Two Important Concepts

One of the most important concepts I learned was about cause and effect. I think the website and the book does a good job of breaking down these types of claims. They state when this happens, then that happens. It is a simple concept yet when you think about it you realize that it is critical in everyday life. Everything you do is cause and effect. Also it is important for me because I want to become a lawyer and learning how things happen and how to break down those things is crucial in being a successful lawyer. I also think appeal to emotion is important because a lot of people try and play on emotions and it’s good to know what exactly they are doing and how to counteract this. For example the media feeds itself on people’s emotions. It is hard to get a subjective point of view on things when the media is shoving gospel down your throat on an emotional subject. So I found these two concepts to be the most important things I’ve learned this summer.

What Ive Learned Throughout the Class

I have learned a lot throughout this class. I have learned much about communication and how to break claims down so I can view it from an analytical perspective. I have also learned how to communicate in small groups online which was tough. While it is a communications class, I think that I could have gotten a better grade alone, yet still it was an interesting learning experience. My favorite thing about the class is the blogging. I enjoyed sharing my perspective with others and having them comment on me and also me commenting on them. My least favorite thing was probably the online group assignments. They consisted of a large portion of our grade and all it took was one person being lazy to screw up that grade. This class can be improved by giving us extra credit questions on the tests so that we can get a better grade because the scoring is kind of harsh. Just one question wrong can make your test go from a A to a B. So in all I enjoyed this class and learned many skills that I will use in the future.

What I learned this Summer

For this class I learned many things. I learned how to schedule my time wisely in order to post on my blog 12 hours apart and get my work in on time. I also learned how to communicate with an online group in order to do an assignment. This was tough as there were different personalities I had to coordinate with. Some were good people to work with, while others weren’t so good. Also I learned on how to create a blog and post things online. I thought the blog was very interesting as you got to express your ideas to your class mates while also conveying what you learned in the reading. I like the idea of a blog because you can say anything you want and there’s a good chance someone will stumble upon it and read it. I think I will do more blogging after I am finished with this class. For our book readings I found the book was good in some parts and difficult to understand in others. I liked the website readings we read towards the end of the class because they helped clarify some ideas presented in the book. So in all I got a lot out of this class and enjoyed taking it this summer.

Cause and Effect

This time I read the cause and effect website and the cause and effect chapter. I got a lot out of these two readings. First I saw how causal claims were used. Causes are claims in a sentence that have an effect on the end result. Also there must be a strong correlation between cause and effect. Thus in cause and effect every time this happens, that happens. The website uses an example of a traffic accident to show cause and effect: A bicyclist moves into the traffic lane in order to pass a truck illegally parked in the bike lane. The driver of a car approaching from the rear slams on her brakes in order to avoid hitting the bicycle. A following car fails to stop in time, and smashes into the back of the first. The insurance companies disagree about who should be held responsible, and they go to court to decide who caused the accident. Additionally they break down the accident into three factors to determine the strength of the casual argument.

1. how acceptable or demonstrable the implied comparison is (for example, do we think that there is a basic similarlity in most respects between the circumstances of this accident and those of the many other times bicycles and cars have traveled on this street safely;
2. how likely the case for causation seems to be (for example, do we think that a bicycle swerving into an car's lane can cause an accident?);
3. how credible the "only significant difference" or "only significant commonality" claim is (for example, do we believe that the illegally parked truck is the only significant difference between this case and the many other times bicycles and cars went down that street without an accident?).

So by breaking down this one case for the entire website I found that I learned a lot from this website and it cleared up my understanding of the book a little bit.

Mission Critical Website

Today I reviewed the mission critical website. I liked this website because it went over a lot of the stuff we read in the book. Also I believed this website simplified key concepts that were in the book. Sometimes I found myself to be a little fuzzy on what the author was talking about in the book. For example you really don't get a general overview of the subject. You instead get a short statement and examples. The examples are not explained properly enough for me to fully understand. However this website breaks down the examples. For instance in the vagueness and ambiguity part it breaks down the example piece by piece and also gives you two distinct examples of vagueness and ambiguity so that you get a clear idea of what they are talking about. I also like the quiz section a lot better than in the book. It is more simple and strait forward with a multiple choice option. So in all I found this website to be more useful for the book as it clarified many subjects for me.

Chapter 13 Graphs

In chapter 13 we read about mislead claims with numbers. Now an important part of that reading was based on viewing graphs and how they can be misleading. It is important to note that many graphs hide concealed claims, are misleading, or wrong. It is vital to use graphs with a baseline of zero in order to get an accurate view of what information you are reading, less you be mislead with a graph distorting the information with a different baseline. It is also good to compare your personal experiences with the information shown on the graph in order to get a more accurate viewpoint. It is important to note that graphs can create misleading comparison by how the measuring points on the axes are spaced. Finally the mean, median, and mode are vital for reasoning with numbers as they give you a scientific reference in which to view the information presented.

Social Organizations Paper

I thought the second assignment we did was very helpful to me. It was a difficult assignment as we all had to communicate online. However this helped me in learning how to effectively communicate with group members throughout the assignment. We did revisions to the paper, critiques... etc. I also liked how we got to chose a paper based on something we felt strongly about, and how we got to bring an important issue to the forefront. Also going back and using specific terms that we learned out of the book was refreshing in the sense that we reviewed everything we learned in class and helping me prepare for future tests. Now I feel that I have a stronger grasp on the book as we went through and applied these definitions towards the real world. So in all it was a good assignment in helping me work together with people who are in another city or out of the country as I probably will take further online classes and would need this knowledge to communicate with future group members.