Discussion #2 (Mission Critical)

2). What was useful about the Mission Critical webiste?

The Mission Critical website was useful when I got to the section about Burden of Proof Fallacies. I never quite understood how asking someone to prove something was a fallacy but this section made it so clear, I didn’t know how I didn’t see it before. It clearly showed how asking someone else to prove something you’re trying to argue isn’t the right way to go about it. If you’re trying to convince them, then you’re the one who has to show them the proof. I assume someone would shift the burden of proof when he or she can’t come up with premises or claims that are reasonable to support their argument. I liked the exercises at the end of this section, also. It clearly shows me how a burden of proof fallacy is obvious. For example, one exercise showed that someone saying, “She must be guilty. After all, she has no alibi for the night of the crime,” is a burden of proof fallacy because the person is making the accused person now have the burden of proof to prove he or she is not guilty.

Discussion #1 (Cause & Effect website)

1). What was useful about the Cause and Effect website reading and exercises?

The things I found most helpful about the Cause and Effect website reading and exercises was being shown the way one can determine the strength of a causal argument. This website illustrates three ways to determine the strength of the argument. First of all, one has to think of how acceptable the implied comparison is. One must consider if there is a similarity between what has happened now and what has happened before. Secondly, one has to think of how likely the causation might be. One has to interpret the situation and figure out if it is believable. Lastly, one has to determine how credible the claim is about the only significant difference or commonality is. One must think if the certain situation is what caused something to happen that was different from the past. The exercises really helped me by using the simple potato salad example. It allowed me to clearly see the significant difference and significant commonality by illustrating how they all ate the potato salad and then immediately got sick.

Discussion #3

3). Pick one concept from the assigned reading (chapter 15), that we have not already discussed, that you found useful or interesting and discuss it.


This chapter in the book made it very clear about causes and effects. It has always been somewhat unclear to me what you can refer to as a cause and what you can call an effect. However, the example the book shows makes it easier for me. It uses a simple example of a dog waking up a person. Previously, I would have to think hard about the different ways things could be causes and the different ways things could be effects. However, the book laid it out to show that because Spot barked and then Dick woke up, Spot must be the cause of Dick waking up. It also showed me how normal conditions can help prove that one situation caused another. For example, Dick woke up at 3am and the dog was barking. He doesn't normally wake up at 3am so it must be because of the dog barking.

Appeal to Spite

3). Pick one concept, idea or exercise from the assigned reading, that we have no already discussed, that you found useful or interesting, and discuss it.

I found appeal to spite interesting in chapter 10 this week. The book describes it as “the hope of revenge”.It is where a person tries to justify doing something wrong to another person because they have done something wrong to you before. I never thought of this as an argument before. However, the book broke it down and explained why it is an argument. It is an argument because a person is justifying why he or she is doing something wrong to another person. For example, I won’t remind my roommate to empty her trash on Wednesday so the garbage man gets it because she didn’t remind me last week and I forgot. In this sense, I am justifying why I won’t help her out and remind her. It is an argument.This can also work by telling another person not to do something for another person because he or she wasn’t helped by that person in the past. Appeal to spite seems like it starts a huge chain of reactions that carries from one person to the next and down the line.

Page 95 Objective 3

2). Pertaining to page 195, complete objective 1, 2, 3, 6 or 7.

For this question, I have completing objective number 3. I found an advertisement for the TRUTH organization which is against smoking and tries to raise awareness about the harmful effects of smoking on a person’s body and entire life. This organization also has powerful commercials on TV as well as advertisements like the one I’m showing here in magazines. This particular ad is showing a man smoking and reveals what the smoke is doing to the inside of him. This is an appeal to fear because it shows a horrific image which is supposed to scare a person into quitting smoking. The organizations cause is good, even though they use appeal to fear. I think this ad shows how appeal to fear can sometimes be a good thing. This ad is showing people how bad smoking is for you in the attempt to get someone to stop and save their life.

Appeal to Emotion

1). Discuss the idea of Appeal to Emotion. There are different aspects of Appeal to Emotion, which type of Appeal to Emotion strikes you, and why?

Appeal to emotion is commonly used in advertising, politics, articles, and movies or television. It is a common way to try to get a person or group of people to believe something without having legitimate reasons behind it. The different kinds are appeal to pity, appeal to fear, and appeal to spite. Appeal to pity strikes me the most out of this chapter. It strikes me because it is the appeal to emotion I see most commonly in day to day life. Just walking across the SJSU campus I can see examples of it. There are people for Green Peace who try to stop you and talk about the horrible treatment to whales or other animals and use appeal to pity to try to get you to join their cause. Other times I see it on television. We’ve all seen the commercials asking you to donate just 5 cents a day to help the poor, innocent children they constantly show on the screen. While these both may be good causes, the organizations are still using appeal to pity to get their point across.