Discussion questions week 4: #1

Repairing arguments is an important subject when considering human communication, the ability to change an argument in order to remove fallacies or add supporting evidence in order to change a poor argument into a strong or valid one.

An example of an argument in need of repair would be:
Dave's children are way too loud and out of control. Dave must be a bad father.

This argument needs to be repaired because of a lack of premise connecting the way Dave's children behave and the fact that Dave is a bad father. A proper sentence to interject after the first would be "Children misbehave and scream when there is a lack of a proper father figure." By adding this sentence after the first premise, but before the conclusion, the argument now becomes strong and valid. Through this slight addition we now have an initial believable premise, followed by a premise which provides evidence and delivers a logical progression to the final conclusion.

Discussion questions week 3: #3 Concept Review

The concept I found most stimulating in this week's reading was the section on mastering communication technology, found in the group communications text on pages 69-73. As a public relations major I find a balanced skill set in communicating through different channels is extremely important. The success of companies which make themselves easily available through the internet is astounding, although it's easy to get lost in all of the different communications channels found within the internet alone. The text outlines two areas which challenges are generated from, the first is the ability to understand technology as it continually changes and generates new innovative techniques within your field or organization. The second challenge stems from learning to use any available technology efficiently in order to bolster your communication skills. Today these two challenges are in the form of learning to use services like twitter, facebook, google advertising, and blogging effectively. Although these services are on the forefront of technology right now, we must be vigilant in finding and learning to use the next technological breakthrough effectively.

Discussion questions week 3: #1 Argument Structure

Exercise:
Las Vegas has too many people. (1) There's not enough water in the desert to support a million people (2). And the infrastructure of the city can't handle more than a million: (3) The streets are overcrowded (4), and the traffic is always congested (5); the schools are overcrowded, (6) and new ones can't be built fast enough. (7) We should stop migration to the city by tough zoning laws in the city and county. (8)

Argument: Yes

Conclusion: Las Vegas has become overpopulated, to rectify this the city and county should implement harsh zoning laws to make it harder for the city to expand more.

Additional premises needed?: If 1+2+3+4+5+6+7 is true then 8 must be true and no additional premises are needed.

Identify any subargument: Point two begins a subargument about the city's problems, which lasts until point seven, points one and eight however are independent and the subargument supports point one which in turn supports the conclusion.

Good Argument: Yes, there are plenty of citations within this argument as to why Las Vegas is overcrowded.

I found this exercise to be quite difficult when I first attempted it, but after studying the chapter I've learned to identify structure within argumentative sentences much better. This particular example is interesting because the argument involves the writer going off on a tangent about just what was wrong with Las Vegas. I found this argument method effective; however because of the tangent the writer embarks on it could be said that the argument was formed poorly, but I believe the good execution outweighs that.

Discussion questions week 2: #1 Analysis of a good argument

For an argument to be considered good three tests must be passed: the premises must be plausible, the premises must be more plausible than the conclusion, and the argument must be valid or strong. These three tests are independent of one another, which means you must test for all three in order to determine whether the argument is good, as one can fail while the other two are fine. 

An example of a good argument would be:

"Jessica had a GPA of 4.2 in high school and an SAT score of 1800, Jessica is applying to SJSU and will attend in the fall if accepted. SJSU accepts all students with a GPA over 3.5 and an SAT score of 1700, Jessica will be attending SJSU in the fall."

This is a good argument because it fulfills all three tests of a good argument. First the premises are plausible, there is nothing to dissuade us from believing Jessica's scores, her want to attend SJSU, or SJSU's minimum admittance requirements. Secondly the premises are more plausible than the conclusion because the conclusion is based upon the premises being true, meaning even though the conclusion is spot on, it would be false if any of the preceding facts were incorrect. Finally the argument is valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true, and the same stands true if analyzing the sentence in reverse.

