smart.

Some baby is always crying.

No pig is thin.

Some dog's don't chase cats.

We may not use these types of claims day to day, but by re arranging them, they sound like claims that we say in a regular basis.

This is important because by knowing this information, it helps us to understand more about claims. It also helps us to comprehend and realize how we present our claims with these types of categories.

Over all, these types of categories will help you to make claims and at the same time make more sense. If you do not know which category you are using, then you will not know as much of what type of claim you are using.

General Claims

One concept that interested me was "General claims." These type of claims state facts that are in a general/ broad way. For example: All lazy cats prrr. My cat prrrrs. So my cat is lazy. This looks like a valid claim but it does not.

Just because my cat purrrs, that does not mean that it is lazy. These types of claims can give people a wider range of thinking of what kind of claim they are stating. Also, when it comes to general claims, the claim that the other person states can be interpreted in multiple ways.

For example: Brothers who eat alot are fat. My brother eats a lot so he is fat. This may be true but on the other hand, what if some other person's brother eats a lot but is not fat? Just because they eat a lot does not mean that they are necessarily large in size.

Refuting an argument Directly

Refuting an argument directly can be seen by doing these 3 things:

- doubt one of the arguments being argued throughout the conversation.

- Even though you are doubting it, you still believe that the argument is valid.

- But in the end, you still think that the conclusion is false.

By refuting an argument, you are trying to prove that the argument is false.

For example: When my brother asked me what was the meaning of life, he began to think that there was no reason to live because we have no purpose. But I refuted his argument by saying that even though you may think we have no purpose, then why were we created? His argument was refuting his own argument of why we were living.

I believe that God brought us here to serve our lives in this earth to love one another. i believe we are here to live life to the fullest and at the same time serve him until we die and see him in heaven. Sorry if I'm bringing up my religious beliefs into this blog.

Counter Arguments

Counter arguments are arguments towards another argument. By making a counter argument, it says that the argument is not correct in your opinion and that you would like to change the claim of the opposite person. By creating another argument that is against the previous argument, shows that the previous argument is weak. Arguments can be made. but just because you make an argument, does not mean that you will always be right. That is why some people create counter arguments to correct these false claims.

For example: My brother will try and argue that he did all of his chores already. I will then counter argue him by stating that he did not and by supplying him wit reasons why his argument was not fully thought out.

As you can see, counter arguments occur everyday. They are very important parts of our lives. If we want something our way or something in the correct manner, then we must counter argue the wrong side of arguments.

Conditional claims

Concept- Conditional Claims

This type of claim that is conditional if the claim included the words: if and then. This means that if a claim was said and the first part of the claim was said, the second part must be the consequence or the after math of the first part of the claim.

It's sort of like Mathematics. If A is greater than B then B is less than A. As you can see I used the words "if" and "then". These two words are two key factors when it comes to the idea of conditional claims.

For example: My mother would always tell me: "If you behave right now, then I will buy you anything that is worth one dollar."

So if I was to behave at that time, then my mother would reward me anything that was worth a dollar. But if I was not to behave, then my mother would not be obligated to reward me.

Lying when arguing with another person

What I found interesting in the reading was about how people sometimes lie just so that they can win their arguments. Many people today do not really know that much when it comes to general knowledge. To back up their claims, people would usually lie or pretend to know what they are talking about.

I'm happy there was a reading for this, because sometimes it would be difficult for me to tell whether or not the person I'm talking to is telling the truth. Lying towards others is a little annoyance that I have. I never really like people that pretend that they know what they are talking about but in reality, they don't.

When talking to others, people should try to know what they are saying. So be prepared whenever you talk to someone important. Because if you are lying to a person that can tell you lies, then you will get in trouble. Your dignity and how others look at you would be at stake if you were caught. So hopefully everyone that reads this try not to lie when talking to others.

Clever Advretisement

Link to the advertisement: http://www.shwedarling.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/clever-advertisement-3.jpg

In this advertisement, the company is advertising their condoms. Unfortunately, the picture is too small and I do not know the name of the company. Anyways, the picture is basically saying that their condoms can fit any size and to an extent a person's head.

Not only that, but this advertisement is very unique. The colors within the picture contradicts with one another. The company choosing these type of colors were no accident. They chose these colors so that everyone can see the color of the condom clearly; which is the color yellow.

