Chapter 14, Generalization-

Generalizing is something we all do in our everyday lives, whether we realize it or not. We all somehow end up making generalizations about things. As stated in our textbook, generalizing is when "we conclude a claim about a group, the population, from a claim about some part of it, the sample." Overall, generalizing is making an argument. Chapter 14 goes in depth about what generalizing is and how a generalization can be good and bad, which is something I did not know before reading the chapter. On page 289, the book gives us the premises needed for a good generalization:
     - The sample is representative
     - The same is big enough
     - The same is studied well
These are all premises to ensure that the generalization made about an argument is good. Overall, even though everyone uses generalization without really realizing it, the book did a great job at describing it and going over all its aspects.

My favorite & least favorite thing about this class...

My favorite things about this class were that first off it was online, and second my group members. I have to say that I really enjoyed taking this course online. Even though sometimes I had a hard time keeping up with the blogs, I enjoyed writing every week and the process of posting it online. I also liked taking the tests online and being able to do everything from home, at my own paste. My second favorite thing from this class was my group members. Most of the times, when I get assigned a group, I somehow always end up with people who do not put as much effort as I do. However, the group that I had for this class was really great. We all got along great and actually had a lot of fun every time we met. We were really understanding of everyone's schedules and were always able to help one another when one of us was not understanding something or was not able to make a meeting. Overall my group members made this class a lot easier and more fun.
My least favorite thing about this class was the fact that we had to wait 12 hours in between posts. I know that speaking for myself, I have a very busy schedule as I'm taking 6 classes and have ice skating practice every single day. I therefore wish that we could have done all the posts at once. It would have been a lot easier for me personally.

What I've learned...

To be honest, when I first started this course, I was not expecting to finish it with so much information which I could actually use in real life. For whatever reason, I thought that I would retain the information for a while, but that eventually, I would not use the skills we learned. I have to say that I was gladly surprised when I found out that it actually was not the case. It turns out that I have learned a lot from this class. Going over all the different types of reasonings, as well as fallacies was truly interesting. I may not remember all the different names for each types, but I have learned that there are many different ways to reason, each with their own purposes. The one thing which I learned in this class and found the most useful is how to communicate effectively with group members. I have learned from this class how to communicate well and how to express my thoughts and feelings in such a manner that would improve the outcome of a situation. I was overall very surprised when this course came to an end because I realized that I had learned a lot more than I expected to.

Chapter 15

Something I found interesting while reading chapter 15 was the concept of "normal conditions."
As stated in our book, normal conditions are "the obvious and plausible unstated claims that are needed to establish that the relationship between purported cause and purported effect is valid or strong."
What this mean is that while making an argument, people tend to state what is important and tend to leave claims which are obvious and therefore do not necessarily require to be stated.
For example, let's say that I was babysitting my two years old brother and that his screaming woke me up. The cause is obvious: my brother crying. And the effect is then: I woke up.
Obviously, my brother's crying woke me up. This cause is therefore the normal condition. However, I could also say that "my brother's room is right next to mine," "My brother usually does not cry during the night," etc. These statements are however obvious, and are therefore not needed, unless someone challenges my arguments.

Mission Critical Website

I overall felt that the Mission Critical Website was a great review for everything we have studied in class so far. "The Basics" as stated on the websites were some of the first topics we studied in class; some which I had forgotten a little I have to admit. It was therefore great to read through them again to remember what they were. The "Fallacies and Non-Rational Persuasion" was also a very interesting part of the website. i think it is the one I enjoyed reading the most because it concentrated on fallacious appeals as well as other common fallacies which is something we just studied. I found it very helpful because it went into depth and explained the different fallacies very well. I therefore felt that the website not only explained them very well but also helped me remember what they were and how to use them. The 40 fallacy review exercises were also very helpful. Practice is always good, and in this case it really helps one understand what fallacies are and how to use them, etc.

I will definitely make sure to bookmark this website so I can use it to study for our final ;)

Cause & Effect Website

I overall found the Cause and Effect website to be very interesting and helpful. I really liked how it included an example everyone can relate to; as most of us drive and have either been in an accident before or have seen some kind of accident happen. I thought it was therefore very easy to relate to the example, or at least understand it.
I also really liked how the website ended by stating the three factors used to determine how strong an argument is:

1. how acceptable or demonstrable the implied comparison is-
2. how likely the case for causation seems to be-
3. how credible the "only significant difference" or "only significant commonality" claim is-

I also found the examples towards the end of the website to be of great use. They were a very good practice, and I really liked how the website explains the answers to you. If you got the answer wrong, it explains to you why it was not the right answer.

I overall thought that the website was very helpful, and very clear, which made it easy to understand and read.

Casual Reasoning

I found this week's topic to be interesting because I had not realized until now how often we actually use casual reasoning. After reading about it in our textbook and online, I realized how often we actually use casual reasoning while having a normal conversation. For example this morning, I was talking to my ice skating coach and told her: I have been skating since I was a little girl and it is one, if not my biggest passion. I therefore think that I will keep on skating until I absolutely have to stop.
I did not realize until after reading this chapter that casual reasoning is used very often in our every day conversations. I therefore found it kind of cool, in a way, that we learned about it :)
I also had not realized until reading this chapter that there were so many different ways to reason. Even though some are very similar to one another and can be kind of confusing, I found this chapter to be very helpful and interesting.