Discussion questions week 2: #2 Strong vs. Valid arguments

An argument is considered valid when the first premise and conclusion are impossible to prove wrong together. Valid arguments are not always strong arguments though because often details in between the first premise and the conclusion can be proved false which would prevent it from reaching a "strong" status.

An example of a valid argument would be: "Jessica is a performer. All performers party all night and sleep all day. Jessica parties all night and sleeps all day."

This argument would be considered valid because it's possible to prove Jessica is a performer, and we can also prove Jessica parties all night and sleeps all day. What we cannot prove however, is the statement that "All performers party all night and sleep all day." Since this middle statement cannot be proven this argument cannot be considered strong.

An argument is considered strong when the premises are viewed to be true while the conclusion may be false, although the conclusion may seem true in context.

An example of a strong argument would be: The Football players went to in-n-out after their practice, their captain, Edward, ate three double-doubles. Edward was not able to come to practice the next day because of stomach pains. Edward must have gotten sick because of in-n-out.

This argument is "strong" because the first premise is verifiable, as well as the second premise. The conclusion though is not verifiable, Edward could have gotten sick from any number of things; however likely it is that he got sick from the food.

Discussion questions week 2: #3 concept review

The concept I decided to review this week was the issue of Effective Leadership contained in the group communication text on page 36.
Effective leadership is often an essential skill for any college student to have, as many will end up in a leadership role sometime throughout their careers. The text outlines three important factors of effective leadership: Bringing about desirable outcomes, enhancing credibility with the group, and motivating participation  in group members.
An effective leader makes good use of these three points, while a lesser leader might fail to use one or more of these factors. This type of leadership often shows up in our everyday lives, including my own. Starting two weeks ago my boss noticed my coworkers and I were not working up to our potential, so in order to improve our performance he first brought us all in and did the job himself to demonstrate how to contact clients, establishing credibility. After this my performance improved significantly and I was receiving calls almost every day from my boss congratulating me, while at the same time this boss was making calls to my coworkers suggesting that they make use of some of my techniques, this is a great use of group motivation. After a week every employee had significantly increased their output, making a desirable outcome for my boss.

Discussion questions week 1: #3

The subject I chose to review from the text was communication apprehension. Communication apprehension is a subject I am well versed in, having experienced plenty of it throughout my early school years, up until my final years in high school. Communication apprehension is an important problem to be aware of because while you may think that you are simply acting shy, in a classroom or business setting it can cause results to suffer. Often communication apprehension is attributed to being shy, but often this is not the case, students can feel as though what they contribute is not worth the group's time which leads to a communication breakdown. To combat my problems with communication apprehension I took several public speaking classes over the years, as with most other things practice makes perfect. If you see someone suffering from communication apprehension the best thing to do is continually ask them for their input, this demonstrates that there is a value in their thoughts and that you will continue to seek their advice.

Discussion questions week 1: #2

Assignment 2) Use an example from everyday life: Describe a vague sentence or ambiguous sentence you have heard recently. Where did you hear this sentence? An advertisement? Was it a conversation with a friend? What qualified the sentence as vague or ambiguous?


Description of a vague/ambiguous sentence: A vague or ambiguous sentence is one that holds several different interpretations, often resulting from the use of words that hold several different meanings (ex: round, nothing.) The speaker determines what the true meaning of these sentences are, which causes confusion among listeners often.


Example of a vague/ambiguous sentence: Last night as I was talking to a friend about when he was going to arrive at my house I heard a vague sentence, the friend told me that he would be arriving at my house, "pretty late." This statement was vague because it did not help me decipher when he would be arriving at my house at all, was midnight late, or perhaps three in the morning was late? This statement made me ask another question to figure out exactly when he would be arriving, demonstrating a problem inherent in vague statements. There are some proper ways to use vague sentences though, most importantly when using questions, such as "Do you want all of this?" or "Can I get you anything else?" these types of open-ended questions allow the listener to respond in a precise manner.