Now how can we believe this advertisement? Is it reliable? Is it true their condoms are the best?

Well we can tell back up these claims by looking at the picture. Since the condom can fit on a person's head, that would imply that it can fit any size. Also, since the condom is not breaking even though it's on a person's head, that would mean that it is reliable when being used.

How can we be sure that this is a good condom though? Well we can also ask people that we trust if they have used their products before. Or we can also try and see the company's history on their sales.

Violating the Principle of Rational Discussion (page 202) and Content Fallacies (page 201)

Fallacies are arguments that are not very well supported or lacking of support. Fallacies are also basically false reasoning. These arguments can also be seen easily true even though they are sometimes not.

Bad appeal to common relief - definition:

If most of the group members of a certain group believe in a certain action to be good for them, then it is true. (Even though it is false)

Bad appeal to common relief - example:

When I went to college, people began to tell me that marijuana was much safer than alcohol. Everyone believed that rather than damaging the liver, marijuana only makes you hungry afterwards and that’s it. But even though everyone believed that marijuana was much safer, the argument was not very strong. Marijuana can damage you lungs and also damage your senses. You will begin to have a hard time remembering things as well as damage your sense’s in the eyes.

So even though mostly everyone believed that marijuana was safer than alcohol, their reasoning wasn't well thought out and everyone believed in it because everyone else did.

PROCESS OF DECISION MAKING WITH A GROUP

Chapter 3 of "The essential guide to Group Communication"

• Identify the problem: make sure you know what your trying to answer. Be sure to know all aspects of what is trying to be solved. Also know what your team mates think about the problem so that when all of you guys are trying to solve it, everyone will not feel left out.

• Conduct Research: Use tools and your team mates when researching. Internet is a good place to conduct research. Not only the internet, but also the library. Distribute the work load evenly to each member of the team and make sure everyone is doing there part.

• Generate, Evaluate Alternatives: Make choices and solutions that you can choose for the problem to be solved. Once you have choices it will expand your thinking on how to solve the problem.

• Chose the solution and evaluate the results: apply the best solution towards the problem and evaluate the results. Did you solve the problem? What were the set backs?

Valid and Strong arguments

Valid arguments: are arguments that are always true. Since all evidence is true, the argument can never be false.

Example: when I argue that my brother is younger than me, this is a valid argument. This is a valid argument is because, after I was born, I remember seeing him as a baby. We also have his birth certificate to prove his date of birth.

Strong Arguments: are arguments that may have a true conclusion, but they may have inadequate evidence to support their claim.

Example: I claim that my asian friend Anthony is smart when it comes to Math because of his ethnicity. It may be true that he is very intelligent when it comes to the subject of Math, but it is not because of his ethnicity. Even though he is asian, that does not make him smart in Math. From his hard work of studying, that is what makes him smart in Math.

Subjective and Objective Claims

Objective Claim: an assertion on a factual subject that can either be proven true or false by . It is made up from factual evidence and not through the opinions or beliefs of others.

Example:

Yesterday my brother stated that he did not have school the next day. My parents did not believe in his statement so they called the school to confirm. By doing so, they realized that he really did not have school. This is a perfect example of an objective claim because it is a true fact that he did not have school the next day and it can be proven with factual evidence.

Subjective Claim: is a claim that is not based on facts. It is based on someone else’s beliefs, opinions, or some non factual evidence. This type of Claim can not be proven either right nor wrong.

Example:

Today my friends claimed that the LA Lakers are going to lose the Championship to the Boston Celtics. This claim can not be true or false because the series has not ended yet. This claim was based on my friend’s opinion instead of actual fact.

Introduction to Christian Velasquez or beaver4973

Hello, this is for the class comm41.

My real name is Christian Velasquez.

My display name or nickname that y'all might know me as is: beaver4973

I'm a current student of SJSU and I just finished my freshman year.

I'm majoring in civil engineering and I love math.

For the summer I am currently in Yokohama Japan. I've lived here for almost 14 years of my life. After I graduated from high school, I moved to the states(California).

I love to play basketball and I'm a Lakers fan!!!!

Hopefully I get to know everyone in our class and at the same time have a fun summer!